Headquartered in Tampa Bay (Clearwater), Fla., Sunbelt Software was founded in 1994 and is a leading provider of Windows security software with product solutions in the areas of antispam and antivirus, antispyware, and vulnerability assessment. Leading products include the CounterSpy product line, Sunbelt Messaging Ninja and endpoint firewall technologies. The company is part of Sunbelt International Group, based in Paris, France.
Alex Eckelberry, President
Sunbelt Software
A 20-year industry veteran, Alex Eckelberry joined Sunbelt Software in May 2002. As president, Alex is responsible for the development and execution of Sunbelt's corporate and product strategy, overseeing the company's financial performance, building and strengthening the senior management team, as well as establishing and growing a strong operational base.
Prior to Sunbelt, Alex was a managing director with Bulldog Capital Management, an investment firm with peak assets of $1.2 billion, where he managed the firm's venture capital investments and later worked in marketing and public equities securities analysis. As a venture capitalist, he worked on investments in a range of private companies, including Auctionwatch, Acta Technology (acquired by Business Objects), Vina Technology (IPO, then merged with Larscom), Achex (acquired by First Data), YouCentric (acquired by J.D. Edwards) and T.sqware (acquired by Globespan).
Before Bulldog, Alex was the executive vice president for Mijenix Corporation, where he was instrumental in achieving growth of over 700% in two and a half years, leading to the sale of the company to publicly-traded Ontrack Data International. Prior to Mijenix, he was with Quarterdeck Corporation (now part of Symantec) for over six years, starting at the company prior to its IPO. His most recent positions at Quarterdeck were vice president, worldwide marketing and vice president and general manager, utilities business unit. As the general manager of the company's utilities division, he directed the marketing and development direction of a number of successful products, including CleanSweep, QEMM, WINProbe, and Hijaak Pro.
Prior to Quarterdeck, Alex worked for software companies Aegis Development, Oxxi, Inc. and Borland International. Consulting and advisory positions include: Serving on the board of advisors at Cybermedia Corporation, which later went public and was subsequently acquired by Network Associates; being a board member of VitalStream; and being a consultant to Executive Software, one of the leading enterprise software companies for Windows NT/2000 platforms.
An expert on spyware, Alex writes extensively on security issues, and in 2005 was recognized along with other security experts by Google, Inc. for contributions to Google’s security and product safety.
In the following interview, Alex Eckelberry, President of Sunbelt Software discusses with Rake Narang, Chief Editor of Info Security Products Guide, balancing security and productivity and the “default deny” model.
Rake Narang, Chief Editor - Info Security Products Guide: Sunbelt Software products have won the 2007 Global Product Excellence Award and on behalf of the Info Security Products Guide editorial team, I would like to congratulate you and everyone at Sunbelt Software for this achievement. What makes Sunbelt Software products unique and how does your product management team ensure that the products meet the needs of most users? Alex Eckelberry, President, Sunbelt Software: We started back in the early 90s and never got venture funding or any outside debt. So we’ve always been up against companies that have a lot more funding and resources than we do, and it’s given us a bit of an underdog mentality. We can’t afford to make many mistakes, so we listen to our customers very closely – we are constantly getting feedback from customers to improve our products. Also, all of our product management team has a background in either system administration or technical fields. Since the bulk of our business is to enterprises, this background really helps, as our team has a real understanding of what types of problems IT managers run into or the technical aspects of how the systems should work. Finally, our support is a core part of our organization. We refuse to outsource any of our support, keeping it all here in the US, and not using IVR systems (integrated voice response – “press 1 for this, press 2 for that”). All of our calls are answered by a human being here at our corporate headquarters.
"Info Security Products Guide’s recognition of Sunbelt further validates our products as cutting-edge in the market,” said Greg Kras, vice president of product management for Sunbelt Software. “Our customers rely on CounterSpy Enterprise and Messaging Ninja to improve overall security and protection against an array of malware, including spyware, rootkits, spam, and viruses. We are proud to win two awards, especially because this honor comes from customers who voted for our products."
Greg Kras, Vice President of Product Management - Sunbelt Software
Sunbelt Messaging Ninja and
CounterSpy Enterprise
Sunbelt Software
"Sunbelt Messaging Ninja as an all-inclusive messaging product line has really opened the door to a whole new angle on Email Security for enterprises. With policy-based user-level control, administrators get all the flexibility they could ask for without sacrificing security in an easy to manage product."
Quentin DeWitt, Product Manager for Sunbelt Messaging Ninja
Rake Narang:Has the security industry to a great extent been able to curb the security threats that would have otherwise devastated the world wide web or even most critical networks? Alex Eckelberry: I think the security industry is getting there. We’re a lot more cooperative than we were a few years ago – there’s a tremendous amount of exchange back and forth between security companies through vetted security forums and conferences.
We’ve heard the reports that the industry is not doing a good job, etc. Well, the tools are all out there for customers to use, but organizations have to decide how much they want to limit their users. The problem has always been balance – you can lock your network down to only work on port 80 and put a strong web filter in front that blocks practically everything, and your infection vectors will go down dramatically (but you’re still going to have infection vectors through email, USB drives, etc.). However, is that productive? Putting all users on Limited Accounts will have a huge positive impact on your security profile. But will your power users stand for that that? Personally, I’m a fan of the “default deny” model, where you deny everything and then work up to what you want from there (as opposed to the “default permit”, where everything is allowed and you lock down from there). However, it’s a balance: You don't want to allow everything and then restrict only what you don't want (poor security); but then you don't want to deny everything and restrict only what you do want (poor user experience). It comes down to an intelligent audit of your organizations needs, and basically I recommend locking as much down as you can until your users get upset, and then look at backing off from that point. It sounds harsh, but the effect of one virus in an organization can be pretty devastating.
"CounterSpy Enterprise continues to offer the best spyware definitions and deployment options available today in the enterprise anti-malware category,” said Phil Owens, product manager for CounterSpy Enterprise. “The administrator console is full-featured and allows for policy creation to group users' configurations by any criteria required; such as functional areas or user experience level. As today's malware threats evolve, Sunbelt ensures corporate environments are protected."
Phil Owens, Product Manager for CounterSpy Enterprise
Sunbelt Software USA
33 North Garden Avenue
Suite 1200
Clearwater, Florida, USA 33755
Tel: 727-562-0101
Tel: 888-688-8457 www.sunbelt-software.com
