Kaspersky Injects Irony Into InfoSec News Game
ThreatPost.com Editor Ryan Naraine talks about his new gig during RSA Conference 2009.
ThreatPost.com from Joe Franscella on Vimeo.
IT security solutions vendor Kaspersky Lab specializes in reducing risk, ironically though, it has thrown its hat into the most risky industry of the day – news. A few weeks ago at RSA Conference 2009, Kaspersky launched ThreatPost, a news and community network for the broader IT security neighborhood.
Is Kaspersky worried about backing a news venture during an era when major outlets are shutting doors, laying off and cutting back? The answer seems to be no.
Editor and Kaspersky Lab Evangelist Ryan Naraine is confident in ThreatPost’s potential for success. Unlike traditional news outlets that rely on the ad/subscription model for revenue, ThreatPost will enjoy the backing of a corporation committed to the project.
Randy Drawas, Chief Marketing Officer of Kaspersky Lab Americas said, “Part of our mission as a company has always been to keep our customers informed about the latest threats that exist and partake in the public discourse concerning the issues our business revolves around. ThreatPost provides us the opportunity to drive the public discourse and from the top on down we are committed to the success of the site. We also know the only way a site like this one can be successful is to keep it open and trusted and are committed to ensuring that line is never crossed.”
ThreatPost ‘s plan for success is unorthodox. Rather than try and compete with other IT security news outlets through the “loyalty” model, it plans to attract readers by providing a mix of original and aggregated content along with a guide to other sites’ IT security news. Naraine explained that he and editor Dennis Fisher are providing the site’s original content and that other sites and contributors are providing the rest. The end-result is a space where readers can get a “snapshot” of current security issues and then directed internally or externally to where they can read about them, according to Naraine.
“It’s very difficult to expect readers to go to one place and stay there all day and that’s why the ThreatPost aggregation concept of sending them away to bring them back is a big part of what we do,” said Naraine. “Corporations have seen the value of using this kind of community-based social media to hit the target audience.”
Naraine and Fisher aren’t concerned that Kaspersky’s ownership of the site could taint its objectivity. Naraine emphasizes that there is clear “church-state separation” and that it is a legitimate media site.
Neither Naraine nor Fisher are rookies to the IT security news industry. Prior to ThreatPost, Naraine covered infosec for eWeek and ZDNet. Fisher, also a Kaspersky evangelist, did the same at Tech Target and eWeek. Between them, they bring two decades of IT news coverage experience to the publication.
Public relations and marketing professionals salivating over the notion of a new news site should take note, Naraine says that the site is absolutely not — under any circumstances — covering product announcements, news or doing any reviews.
“We draw the line at products, we don’t cover product news, we don’t do product reviews or any of that stuff,” said Naraine. “We cover anything data security related — threats, trends, malware issues, anything around social networks that can put users at risk … we run the gambit.”
