The SINET Showcase 2017: innovation in an environment of risk and opportunity.

The 2017 edition of the SINET Showcase in Washington, DC, offered workshops and presentations that continued SINET's mission of serving, as CEO Robert Rodriguez put it, as a "superconnector" for the cybersecurity sector. Discussions centered on resilience (what it means, and how to achieve it), and what some of the larger investors in cybersecurity are looking for. There were also interesting discussions of the increasingly sharp perception industry has of regulatory risk. The technologies on display were heavily engaged with threat intelligence (and especially with the ways in which such technologies might augment human analytical talent), browser isolation (as a way of handling the most common infection vectors), and authentication and identity management (including alternatives to currently prevalent password-, knowledge-, and token-based authentication).

In his opening remarks, after being introduced by LifeJourney CEO Rick Geritz, Rodriguez spoke to the importance of belonging to a "purpose-driven community." He noted how difficult it was for even the most innovative companies to differentiate themselves in the marketplace, and argued that not only messaging, but also company attitude and culture were vital to successfully doing so.

As always, the presentations by the SINET 16, innovative companies who've won recognition for new solutions and new approaches to those challenges and trends, were of particular interest. This year's winners were (in alphabetical order) Centripetal Networks, Fireglass (now a unit of Symantec), Haystax Technology, Infosec Global, iProov, Menlo Security, PatternEx, Phantom, Prevoty, ProtectWise, ThreatQuotient, Twistlock, vArmour, Verodin, Versive, and Virtru.