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Cowbell Delivers Qualys External Attack Surface Management Intelligence Feed

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Cowbell has expanded its partnership with Qualys by adding a real-time attack surface intelligence feed from the Qualys External Attack Surface Management (EASM) offering, the companies announced.

In doing so, Cowbell will use Qualys EASM to assess customer cyber risk for cyber insurance purposes.

Commenting on his company's partnership with Qualys, Rajeev Gupta, Cowbell's co-founder and chief product officer, said:

"Cowbell is at the forefront of cyber insurance innovation, and we're constantly looking for ways to provide high-fidelity and continuous assessment of policyholders' cybersecurity posture to reduce their risk exposure. The partnership with Qualys further strengthens our ability to assess risk for insurance purposes and close the insurability gaps for many organizations seeking financial protection through insurance."

How Qualys EASM Helps Cowbell and Its Customers

Cowbell leverages Qualys EASM data in conjunction with its current library of risk assessment scanners, the company said. Qualys EASM shows an organization's attack surface and overlays business and risk context to provide insights into the organization's security risks. It also helps an organization identify unauthorized, end-of-life and end-of-service software, assess the health of its attack surface and verify that required security tools are in use.

Qualys EASM provides Cowbell customers with external attack surface assessments that show their attack risks, vulnerabilities, security misconfigurations and cyber risk posture, the companies noted. These assessments are available to organizations seeking standalone cyber insurance coverage through Cowbell.

Meanwhile, Cowbell policyholders can activate built-in connectors for Qualys VMDR (vulnerability management, detection and response) solution and access the Qualys Compliance and Container Security solutions via the Cowbell platform, the companies stated.

Sophos Partners with Cowbell

The expanded Qualys partnership comes after Sophos in March 2023 began to allow its customers to share their security health information with Cowbell to "better facilitate optimal premium quotes and policies," the companies said. As such, Sophos and Cowbell can provide feedback to organizations on how to improve their security practices and risk profile.

Cowbell offers adaptive cyber insurance to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The cyber insurer has a partner ecosystem and allows technology providers to integrate its offerings into their solutions and services and use them to deliver cyber risk insights to their customers.

Dan Kobialka

Dan Kobialka is senior contributing editor, MSSP Alert and ChannelE2E. He covers IT security, IT service provider business strategies and partner programs. Dan holds a M.A. in Print and Multimedia Journalism from Emerson College and a B.A. in English from Bridgewater State University. In his free time, Dan enjoys jogging, traveling, playing sports, touring breweries and watching football.