Nomination

The ACBI nominated Northwave because the company demonstrates that innovation in cybersecurity is more than just new technology. Northwave combines insights from real-world cyber incidents with threat research, technical expertise, risk management, behavioral science, and governance decision-making. This allows developments to be understood from various perspectives and translated into practical courses of action.

Cybersecurity resilience requires more than just technology

Northwave supports organisations with services including risk management, Managed Detection & Response, Red Teaming, threat intelligence, crisis preparedness, and incident response. At the core of this approach is the integration of three elements: business, bytes, and behavior. In doing so, Northwave considers not only technical vulnerabilities and digital threats but also the business context, governance, and human behavior.

This integrated approach plays a role in the development of new forms of cyber risk management. Traditional risk models often focus on risks that are identifiable and quantifiable. Current practice, however, also requires attention to fundamental uncertainties: events whose nature and probability are difficult to determine in advance but which can have major consequences.

Rather than seeking to manage each risk individually, the approach therefore also focuses on scenarios, broad resilience measures, and the ability to respond to unexpected events.

AI Is Changing the Threat Landscape

Artificial intelligence also plays a key role in Northwave’s innovation activities. The company is investigating how AI can support its services and how organizations can protect themselves against attacks in which cybercriminals exploit this technology.

One example is the SOC Investigation Agent, an assistant that combines multiple AI agents to support security analysts in collecting, enriching, and summarizing information during investigations. The goal is to make investigations faster and more consistent. The interpretation of findings and the final decision-making remain in human hands. Reliability, costs, governance, and secure data processing are also integral parts of the development process.

Connecting Innovation with Practice

In addition, Northwave collaborates with subject-matter and technology partners, universities, and other knowledge organisations. Northwave shares practical knowledge with universities and colleges, including through guest lectures on cyber threat intelligence. Since 2017, the company has been collaborating with IT Vitae on a practice-oriented training program to become a Cyber Security Specialist, which covers topics such as security operations, attack simulation, and forensic ransomware investigation.

Northwave also regularly publishes research reports, white papers, and articles on current threats and new developments. In doing so, the company makes knowledge gained from incident investigation and cybersecurity research more widely available to organisations and professionals.