Positive Technologies presented plans for technological development and company goals for 2023

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During the Positive Hack Days 12 cyber festival, which took place in Gorky Park, top management Positive Technologies presented plans for technological development and the company’s goals for 2023. The first focus of the technology strategy is on scaling the idea of ​​autopilot for cybersecurity: Max Patrol O2 , which became the first meta-product, goes into pilot operation, and the meta-family will join MaxPatrol Carbon, designed to manage IT infrastructure. The second strategic goal of the company is to provide the Russian and foreign markets with tools to ensure effective cybersecurity in new niches: the company’s ambitions are related to the development of its own next-generation firewall (NGFW). In addition, the event announced the goal of increasing shipments of Positive Technologies this year to 25-30 billion rubles, which is in line with the company’s strategic plan to double the volume of its business.

The main growth drivers of Positive Technologies include such factors as the expansion of the client base, the renewal of licenses for the company’s products, the growth in the number of products used by one client, the expansion of the company’s product portfolio, as well as the release of meta-products and expansion into international markets. So, in 2022, the number of the company’s clients increased by 20% overall, and the segment of the largest clients expanded even more — by 35%, from 849 to 1,149 companies. Over the past year, Positive Technologies’ product portfolio has been diversified, and five of the company’s products have brought it more than a billion each, while a year earlier there were only two such products. For the first time one of the new products ( Max Patrol VM ) crossed this bar in just a year. In addition, according to the results of the year, seven Positive Technologies products became leaders in their technological niches on the Russian market.

Maxim Filippov, Deputy CEO of Positive Technologies, noted that the company adheres to the strategy of doubling its business annually: “The target figure for us is 25 billion, and the figure of the feat is 30 billion. We must finish at the end of 2023 somewhere in this range. At the same time, the changes that we are now launching internally will be decisive for the business: in order to address the ambitions of our multiple growth over the next few years, we need new products and a change in the approach to developing all the company’s products.

In turn, Alexey Andreev, managing director of Positive Technologies, revealed the main points of the company’s technology strategy and plans for the development and launch of its new products. Alexey noted that the company’s defense is formed from three fundamental things: tools for detecting the actions and stopping attackers, technologies that make the existing IT infrastructure secure, and creating systems protected by design.

“When we set ourselves the task of developing technologies in all these areas, we constantly keep in mind a very simple thought: we cannot slow down progress. For the cybersecurity industry, this is a particular challenge, because it is very easy to create conditions when it will be really difficult for a hacker to develop an attack, to invade the infrastructure, but then the life of users will become unbearable. Therefore, all means of protection and approaches should not slow down progress, but, on the contrary, stimulate it, open up new opportunities,” Alexey Andreev emphasized.

The Positive Technologies portfolio already has eight sensor products, each of which allows you to identify and stop intruders as part of their tasks. However, the company is confident that technologically this is not enough, since this is often associated with the need to involve a large number of specialists in the work on the defense side in the face of a shortage of personnel. Therefore, a few years ago, the company came up with the idea of ​​​​creating an autopilot in cybersecurity – the MaxPatrol O2 meta-product, which is designed to detect and stop a hacker in automatic mode, and the concept of which was presented two years ago. In 2022, MaxPatrol O2 passed the necessary pilot tests, and in 2023 the company will launch it into pilot operation. At the same time, another meta-product is being actively developed – MaxPatrol Carbon, which contains the idea of ​​integrated management of IT infrastructure and which will become a bridge between the worlds of IT and information security. The release of its initial version is expected in late 2023 – early 2024. The management of Positive Technologies has high hopes for the release of meta-products, as they will allow solving cybersecurity problems on a completely different level and, in fact, will create a new market.

Serious ambitions of the company are connected with the market of Next Generation FireWall (NGFW). Denis Korablev, Managing Director, Product Director of Positive Technologies, estimated the market for similar products in Russia at least 110 billion rubles and said that Positive Technologies expects to occupy at least half of this market. “When we take on a product that is on the market, we try to at least squeeze the maximum out of the existing one, and only then take the next step. With NGFW, we have exactly the same history, exactly the same approach, the same openness to the market to convince everyone that our product is the most correct, the most correct. Already, PT NGFW is demonstrating a technological potential that is not available on the Russian market, which is comparable to the level of Western counterparts and even surpasses them. Judging by what we saw on PHDays, the feedback is good, it gives us confidence in our plans to take a significant share in this market,” Denis Korablev explained. In addition, the company’s plans for 2023 include the release of a container security product, the release of a full-fledged cloud version of one of the company’s flagship products, and an addition to the product line with a tool designed to detect and respond to threats at endpoints.

The ambitious plans of Positive Technologies require the company to make serious efforts to develop the research and development direction, including increasing investments, transforming development approaches, attracting the strongest specialists to the company, the widespread introduction of artificial intelligence-based technologies into the company’s products, preparing for scaling at all levels within international expansion. The company also aims to develop a global expert community and open source direction. “We want to share our expertise with the community and encourage others to do so – in the end, the whole world will benefit from this: the industry will feel a different level of maturity and knowledge in the field of cybersecurity, which will become available to literally every company and vendor. This is our big task,” Alexey Andreev explained.

Now the company’s capitalization has reached 112 billion rubles, it already offers the market more than 20 products and solutions and is growing rapidly: since the beginning of 2022, the number of company employees has grown by 57%, and currently it employs more than 1,800 people, most of whom are technical specialists and experts. Since going public in December 2021, the company’s shares have grown in price by almost 2.5 times, while this growth was associated with the growth of the company’s business – not only its revenue, but also the number of employees, as well as the product portfolio. In the short term, Positive Technologies aims to enter the main list of the Moscow Exchange so that the company’s shares are in the portfolios of an even wider range of investors. Today, Positive Technologies already has more than 162 thousand shareholders, among which individuals predominate. A large number of individual investors at the same time allows to have a high average daily trading volume of investors, makes the company’s securities more stable and stable.

“Our new goal is one million shareholders. Literally every third active investor on the Moscow Exchange will be able to invest in our company. This will generally increase interest in investing in the technology segment. We now have fertile ground for this in our country. In terms of average daily volume, we aim for a turnover of one billion rubles per day. This will allow us to be at the top of the investment market,” said Vladimir Zapolyansky, Managing Director of Positive Technologies.

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