Cyber insurance provider Cowbell selected Nisos as their threat intelligence partner. Matthieu Chan Tsin, Director of Threat Intelligence shares the challenges he and his team were facing, how our team helped solve them, and the difference we made to their business.

THE CHALLENGE

Answers Cowbell sought included:

• What risks are most relevant to our organization?
• How do we mitigate and respond to threats?
• What are the most pressing and relevant risks to our policyholders?

Chan Tsin wanted to expand Cowbell’s intelligence team and capabilities to serve the organization as a whole and support their continuous risk assessment of policyholders. Equipped with a clear vision for growing the organization’s intelligence program, he knew how he wanted to serve and support his diverse stakeholders. He understood the capabilities as well as the expertise required to meet the intelligence needs of his organization. From providing refined intelligence to executives, to delivering actionable insights to the information security team, to helping protect the company’s SME policyholder organizations from cyber threats - he saw the challenge and knew he would need additional expertise.

He knew hiring 10+ team members with CIA, NSA, DoD, or FBI cyber intelligence on their resume would get him the desired results; however, he recognized that hiring for these roles is complex, competitive, and costly. He estimates that it would have cost a minimum of $1.5 million in annual salaries alone. Instead, he set out to find a U.S.-based partner with a positive reputation that could be trusted, had the right expertise and market credibility, and offered a scalable solution that would allow him to grow Cowbell’s program while addressing his changing needs and budget requirements.

“Because of the nature of intelligence, you can never hire enough analysts."

THE SOLUTION

Nisos Managed Intelligence Suite

A robust subscription offering that includes risk assessment, ongoing monitoring, and unlimited consecutive threat investigations.

Explaining why he selected Nisos and their most comprehensive service offering Chan Tsin said, “We do have other vendors, but only Nisos gives us real intelligence. Everyone is selling ‘intel’ but very few people get it. It’s only intel if you answer a client’s question. If not - you’re just giving him information. Only Nisos answers our questions directly. That’s what makes it so worth it to make the investment.”

He points to the level of service delivered by his Nisos client success director as a market differentiator for Nisos, and a key reason he and his team are so happy with Nisos. He likens the client success role to that of an intelligence liaison officer. Nisos client success directors operate between the analyst team and the client to ensure that, at every step of the process, everyone understands the expectations, and that the final product meets the client’s needs.

In his experience, larger intelligence service companies or platform companies deliver the same reports to multiple customers. They do not provide a true intelligence service that is relationship-led, like Nisos.

“With Nisos, I found the one company that had the right level of credentials and the right intel services delivered through a managed service model. And I trusted them to be an extension of my team.”

THE OUTCOME

One of the biggest and immediately recognized differences the Cowbell team experienced was with Nisos working as an extension of their team, they could successfully answer complicated intelligence questions, often from the CEO or in support of major strategic projects, within timelines that they could not match on their own.

By selecting Nisos as their Managed Intelligence partner, Cowbell essentially has an extended team of researchers, analysts, and editors working the entire intelligence cycle who are hyper-focused on their needs.

Nisos delivers intel analysis, reporting, and briefing capabilities for only 25% of the cost of building it in-house.

“Nisos is a force multiplier - and not just one to two times - it’s more like one to five.”