Keynote Speakers Seizing the Moment at the Imperva Sales and Partner Kickoff 2016

We had an impressive lineup of guest speakers from leaders within the cyber security industry inspiring us at our Sales and Partner Kickoff in Dallas. Here are the highlights from our esteemed guests.
The Maverick CISO Rob McCurdy
Rob McCurdy, CISO at Michigan State University, a long time Imperva customer, stated, “Finding problems is easy,” but solving them and securing applications is quite challenging. Higher education requires information to be available for everyone, including known bad nation states. Blocking based on geolocation is not always viable, requiring security teams in higher education to come up with out of the box security solutions.
“Security coding is not commonly taught”, which is why Web Application Firewalls (WAF) will forever remain a vital tool to patch applications immediately without any downtime. Static code analysis and dynamic analysis can be effective tools if you have the luxury of time which is rarely the case for most organizations.
“Imperva solutions provide me the confidence to reassure our board that MSU’s security strategy is second to none.”
Wisdom from the Clairvoyant Gartner Expert

Adam Hils, Research Director from Gartner, shed light on WAF market trends and dynamics and app security trends. He also provided invaluable advice to our sales and partner teams.
“If you are still thinking compliance, you are a few years behind from where you need to be,” says Hils. Compliance is not security; it does not offer full protection against attacks. He reiterated that today applications are still facing a high volume of attacks that make up the top 10 OWASP threats, but the increasing sophistication of new automated attacks require WAF solutions to have threat intelligence integrated.
“By year-end 2020, more than 60% of public Web applications protected by a WAF will use WAFs delivered as a cloud service or Internet-hosted virtual appliance — up from less than 15% today.” There are some obstacles to cloud-based WAF adoption in the European Union given their stringent privacy laws, but there is significant tailwind driving growth in cloud-based WAF across the globe.
Cloud Security, Data Security and App Security are in the top 5 technologies that are top of customers’ minds in 2016 and have secured IT budgeting.
Keeping it Simple by Addison Lawrence

“Keep it Simple” and “Deploy quickly in one production environment first” are the two mantras for our success, says customer Addison Lawrence, Director of IT Operations Change and Risk Management. Imperva enables our company to achieve a triple win – “efficiency, stability and security.” The large deployment of Imperva SecureSphere is managed by a small team of IT engineers, which is only possible because Imperva also embraces the “Keep it Simple” motto.
Street Smarts from Rob Owens


Rob Owens, Senior Research Analyst and Partner, Pacific Crest Solutions, explained in great detail the phenomenon of “separation from the group” happening in the cyber security space. Vendors who have the vision to execute beyond point products and simultaneously deliver value to customers and investors alike are thriving. Security budgets are enjoying 10% to 15% growth rates while overall IT budgets essentially remain flat.
Owens cautions that spending more money on cybersecurity without a well-defined strategy will not guarantee protection against threats. Customers have shifted their mindset from “Prevention First” to “Detection First.” There has been a resurgence of security technologies from the last decade with Database Audit and Protection at the top of that list. Imperva, Palo Alto Networks and Proofpoint are now the “Big 3” of security, no surprise, given their stellar growth and flawless execution.
How Emmitt Smith inspired everyone to Seize the Moment

It only took seconds for Emmitt Smith, Hall of Fame running back for the Dallas Cowboys, to command the respect of 400+ Imperva employees and 165 partners. Even the ardent 49er fan in me fell victim to his charm, grace and humility. Smith delivered one of the most inspiring speeches of all times, drawing from his unparalleled success and intense passion for football.
Here are some memorable quotes from his speech:
“Plan your work and work your plan.”
“Sacrifice personal goals over teams’ success.”
“The price of victory is high, but so are the rewards.”
“Seize the moment and rise to the occasion.”

Kim DeCarlis, our CMO delivered the closing note at our Sales and Partner Kick Off. Exciting times at Imperva! To Infinity and Beyond!