IronGate CEO on a Mission to Make Cybersecurity Accessible to Everyone

Steve Ramey is CEO and co-founder of IronGate Cybersecurity. Just weeks after the company launched, Steve shares his mission to make cybersecurity accessible to everyone. He explains IronGate’s unique approach to client solutions and purpose-driven partnerships, and how the company plans to help the cyber insurance ecosystem benefit from a standardized approach to collecting data insights during the incident lifecycle.

Q: How would you describe your mission as a leader?

A: My core mission is to simplify the cybersecurity narrative. Good data security practices should be easy to understand and accessible to everyone. There is a great deal of information available that discusses mitigation, response, and recovery. But the challenge for technical and non-technical people alike is digesting all of that information and turning it into action. For example, phishing, which over 10 years ago targeted mostly individuals, is running rampant throughout corporations. Today Individuals and organizations are vulnerable and falling victim to these scams. What I want to do is give back as much information as possible in a concise format that's easy to understand. We don't need to use acronyms or complex drawings to get the point across. What we really need to do is talk about and reinforce the basics.

Q: How does your leadership mission align with the ways IronGate serves clients?

A: At IronGate, we serve stakeholders across the cybersecurity ecosystem, from breach coaches to insurance companies, brokers, law firms, and victim organizations. No two situations are exactly alike. We see differing levels of experience and resources, and we really need to understand the core problem to formulate the right response. For the insurance sector, those solutions hinge on data.

Cyber insurance is in heavy demand and provides insureds with one of the most efficient ways to assist with their cybersecurity hygiene pre-event and during/post a cyber event. We want to help insurance companies gain better access to breach incident data so that they have clearer, consistent visibility into core issues and trends. Remember, cyber insurance is one of the newest insurance products to market – it’s less than 30 years old compared to other insurance products that are more than 100 years old.

If we can help build and structure clean data, that will make it easier for stakeholders to share trends and outcomes. The entire cyber insurance ecosystem will have a much more robust and reliable source to help qualify cyber insurance applicants correctly and measure the effectiveness of certain security controls and their impact on claims.

Q: What is the biggest differentiator IronGate brings to the cybersecurity ecosystem?

A: The first differentiator is our willingness to be flexible and remain flexible. We take partnership opportunities very seriously with others who share our engagement and passion. We’re building an operational cadence with each partner to best serve our clients each step of the way. We know how to look, how to respond, when to be silent, when to speak up, and how to guide. And we will stay nimble. As we grow, we won't grow vertically, but horizontally or diagonally alongside our partners so that we can remain agile in tailoring solutions to new and novel issues our clients face.

The second differentiator is our determination to solve a key industry challenge I mentioned earlier: cybersecurity data collection and aggregation. We’re pioneering the use of platforms that will help standardize how incident data is collected and shared because we know that will help our clients make better-informed decisions. Without the deep insight data provides, it’s easy for cybersecurity professionals to rely on metrics like company size and revenue to guide how they structure a security program. How do we really know if a solution is only applicable to an S&P 100 organization instead of a small business generating under $10 million in annual revenue? Instead, we have to look at incident response trends, the affected security controls, how simple they are to implement, and then work backward from there. Data will help drive awareness.

Q: What are the key strategic areas you want to focus on in the next year?

A: The first area I’m focused on is Digital Forensics and Incident Response services for insurance companies and their insureds. There is a lot of room for innovation. AI tools will make data mining easier and help everyone in the industry arrive at conclusions more quickly.

Then the second area I’m focused on is the proactive side of security. In particular, concentrating on the broker level of the insurance channel and partnering with them to help their insureds qualify for coverage. We want to engage in the security supply chain as early as possible so that we can identify potential risks and advocate for a stronger posture that reduces their vulnerability to attacks.

Learn more about IronGate’s mission and vision:

Steve Ramey has spent the past two decades helping clients protect, investigate, and respond to events involving their digital interests. He has led hundreds of data breach investigations, assessed incident response and security programs, and successfully advised organizations through extortion negotiations.