Consortium Networks
Free Crowd-Shared Intelligence for Enterprise Security

The enterprise security market, as it stands today is booming with a plethora of solutions and product offerings; so are the threats, vulnerabilities, and alarming instances of devastating breaches. As such, identifying the right solution has become more of a “fill in the gaps” puzzle, wherein CISOs are burdened with the tasks of separating “the noise from the signal.” Heavy market competition tends to overwhelm and at times, confuse enterprises into making nonessential and risky investments. While a one-size-fits-all solution may be idealistic, achieving a robust cybersecurity strategy not only demands cross-departmental participation within an enterprise but also, “beyond-enterprise” community-level engagement among CISOs and other enterprise leaders. As threats build up on the horizon, the line of defense shouldn’t be dictated solely by the solution provider, but also by a rightly informed CISO: this is where Consortium Networks helps companies realize the wisdom within the phrase with their revolutionary collaboration platform for security experts.

Built upon the proven notion of crowd-sharing intelligence, the Consortium portal provides real-world feedback and data on tools meant for physical and cybersecurity product offerings in the market. As opposed to the hugely prevalent, biased reviews from paid analysts and consultants, Consortium Network’s platform fosters a learn-from-peers approach to help security experts and enterprise leaders address the predicaments associated with choosing the right security solution for their enterprise. “The whole idea is to reduce the risk and get the truth about all the products that are out there, including diving past the power points, the proofs-of-concept and actually sharing what people are using,” says Larry Pfeifer, President at Consortium Networks.

From a product review and testing standpoint, Consortium encourages cross-vertical CISOs to share their ratings and inputs on products they’ve used, which are then summarized, anonymized, and laid out as valuable information points. Aspects such as the product’s TCO, technical efficacy, compliance, and risk factors, and ideal implementation scenarios are lucidly brought out from real use cases.

Consortium Network’s intelligence platform, along with all of its features are offered free of cost

Any product represented on the Consortium intelligence platform goes through red team assessment, whose outcomes are also shared amongst the community.

Furthermore, the platform offers cyber-security, red-teaming, and incident responder training via one-to-one classes. Consortium Networks has also put together a non-vendor-backed security operations group to scrutinize, compile, and share, the latest happenings and best practices pertaining to specific security sub-verticals, on a monthly basis. The big head turner is that Consortium Network’s intelligence platform, along with all of its services are offered free of cost. The company’s revenue model is built on its value-added reseller partnerships with certain products on the market. Pfeifer particularly emphasizes that there is absolutely zero obligation for users of the platform to purchase from Consortium Networks. The leadership team at Consortium Networks comprises key figures such as Tim Murphy, former Dept. Director of FBI, and Mark Sullivan, who served as the director of the U.S. Secret Service.

“Two of our key values are integrity and altruism. A percentage of all our profits go to charity each year,” mentions Pfeifer. Having helped many enterprises attain robust security decision-making, Consortium Networks continues to expand its capabilities to tackle some of the prevalent issues in the enterprise security arena. The company plans to make its platform more interactive so as to provide real-time answers to user queries. In parallel, Consortium has in its agenda the task of addressing the huge shortage of skilled employees in the space by spurring up a mechanism to match skilled professionals with needy companies. CIO level insight exchange and a daily-use cybersecurity metrics checklist integrated onto user dashboards are among the promising inclusions that will be added to the platform.