Richard Stiennon

Birmingham

Contributor at The Analyst Syndicate

Cybersecurity Industry Analyst Connect on Bluesky: https://t.co/6w16YVOiBn

Articles

RSAC 2025

2 months ago | stiennon.substack.com | Richard Stiennon

One of the top reasons I visit the RSA Conference every year is that the Expo halls contain a representative slice of the entire cybersecurity industry. This year that means 382 of 3,818 active vendors are exhibiting, exactly 10%. (We have archived an additional 558 vendors in the IT-Harvest Dashboard for historical record keeping.) Last year there were 375 exhibitors.
How Does an Intelligence Explosion Impact the Future of Cybersecurity?

2 months ago | stiennon.substack.com | Richard Stiennon

You may have missed the earth shattering predictions that a group of very smart humans published two weeks ago: the AI 2027 report. I have read their elaborate scenario and watched this three hour discussion from two of the authors. First of all, who are these people that are predicting the potential demise of the human race in less than three years? Scott Alexander is a successful blogger in the world of tech. His blog here on Substack is Astral Codex Ten.
What's New in Security Yearbook 2025?

2 months ago | stiennon.substack.com | Richard Stiennon

Every year I scramble to pull together the Security Yearbook so it can get to the printer as early as possible. This year I was ready to go on January 1. I have to wait until all the data is in for the year before spitting out the Directory of all the vendors from the IT-Harvest Dashboard. In November I went to Lake Huron for four days to lay out every chapter and identify updates. I do my best writing when I have a horizon to stare at. Freighters are a bonus.
16 Cybersecurity Startups Selected for Google Growth Academy

Feb 16, 2025 | stiennon.substack.com | Richard Stiennon

Most of the 6,666 readers of this substack will have noticed a change in the IT-Harvest Dashboard over time. If you tuned in early you saw screenshots and features of a platform for researching the entire cybersecurity industry. In a post titled Journey to a Data-Driven Analyst Firm, I indicated the direction we were going in January 2022. When we launched that March it was called the Analyst Dashboard and the intended users were VCs, private equity firms, and other industry analysts.
IT Harvest Adds AI To Mine Its Extensive Cybersecurity Company Database

Jan 21, 2025 | linkedin.com | Richard Stiennon

Richard Stiennon On a mission to provide actionable insights and foster informed decision-making with complete data on the cybersecurity industry.
Looking at Initials Again

Jan 18, 2025 | stiennon.substack.com | Richard Stiennon

When Karen and I started IT-Harvest eighteen years ago we spent an inordinate amount of time updating a spreadsheet of the 1,100 or so vendors we tracked. We would collect HQ address, category, etc. We broke up the workload based on initial letter as one does with an alphabetical listing. I remember dreading getting to the S list because it was so long. Three years ago Maximillian moved our spreadsheet into a database to create the IT-Harvest Dashboard.
IT-Harvest Launches AI Assistants for Industry Research

Jan 15, 2025 | stiennon.substack.com | Richard Stiennon

This morning we officially launched HarvestIQ.ai, new products from IT-Harvest. Two AI assistants are now available. We hinted at this in April: Positioning for the Near Future: Digital Assistants for Product SelectionOur beta users have all asked the same question. Aside from the much lower price, what is the difference between HarvestIQ and the IT-Harvest Dashboard? It’s pretty simple really.
HarvestIQ - A security architect assistant | Product Hunt

Jan 15, 2025 | producthunt.com | Richard Stiennon

HarvestIQ was hunted by in SaaS, Bots, Security. Made by . Posted on January 16th, 2025.
362 Cyber Acquisitions in 2024

Jan 10, 2025 | stiennon.substack.com | Richard Stiennon

As I wrap up this year’s mad frenzy to get the manuscript for Security Yearbook 2025 to Wiley everything is coming together. On January 3rd I published funding results for the year based on data from the IT-Harvest Dashboard. Getting the complete manuscript, including the Directories organized by Country and Category, to the publisher by the 13th is a new record. But, thanks to the ten-week long print queues, we are on a tight schedule to meet the dates of RSAC which starts April 28 this year.
Best of 2024: If You are Reachable, You Are Breachable, and Firewalls & VPNs are the Front Door

Jan 3, 2025 | securityboulevard.com | Richard Stiennon

This year has witnessed a string of critical vulnerabilities in VPNs and firewalls, spanning many of the major vendors. Recently, we saw another critical vulnerability exposed in the perimeter security meant to protect our organizations from cyberattacks.