Mirai Security, The Future of Cyber Security
Canadian companies are increasingly facing greater challenges in managing cyber risk and meeting their client’s security and privacy requirements. According to the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, “21% of Canadian businesses reported that they were impacted by cyber security incidents which affected their operations in 2017”. In addition, the research shows that 54% of these companies in Canada reported that cyber incidents prevented employees from carrying out day-to-day operations, and 30% experienced additional expenses to repair or recover from the incidents.
To address these evolving cyber security threats, governments are legislating, industries are regulating, and big businesses are demanding their suppliers meet their privacy and security requirements before they can win the business. This new paradigm shift has caught many Canadian businesses off guard who have not realized that privacy and security are now table stakes for sales and growth.
Alex Dow has been in the cyber security industry for twenty years and has worked within several mission critical Security Operation Centres (SOC). In 2017 he realized that the majority of Canadian businesses were vulnerable to cyber attack and at further risk of losing business as they could not meet the rising tide of privacy and security requirements. Alex co-founded Mirai Security to bring a collective of seasoned cyber security professionals, focused on bringing enterprise grade security capabilities to the Canadian economy.
“One of my biggest motivators on founding Mirai Security was to align the cyber security function with the organizations’ business objectives.” Alex states. “We offer solutions and advice that meet the business’ requirements by strengthening their security posture and building long term risk management strategies. Buying a security technology is not going to secure a company by itself and we help businesses development security strategies to mature their risk management capabilities while ensuring to enable the business.”
Mirai Security Services and Customers
“Mirai” is Japanese for “The Future” which is a tenet that drives the company to always focus on addressing where cyber risk is going, not merely where it has been. The team brings decades of traditional IT security expertise into the 21st century by applying business-driven risk management approaches to cutting edge technologies such as the Cloud and application development. As Alex states, “We consider ourselves a Full Stack security team, providing business enablement through our business-driven risk management approach all the way down to our decades of technical expertise in securing systems.”
Governance, risk management and compliance or GRC is our “WHY” and it is what we start with to ensure our strategies are always aligning with business requirements and risk appetites. Once we understand the business’ why, we move to the “HOW” which focuses on pragmatically reducing risk through our complimentary Security Operations, Cloud Security and Application Security practices.
Mirai has been instrumental in securing digital transformations and Cloud adoptions, maturing software development life cycles and supporting organization’s compliance programs.
What are the expectations of Mirai Security at In-Sec-M
As a member of In-Sec-M, “it’s mostly about being a business enabling for other companies in Canada to be successful, and be part of a Canadian tech sector.” Alex Dow
Striving to take Canada’s cybersecurity industry shinning in the Spotlight, Alex Dow is reaching out the community through the Mainland Advanced Research Society (MARS), which he is the co-founder and president. The organization is focused on building the information security community, research and mentorship through knowledge sharing and networking events throughout the year including BSides Vancouver.