8 Things To Expect From FireEye In 2017

Looking Ahead

FireEye has emerged from a year of change, rolling out new security offerings, making multiple acquisitions and facing the effects of an increasingly competitive security market. However, company executives said partners and customers can expect to see more change in 2017, with new products, go-to-market strategies and marketing initiatives.

"I feel like it's morning at FireEye again," CTO Grady Summers said in a keynote at the company's Momentum 2017 Sales Kick Off event in New Orleans this week. "I don't think we've gone into a year with as much cool stuff as we have now. … This is a really neat time at FireEye."

Take a look at what to expect from FireEye in the months to come, as told by Summers and other top executives this week.

Focus On The Channel

While FireEye has had a troubled relationship with its partners in recent years, company executives said they are committing to the channel in 2017. Bill Robbins, who joined FireEye from Symantec as head of worldwide sales in November, said FireEye is committed to engaging with a partner on every single deal, with few exceptions. In an interview with CRN, Robbins said he plans to have more than 95 percent of deals run though partners, whether it be through deal registration, fulfillment or somewhere in between. There will be strict rules of engagement to enforce that, he said. FireEye is working to make all new products "partner-ready," meaning they are designed, priced, packaged and positioned to be best sold through partners, according to Robbins.

Endpoint Security Rollout

FireEye is betting big on its endpoint security offering, dubbed HX. The company rolled out enhancements to HX earlier this year, adding behavioral exploit detection capabilities with the launch of Exploit Guard. CTO Summers said partners can expect to see FireEye add prevention capabilities this month, with an OEM partnership that will add an anti-virus engine into HX for broader malware protection. FireEye also is testing Cloud MVX integration and expects to add Mac and Linux agents this quarter, according to Summers.

Robbins said the updates are a "game-changer" for FireEye in terms of capabilities and he sees it as an offering that will go nearly 100 percent through the channel.

Network Security Updates

FireEye also will be expanding its network security offerings, adding most notably to the Cloud MVX and MVX Smart Grid offerings it rolled out in 2016, Summers said. Partners can expect the launch of MVX 2.0 in 2017, including the addition of detection engine kill chain modules to expand beyond malware detection as well as threat hunting triggers, according to Summers. Partners also can expect to see next-generation hardware with SSL in the second half of the year. FireEye will add Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure sensors, with AWS sensors available now for tech preview. The company is aiming for the middle of the year for availability for both cloud platforms.

FireEye also will continue to work closely with F5 Networks, with which it has a partnership to integrate application delivery with advanced threat protection, Summers said.

FireEye-as-a-Service

FireEye boosted FireEye-as-a-Service in 2016 with a new security operations center in Tokyo, full kill chain detection capabilities, new threat coverage options (including advanced persistent threat only, high-priority and full coverage), and further transparency into operations. FireEye also added new tiers of service, an easier purchase process and easier-to-understand reporting. The company will look to continue building on FireEye-as-a-Service in 2017, according to Summers, with expected features around compliance, community protection to correlate attacks or attack vectors across customers in similar industries, continuous guidance, and new MSSP partnerships. FireEye will look to further simplify the FireEye-as-a-Service stack, better align it with other pieces of the portfolio and offer it at a price point competitive with SecureWorks, Symantec, Verizon and other security-as-a-service players, he said.

Threat Intelligence

FireEye doubled down on threat intelligence in 2016, acquiring iSight Partners in January. Former iSight CEO John Watters (pictured), now executive vice president of global services and intelligence at FireEye, said FireEye will be updating the way it brings the company's vast threat intelligence – including machine intelligence from the FireEye products and victim intelligence from Mandiant – to market. FireEye will roll out role-based intelligence packages, including offerings for tactical, operational, fusion, executive level and vulnerability intelligence, according to Watters. The FireEye products and packages will receive different levels of that intelligence, as well, he said.

Helix Rollout

In November, FireEye unveiled the upcoming launch of its new Helix platform. Helix is now ready for early adopter customers and presents a significant opportunity for partners, with multitenant features for MSSPs, lower total cost of ownership, unified security operations, faster response and easy upsell opportunities, Summers said. In the first quarter, FireEye expects to add automated correlation and enhanced guided investigations, basic orchestration, cloud-based HX and CMS servers, and PCI and HIPAA reports, according to Summers. In the second quarter, FireEye plans to officially launch Helix generally, upgrade SKUs with additional tiers, additional orchestration and IR use cases. Partners can expect to see chat bot analysts on demand, on-premise orchestration integration, case management, and UBA features in the fourth quarter, as well as a CMS replacement and on-premise offering.

Clarity In Messaging

Chief Marketing Officer Kara Wilson said FireEye will look to drive stronger messaging around its portfolio, hitting on its security value proposition and underscoring the company's transition. While the company's messaging has been fairly unclear in the past, Wilson said FireEye will now look to drive a single, stronger message around its technology and place in the market. To enforce that, she said partners can expect to soon see a new global marketing campaign.

Beyond that, Wilson said FireEye will also look to invest in enablement for its partners, as well as sales force training to enforce the value of partners and a new sales conversation blueprint around addressing security business concerns. For partners, she said FireEye aims to to drive a "frictionless go-to-market" with pricing, bundling, margins, marketing and training.