Elemental Security

"Enterprises that do not fully exploit the capabilities of powerful management solutions such as Elemental Compliance System from Elemental Security risk serious breach of security to their business operations and may in fact be lagging behind in their compliance processes too."

Rick Justice - Chief Editor

What makes Elemental Security an Info Security "Hot Company" 2006

Products & Technologies

Elemental’s security compliance management product is the first and only solution in the world to provide the necessary visibility and control to centrally manage the configuration, network access and compliance of all computers on a network. It is powered by three key technologies that differentiate the company and each of which is unique in the industry: (1) a custom policy language that enables intuitive cross-platform policy expression; (2) a dynamic grouping capability that automatically self updates group membership and thus adapts to changing environments; and (3) a policy-driven packet filter that auto-discovers new machines and implements dynamic network access controls based on group and policy abstractions instead of ports and IP addresses, used by competing products.

Elemental is especially hot in the market because it provides the world’s first and only unified policy infrastructure, allowing customers to manage and solve a class of problems they could not previously address in an automated way.  As an example, before Elemental, customers had no easy way to implement or manage the following real-world policy in a typical, always-changing enterprise environment: “Only employees in the finance department whose computers are compliant with the Sarbanes-Oxley policy should access the SAP data store.” Elemental’s multiple technical breakthroughs are designed to provide a single framework that seamlessly combines four traditional product disciplines – rich inventory, policy management, host configuration management, and network access control – in an easy-to-use manner.  Now, with the Elemental Compliance System, customers can manage diverse policies in one place, such as a business policy that connects and crosses multiple technical domains – organizational departments (finance), complex policy expression (SOX), network access control and application resources (SAP data).  Analysts and customers alike have vetted this approach and recognize the power of this young product.

Multiple patent-pending technical innovations enable Elemental to address specific technical challenges more effectively than any company.

People & Investors

The company is led by Peter R. Watkins who has more than 20 years of experience in the development and delivery of new hardware and software products and technologies. Mr. Watkins academic background includes a B.A. in Economics from Wesleyan University (Conn.), and an M.B.A. from the Yale School of Management. The team is staffed with other technical experts who are experienced with large system and network security development for the enterprise market.

Elemental has security, policy and language expertise that enables it to build innovations that help it to stay ahead.  The company is combining its visionary approach with a practical focus on customer needs and business objectives.  For example, Elemental employs security expert Dan Farmer (co-founder and CTO), author of some of the most widely used security tools in the world (including COPS, SATAN, Titan) and a respected security consultant to the industry and government.  It has also leveraged the expertise of Guido van Rossum, a highly decorated software developer and author of Python – one of the world’s most popular scripting languages. 

All of the unique technologies in the Elemental Compliance System have been developed internally by the company’s thought leaders who are technology pioneers in their respective fields.  The core innovations were invented by security expert Dan Farmer, author of some of the most widely used security tools in the world (including COPS, SATAN, Titan) and a respected security consultant to the industry and government.  The custom policy language was written by Guido Van Rossum, author of Python – one of the world’s most popular scripting languages.  Guido is a highly decorated software developer, recently being named as one of the Top Software People in the World by Java Developer’s Journal.  The team is staffed with other technical experts who are experienced with large system and network security development for the enterprise market.

Elemental is well funded, and backed by elite VC firms in Sequoia Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners and Mayfield.  In addition, Lehman Brothers Venture Partners led the most recent round of funding.

Performance & Growth

Elemental is well positioned in a very high growth market.  AMR Research (March 2005) expects compliance-related spending to hit nearly $15.5 billion this year, including $6.1 billion for SOX alone.  The compliance-related cost for a typical company is estimated at approximately $500,000.

Potential & Strategies

Unified Approach - to visibility and control: Customers and analysts have repeatedly confirmed that the unification of host configuration management and network access controls which Elemental has built from the ground up on a policy framework is unique, effective, differentiated and valuable.

Elemental meets a clear need in this market. According to a study published in vnuNET in 2005, 66 percent of companies have no way of telling whether security risks are increasing or decreasing over time; 55 percent of companies indicated that they are unable to manage their compliance process; and 60 percent of companies said that compliance reporting takes up to three months.

Elemental Security, Inc.
155 Bovet Road, suite 100
San Mateo , CA 94402 USA
Tel: (650) 292-1400
www.elementalsecurity.com