This week I’m in New York attending an HP Wolf Security event. I’ve been following HP Wolf Security division since its creation, and it remains unique in the market. What makes this unit different is that it functions as a company within a company and was created to mitigate the fall of more traditional security firms like Symantec and McAfee who were created at a time when Microsoft and the rest of the core PC industry were willing to outsource security to third parties. That changed dramatically in the early 2000s when Microsoft realized that the sales practices of these firms required that they disparage Microsoft’s offerings to sell their own. As you’d expect, Microsoft wasn’t good with that.
So, Microsoft, AMD and Intel stepped up and most of the PC market concluded that this was good enough. It wasn’t. Breaches continued to happen. HP uniquely concluded that it needed to up its game and created Wolf Security.
Let’s talk about what makes Wolf Security unique in the market this week.
Security as a Concept
My background in security is unusual. My family owned one of the then largest electronic security firms in the U.S. One of my first jobs was in undercover security for Pinkerton. I ran a security unit in retail for a few years and spent some time as a Deputy Sheriff. I was an internal auditor specializing in security, and I owned security for my unit at IBM. As a researcher, I covered security, and the firm’s security unit reported to me for a while. As a result, I tend to take security very seriously, but I’ve found that most, even those in security, often think about it as just a job. They underfund it and don’t take it seriously because, most of the time, nothing happens. It is often described as extended periods of boredom interspersed with rare instances of absolute terror because if there is a breach, your career is on the line. If you aren’t ready, you’re done.
People who don’t live and breathe security don’t get this. They think security is something you do. It isn’t. It’s something you live. If you want to create a security defense, you start by building a unit of people who live and breathe the job, who take it seriously, who know that you’ll rarely get credit for the work you’ve done and that if things get exciting, something has gone terribly wrong. It takes people who believe in what they’re doing because they are what stands in the way of folks getting hurt and aren’t motivated by credit or status but by doing a job well.
This is why Wolf Security was built. The unit consists of people like this who can think out of the box. The result is a unique solution that has been targeted at HP’s largest and most important customers. It involves unique hardware elements, the aggressive use of hypervisors and the rapid development of AI defenses to anticipate the coming wave of threats. They even have a unique hardware component that uses 4G and 5G to remain connected and allow any lost machine to be wiped and even tracked if needed.
Wrapping Up:
Wolf Security is unique in the market, but it shouldn’t be. HP takes security seriously and has created a set of solutions for PCs that ensure its largest customers are safe. We will be facing an accelerated level of threat in 2024, particularly from AI, and it is heartening to know that Wolf Security stands between that threat and HP customers. Wolf Security fully understands that security should be taken seriously. I’ve had a lot of security experience, and my only regret is that I never worked for a unit as comprehensively focused on doing a quality job as HP Wolf Security is.
