Simone Sassoli, Virsec CEO & Chief Product Officer: “We continuously measure our efficacy with breach attack simulation tools and tests and our customers report that we cover a gap left open by the existing defense provided by incumbent security tools”

Founded with the mission to revolutionize cybersecurity, Virsec was born from the need to combat ever-evolving and sophisticated cyber attacks. At a time when traditional security models were failing to keep up with the rapid pace of cyber threats, Virsec introduced a groundbreaking approach centered around zero trust. Instead of relying on behavioral analysis to detect and respond to threats after they occur, Virsec focuses on “knowing and trusting your software.” This proactive strategy stops attacks before they can even begin. In today’s world, where cyber attacks are making headlines and causing widespread disruptions—from halting hospital emergency services to shutting down pharmacies—Virsec offers a much-needed safeguard for critical infrastructure. Virsec’s TrustSight feature securely integrates with customer data centers on-premises and in the cloud, ensuring observability and establishing trust in the software running on servers. At the core of Virsec is TrustGuardian, a tool that enforces security policies in real time, blocking ransomware and other malicious activities in milliseconds before they can cause damage.

By automating application control and eliminating false positives, Virsec significantly cuts down on the time and resources organizations spend on triage, incident response, and recovery. Virsec’s Zero Trust Runtime Defense minimizes the risk of cyber threats and helps businesses save on potential fines, legal costs, and the aftermath of a security breach. As a leader in zero trust cybersecurity, Virsec is ensuring that the software powering essential services across industries remains secure, reliable, and resilient.

In conversation with Simone Sassoli, CEO of Virsec

Q. Can you share insights into how Virsec’s platform was battle-tested by government red teams, and what specific challenges were overcome during these evaluations?

The Department of Defense (DoD) tested Virsec against over 200 of the best ethical hackers to see if they could successfully execute an attack on their protected workloads, and Virsec stopped 100% of (14K attempted attacks), concluding with “unprecedented results”. We continuously measure our efficacy with breach attack simulation tools and tests, and our customers report that we cover a gap left open by the existing defense provided by incumbent security tools.

Q. What role does the “default-deny, allow-on-trust” approach play in reducing the time to exploit (TTE) and preventing sophisticated attacks like Living-off-the-land (LOL) binaries?

Virsec implements zero trust in code on the disk and at runtime, operating on the principle of default-deny-allow-on-trust. This principle means that if we cannot trust the code’s provenance, integrity, and authorization, it will prevent such code from executing. This results in zero dwell time for threat actors. Thanks to the deep context that the platform collects, it can quickly determine if the code about to be executed came from a trusted application or a threat actor, a binary decision not open to interpretation.

In contrast, Detect and Respond technologies rely on a default-allow strategy that blocks code based on detected threats, using behavioral baselines to identify anomalies. This process, however, can take minutes to hours, a significant delay compared to the milliseconds it takes for an attack to execute.

Q. How does Virsec address the challenges of protecting legacy and unsupported systems, and what strategies are employed to prevent zero-day attacks in these environments?

Virsec’s Zero Trust Runtime Defense acts as a compensating control and only allows what you trust to run and automatically stops everything else, preventing critical data, applications, and runtime unpatched vulnerabilities from being exploited by malware, ransomware, zero-day, and unknown attacks. We cover the risk exposure of your technical debt with systems like Windows Server 2003, 2008, 2012, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, CentOS, Ubuntu, and SUSE to ensure that even the most vulnerable, out-of-support infrastructures remain secure.

Q. What does the future hold for your company and its customers? Are exciting things on the way?

At Virsec, the future is focused on revolutionizing cybersecurity by delivering unparalleled protection against advanced threats. We are at the forefront of modern security solutions, ensuring our customers can defend their server workloads in a rapidly evolving digital landscape. As cyber threats become more sophisticated, our mission is to stay ahead of these challenges, giving our customers the confidence that their software is secure and, in turn, their business resilient.

In the months ahead, we’re excited to introduce groundbreaking advancements in runtime protection and enhanced visibility into the safety and trust of software in a customer supply chain. These innovations will further solidify our mission in autonomous application security, enabling organizations to defend against unknown, zero-day attacks in real time, in milliseconds. All of this must be achieved with the best user experience, and the release of our AI-enabled co-pilot will deliver Zero Trust with Zero Touch.

Ultimately, our goal is to provide our customers with peace of mind, knowing they have a security solution that evolves with the threats they face. As we continue to expand and innovate, we remain committed to offering unmatched protection that empowers businesses to operate safely, efficiently, and without disruption in an increasingly hostile cyber environment.

For more information, visit Virsec's website or contact them at marketing@virsec.com.

Meet the leader behind the success of Virsec

Simone Sassoli, CEO is a visionary leader and the driving force behind the company, partnering with its co-founder and CTO Satya Gupta to make the original “why” of Virsec into reality. With a passion for innovation and a commitment to the daily grind required in a start-up, Simone has consistently demonstrated an ability to identify market opportunities and build successful companies in different technology spaces. A believer in a customer-focused approach, building teams with high talent density, and open and candid feedback. He also believes in luck when opportunity meets preparation, as he is reminded by Cisco ex-CEO John Chambers during their monthly check-ins. He likes to show off that he is Italian, especially in the kitchen, and no one makes better lasagna.

“Virsec’s Zero Trust Runtime Defense acts as a compensating control and only allows what you trust to run and automatically stops everything else, preventing critical data, applications, and runtime unpatched vulnerabilities from being exploited by malware, ransomware, zero-day, and unknown attacks.”