Learn how Infrastructure-as-a-Service company simplified its data center using Cisco’s Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) approach.

Adopting Cisco’s ACI, NetApp experienced:
• Improvements in the density of throughput and cost per port
• Increased productivity of the infrastructure
• Integrated visibility and intelligence
• Agility enablement of the entire application infrastructure

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A study published this week could help doctors to identify patients with brain injuries, in seemingly unresponsive states, who are more likely to recover.

In the study, published in the journal Brain on Monday, researchers identified what may be the source of a curious phenomenon known as "hidden consciousness" or cognitive motor dissociation (CMD).

Hidden consciousness is seen in patients with acute brain injury who appear to be in a coma or other unresponsive state.

Patients with CMD seem to be able to hear and comprehend verbal commands even though they cannot carry out those instructions because the body does not respond, study author Jan Claassen, a researcher at Columbia University and critical care neurologist at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center, said in a statement.

The CMD phenomenon has only been identified in the past few years and is still poorly understood.

Methods have been developed to detect CMD in unresponsive patients. These include analyzing changes in electrical activity or cerebral blood flow recorded by an electroencephalogram (EEG) or functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) respectively. But both of these methods currently have their limitations.

Nevertheless, it is thought that around 15 to 20 percent of patients who appear to be in a coma or another unresponsive state display signs of CMD when evaluated with such methods, Claassen told Newsweek. The detection of CMD is reshaping our understanding of patients in comatose or other unresponsive states.

Associated With Recovery of Consciousness

Clinicians define when a patient is in a "coma" purely based on the clinical examination, Claassen said. They apply this label to patients who display a complete absence of arousal (for example, eye opening) and awareness.

Patients with CMD do not seem to be able to follow commands and may in clinical examination appear to be in a coma.

But an analysis of EEG or functional MRI, recorded while patients are given verbal commands, reveals that the brains of these unresponsive patients are being activated in a similar way to conscious patients, Claassen said. This supports the interpretation that patients with CMD are to some degree conscious.

Identifying patients with CMD has important clinical implications for interactions, communication with families and the guidance of therapeutic decisions, according to the study.

Importantly, in prior research, Claassen and colleagues have been able to associate CMD with the recovery of consciousness and long-term recovery of independence in brain-damaged patients.

Researchers have been trying to develop more effective screening methods to identify which patients are likely to be in a state of hidden consciousness. But progress has been hampered by the fact that the brain mechanisms underlying the phenomenon have remained a mystery. This is where the latest study comes in.

In previous research, Claassen and colleagues found that subtle brainwaves detectable with EEG are the strongest predictor of hidden consciousness and eventual recovery for patients with brain injuries.

Many Patients With Hidden Consciousness Remain Undiagnosed.

For the latest study, the scientists used EEG to examine 107 unresponsive patients with acute brain injury. Almost half of the patients appeared comatose, while one quarter were in a vegetative state—i.e. their eyes were open but they could not follow commands.

The remaining patents were in a minimally conscious state—meaning they could track an examiner with their eyes or look at them but were not able to follow any commands.

Using the EEG, scientists can identify when patients are trying, but are unable, to respond to a command such as "keep opening and closing your right hand."

This method detected CMD in 21 of the patients. The scientists then analyzed structural MRI brains scans from all the patients.

Using a special analysis technique, the team were able to identify patterns of brain injury that the patients with CMD shared and contrast those to the individuals who did not display signs of hidden consciousness.

The researchers found that all of the CMD patients had intact brain structures related to arousal and command comprehension. This supports the idea that they were able to hear and understand the verbal commands.

But they also found that the CMD patients had damage to brain regions responsible for integrating and carrying out motor commands, which is why they were unable to take action.

"Our study suggests that patients with hidden consciousness can hear and comprehend verbal commands, but they cannot carry out those commands because of injuries in brain circuits that relay instructions from the brain to the muscles," Claassen said in the statement.

The findings could lead to more frequent and earlier diagnosis of CMD. This, in turn, could help better predict which brain-injured individuals are more likely to recover with rehabilitation, according to the scientists.

More research is required before the approaches documented in the study can be applied to clinical practice. But the latest study shows that it may be possible to screen for CMD using widely available structural brain-imaging techniques.

Due to the technical complexity of CMD detection, at this time it is only available in a few academic centers. As a result, the vast majority of patients with hidden consciousness in the United States and around the world remain undiagnosed.

"Not every critical care unit may have resources and staff that is trained in using EEG to detect hidden consciousness, so MRI may offer a simple way to identify patients who require further screening and diagnosis," Claassen said in the statement.

Exploiting gaps in cloud infrastructure that are leaving endpoints, identities and microservices exposed is a quick way for an attacker to steal credentials and infect an enterprise’s DevOps process. Attacks to exploit such gaps are skyrocketing. 

The recent 2023 Thales Cloud Security Study provides hard numbers: 39% of enterprises have been hit with a data breach starting in their cloud infrastructure this year alone. A total of 75% of enterprises say that more than 40% of the data they store in the cloud is sensitive. Less than half of that data is encrypted. 

CrowdStrike’s 2023 Global Threat Report explains why cloud-first attacks are growing: Attackers are moving away from deactivating antivirus, firewall technologies and log-tampering efforts and toward modifying core authentication processes, along with quickly gaining credentials and identity-based privileges. 

The attackers’ goal is to steal as many identities and privileged access credentials as possible so they can become access brokers — selling stolen identity information in bulk at high prices on the dark web. Access brokers and the brokerages they’re creating often turn into lucrative, fast-growing illegal businesses. CrowdStrike’s report found more than 2,500 advertisements for access brokers offering stolen credentials and identities for sale. 

What’s driving CNAPP adoption  

Consolidating tech stacks continues to dominate CISOs’ plans, driven by the need to Improve efficacy, manage a more diverse multicloud security posture, close gaps between cloud apps and shift security left in DevOps pipelines. All these factors are contributing to the growing adoption of cloud-native application protection platforms (CNAPP). 

“CNAPPs are formed from the convergence of cloud security posture management (CSPM) and cloud workload protection platform (CWPP) capabilities as well as other security tooling like entitlement management, API controls and Kubernetes posture control,” reads Gartner’s 2023 Planning Guide for Security. 

Leading CNAPP vendors are competing in various areas, the most important of which include the efficacy of their cloud infrastructure entitlement management (CIEM), Kubernetes security, API controls and cloud detection and response (CDR), according to CISOs VentureBeat spoke with. Demand for CNAPP is greatest in larger enterprises from highly regulated industries that rely on extensive multicloud configurations. Finance, government and healthcare providers are among the most dominant industries.  

CISOs tell VentureBeat that one of the most practical benefits of CNAPPs is the opportunity to consolidate legacy tools with limited visibility across all threat surfaces and endpoints. The takeaway? Reducing tool sprawl is a quick win. 

Benchmarking the top 20 CNAPP platforms for 2023 

Full-platform CNAPP vendors provide integrated cloud-native security platforms ranging from DevOps to production environments. Here are the top 20 platforms of 2023: 

Aqua Security: Highly regarded for its approach of scanning container registries and images, CSPM and runtime protection for container and cloud-native security. Also has full life cycle protection and advanced runtime techniques, including support for the extended Berkeley Packet Filter (eBPF).

Check Point: Provides a broad set of capabilities through its CloudGuard platform, including CSPM, CIEM and advanced runtime protection. Known for securing cloud workloads across environments with identity-centric access controls, as well as threat intelligence integration to provide real-time contextual prioritization of risks.  

Cisco: Recently acquired Lightspin for its Kubernetes security capabilities and CSPM. Its Tetration platform focuses on runtime protection, leveraging eBPF and third-party insights for advanced container monitoring and granular controls. Cisco emphasizes behavioral analytics to detect anomalies and threats in container environments and provides strong controls to limit lateral movement between workloads.

CrowdStrike: Offers a leading CNAPP suite emphasizing identity-centric visibility, least-privilege enforcement and continuous monitoring. Its runtime protection leverages agents and eBPF for workload security. CrowdStrike’s key design goals included enforcing least-privileged access to clouds and providing continuous detection and remediation of identity threats. 

Cybereason: Platform focuses heavily on malicious behavior detection. A core strength is its ability to detect threats using behavior-based techniques. The company is also known for API integrations, AI and machine learning (ML) expertise. Cybereason specializes in detecting compromised accounts and insider threats via detailed user activity monitoring. 

Juniper Networks: Collects extensive data on device posture and traffic patterns to provide networking context for security insights. Also enables segmentation controls between Juniper devices.

Lacework: Focused on workload behavior analysis for containers and runtime techniques such as eBPF to gain a comprehensive insight into container activity and performance. Its emphasis on detecting anomalies using advanced ML algorithms that are custom-tuned for containerized environments is a key differentiator.

Microsoft: Integrates security across Azure services with zero-trust controls, enforces least-privileged access and provides workload protections such as antivirus and firewalls. Uses Microsoft Graph to correlate security analytics and events across Azure.

Orca Security: Performs continuous authorization checks on identities and entitlements across cloud environments. A key differentiator is the ability to generate detailed interactive maps that visualize relationships between cloud assets, users, roles and permissions. 

Palo Alto Networks Prisma Cloud: Provides a broad suite of capabilities, including identity-based microsegmentation and robust runtime protection with eBPF. Prisma Cloud is an industry leader known for advanced protections such as deception technique and includes extensive compliance automation and DevSecOps integrations. 

Qualys: Focuses on compliance and vulnerability management through continuous scanning and least-privilege controls. Identifies vulnerabilities throughout the life cycle and enables automated patching and remediation workflows. Another key differentiator is compliance mapping and reporting.

Rapid7: Enforces least privilege access and enables automated response and remediation triggered by events. Offers pre configured policies and streamlined workflows designed for small security teams. An intuitive user interface and rapid implementation aim to simplify deployment and usability for organizations with limited security resources.

Sonrai Security: Focuses on entitlement management and identity-based security using graph database technology to discover and map user identities across cloud environments. User identity, geolocation and other contextual factors can define custom access controls.

Sophos: Focuses on data security, compliance and threat monitoring capabilities and offers advanced data loss prevention such as file fingerprinting and optical character recognition. Cloud environments also have anti-ransomware protections. 

Sysdig: Centered on runtime security and advanced behavioral monitoring. For container-level visibility and anomaly detection, the platform uses embedded agents. Sysdig Secure Advisor includes an integrated security assistant to help SecOps and IT teams create policies faster.

Tenable: Focused on compliance, entitlement management and identity governance. Offers comprehensive compliance automation mapped to PCI, HIPAA and ISO regulations. Also provides differentiated identity and compliance management through advanced capabilities to enforce least privilege and certify access.

Trend Micro: Includes runtime security, compliance and threat monitoring, enforces policies and protects cloud environments from file- and email-based threats. Custom sandboxing for suspicious file analysis is also included.

Uptycs: Differentiates itself by combining CNAPP capabilities with extended detection and response (EDR) capabilities. Employs data lake techniques to store and correlate security telemetry across cloud and container workloads. Threats are identified using behavioral analytics, and automated response workflows allow for rapid remediation. 

Wiz: Centered on continuous access controls, micro segmentation and identity-based adaptive security. Automatically discovers and visualizes relationships between cloud assets, users and permissions. Wiz also conducts risk analysis to identify potential attack paths and stands out with its specialized visualization, identity management and micro-segmentation.

Zscaler: Posture Control prioritizes risks caused by misconfigurations, threats and vulnerabilities. Completely agentless and correlates data from multiple security engines.

Why CNAPP will succeed as a consolidation catalyst 

CNAPPs are gaining popularity as CISOs look to consolidate and strengthen their security technology stacks. Platforms can provide integrated security across the development lifecycle and cloud environments by combining capabilities including cloud workload protection, container security and CIEM.

CNAPP adoption will continue accelerating in highly regulated industries including finance, government and healthcare. CISOs in these industries are under pressure to consolidate tech stacks, Improve compliance and secure complex cloud infrastructure simultaneously. Because they provide a unified platform that meets multiple security and compliance requirements, CNAPPs are proving to be an effective consolidation catalyst.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO) has had a great run on the share market with its stock up by a significant 10% over the last three months. We wonder if and what role the company's financials play in that price change as a company's long-term fundamentals usually dictate market outcomes. Specifically, we decided to study Cisco Systems' ROE in this article.

Return on equity or ROE is a key measure used to assess how efficiently a company's management is utilizing the company's capital. Put another way, it reveals the company's success at turning shareholder investments into profits.

Check out our latest analysis for Cisco Systems

How To Calculate Return On Equity?

The formula for ROE is:

Return on Equity = Net Profit (from continuing operations) ÷ Shareholders' Equity

So, based on the above formula, the ROE for Cisco Systems is:

27% = US$11b ÷ US$42b (Based on the trailing twelve months to April 2023).

The 'return' is the profit over the last twelve months. That means that for every $1 worth of shareholders' equity, the company generated $0.27 in profit.

What Is The Relationship Between ROE And Earnings Growth?

So far, we've learned that ROE is a measure of a company's profitability. We now need to evaluate how much profit the company reinvests or "retains" for future growth which then gives us an idea about the growth potential of the company. Assuming all else is equal, companies that have both a higher return on equity and higher profit retention are usually the ones that have a higher growth rate when compared to companies that don't have the same features.

A Side By Side comparison of Cisco Systems' Earnings Growth And 27% ROE

First thing first, we like that Cisco Systems has an impressive ROE. Second, a comparison with the average ROE reported by the industry of 11% also doesn't go unnoticed by us. Probably as a result of this, Cisco Systems was able to see a decent net income growth of 15% over the last five years.

Story continues

Next, on comparing with the industry net income growth, we found that Cisco Systems' reported growth was lower than the industry growth of 37% over the last few years, which is not something we like to see.

The basis for attaching value to a company is, to a great extent, tied to its earnings growth. What investors need to determine next is if the expected earnings growth, or the lack of it, is already built into the share price. By doing so, they will have an idea if the stock is headed into clear blue waters or if swampy waters await. What is CSCO worth today? The intrinsic value infographic in our free research report helps visualize whether CSCO is currently mispriced by the market.

Is Cisco Systems Efficiently Re-investing Its Profits?

While Cisco Systems has a three-year median payout ratio of 55% (which means it retains 45% of profits), the company has still seen a fair bit of earnings growth in the past, meaning that its high payout ratio hasn't hampered its ability to grow.

Additionally, Cisco Systems has paid dividends over a period of at least ten years which means that the company is pretty serious about sharing its profits with shareholders. Our latest analyst data shows that the future payout ratio of the company is expected to drop to 39% over the next three years. As a result, the expected drop in Cisco Systems' payout ratio explains the anticipated rise in the company's future ROE to 33%, over the same period.

Conclusion

On the whole, we do feel that Cisco Systems has some positive attributes. Its earnings growth is decent, and the high ROE does contribute to that growth. However, investors could have benefitted even more from the high ROE, had the company been reinvesting more of its earnings. With that said, the latest industry analyst forecasts reveal that the company's earnings growth is expected to slow down. Are these analysts expectations based on the broad expectations for the industry, or on the company's fundamentals? Click here to be taken to our analyst's forecasts page for the company.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.

This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.

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They say that there's no sense in crying over spilled milk. But what do they know? Crying can get you another glass of milk if you do it loud enough. Plus, crying may serve a real physiologic purpose, according to a study published recently in Emotion, meaning the journal and not in an Emo-kind of way.

For the study, three researchers from the University of Queensland (Leah S. Sharman, Genevieve A. Dingle, and Eric J. Vanman) and one from Tilberg University (Ad J. J. M. Vingerhoets) recruited 197 female undergraduate students. They said that they choose all women rather than including men because pilot testing of sad videos had revealed that more women than men cried or at least more women revealed that they were crying. This did not account for the men who cried inside or used some bro-language or high fives to hide the crying.

The research team then showed each of the study participants either a video that are supposed to make them feel sad (sad videos) or a video that was not supposed to elicit any emotion (neutral videos) like something from a documentary or a ted talk. Each video lasted for close to 18 minutes. After the video, the researchers noted whether or not each participant had cried while watching the video. Ultimately, 65 participants watched the neutral video, 71 watched the sad video and cried during it, and 61 watched the sad video and did not cry. Presumably, no one cried during the neutral video. But then again, actor Bryce Dallas Howard was able to cry when Conan O'Brien talked about Home Depot in this Conan clip:

Then, each participant underwent a Cold Pressor Stress Test (CPT), which involved placing the participant's left hand, up to the wrist, in cold 0° to 5°C water. Unless you are the Iceman or Killer Frost, this is supposed to be painful. The research team measured how long each participant could stay in this position until pulling her hand out of the water. During the study, the research team continuously measured each participant's heart rate and respiratory rate and periodically measured cortisol levels from saliva samples. Cortisol is a stress-hormone that's produced by the body.

Also, at four points during the study, participants answered questions from the Positive and Negative Affect Scale short form (PANAS). These questions asked the degree to which the participant was experiencing ten different emotions and to rank each on a five-point scale that ranged from a one (very slightly or not at all) to a five (extremely).

When it came to cortisol levels and how long the participants could keep their hands submerged in the cold water, the study ended up finding not much difference between the neutral video watchers, the sad video non-criers, and the sad video criers. So if you are about to dunk yourself in cold water or take a cold shower, it may not help to cry first.

But here's a difference that the study found. Are you ready? Take a deep breath. The difference was breathing rates. While watching the videos, the non-criers tended to have elevations in their breathing rates, whereas, by contrast, the criers tended to maintain their initial breathing rates. In other words, tearing up could have helped participants better control their breathing rates. This provides further evidence that crying may help you better regulate arousal, serving as an emotional release.

Another interesting finding was that right before crying, participants tended to experience decreases in their heart rates, seemingly in anticipation of the crying. Once the crying began, their heart rates then tended to creep back up but not above where their heart rates had been before everything began. This may be further evidence that crying has a beneficial regulatory effect on your physiology.

So perhaps next time you start crying you can tell people that you are regulating your physiology. You've probably heard of people saying that they had a good cry and feel better after they've let the tears flow. It can be important to find reasonable ways to periodically release your emotions. Otherwise, you may end up bottling everything up like a hot air balloon that can explode when you least expect it.

Moreover, crying can be a way of communicating. It's really the only way that babies can express their needs before they learn how to say things like "why you throwing shade on me," or "I'm not Gucci." Crying can help communicate to others that you need more sympathy, comfort, or help. Of course, this can be misused. You don't want to cry every time your order at a restaurant doesn't come out right. And of course, there is the whole concept of crocodile tears: people crying to get something when they don't really mean it.

Crying can also be a way of communicating with yourself. Even when you cry alone, you may be telling yourself about your own state because, like many people, you could be terrible at studying your own emotions and situation. Tears could be your body's way of saying, "hey, take a break," or "something's not right," or "take care of yourself." Tearing up can then be a way of your body literally crying out to you.

Your body is a complex system. Crying can be complex. Your tears can flow when you are very sad, very angry, or even very happy. Better understanding what causes us to cry and what happens as a result could help us better handle our emotions and stress.

Hybrid working practices in UAE companies have improved several areas of employee performance, according to the findings of the new Cisco Hybrid Work Report.

The survey polled 1,050 employees throughout the UAE and discovered that almost 90 percent of those questioned want to work either in a hybrid or fully remote model in the future. These findings are fully in line with global sentiment with just over 91 percent of international respondents agreeing to the same question.

The findings are from the Cisco Hybrid Work Report, an extensive study which has examined the impact of digitization and hybrid work on performance with a focus on productivity, quality of work, new skills and growth. It is part of a wide-ranging survey that focused on the role of the hybrid workplace on wellbeing and readiness across a variety of company and individual factors such as company culture; technology; and cybersecurity as well as financial; physical; mental well-being and more.

Reem Asaad, Vice President, Cisco Middle East and Africa, said: “The traditional model that required employees to follow a strict timetable set out by employers has now changed. In today’s UAE workplace, employees are defining hybrid work and that has resulted in benefits for both employer and employees. As the findings of the Cisco Hybrid Work Report clearly show, employees are far more comfortable as a hybrid workforce and companies should take note and adapt accordingly – both from a technology and cultural readiness perspective. After all, they will be the ones to benefit through higher staff performance.”

Those questioned for the study said hybrid and remote working practices had a positive impact on the quality of their work and productivity. In all, 67 percent of those polled said the quality of their work has improved due to the hybrid workplace model. Almost two-thirds of respondents said their productivity levels had risen. The greater flexibility offered by hybrid working is enabling employees to get better at their jobs too. 68 percent replied that they saw greater self-improvement in job knowledge and skills. Meanwhile, an impressive 86 percent said they have been able to learn, grow and succeed in their roles.

Despite the initial challenges for businesses and employees in the UAE and across the world when organizations had to rapidly switch to remote working at the outbreak of the pandemic, several digital workspace and collaboration solutions are now in place. It is therefore unsurprising that almost 79 percent of the employees questioned said their role can now be performed just as successfully remotely as in the office.

The Hybrid work concept centers the work experience on the needs of the individual employees, giving them a choice to work from home, at the office, or elsewhere. Companies that empower their workers by giving them not only the choice, but also the right technologies to stay securely connected and be able to collaborate, can help to foster inclusiveness, engagement, and a sense of well-being among staff. Cisco’s philosophy is that work is “what up do” not “where you go”.

As a result, it has implemented many practices aimed at supporting the company’s own employees to work remotely. This provides Cisco with extensive experience in deploying its extensive range of networking, security and collaboration solutions and workplace strategies to help other organizations to fully realize the potential of remote and hybrid working.

Puzzles, chess and writing journals may be more than pure amusements to pass the time. These brain activities could help reduce the risk of dementia. 

According to a recent study in JAMA Network Open, activities related to adult literacy, such as taking classes, using a computer or writing journals, as well as active mental tasks like games, cards, or crossword puzzles, were related to a reduced dementia risk over 10 years.

Osano, an Austin, Texas-based startup developing a platform to help companies manage their data privacy, today announced that it raised $25 million in a Series B funding round led by Baird Capital with First Ascent Ventures, Jump Capital, LiveOak, NextCoast and TDF.

In an interview with TechCrunch, CEO Arlo Gilbert said that the cash will be put toward expanding Osano's engineering, product development and sales departments, investing more in R&D and building a channel program.

"All of this will help serve Osano’s goals of expanding its product suite, continuing to service its customers’ needs and maintaining its high customer service satisfaction," Gilbert told me via email. "With this funding, Osano will scale the team to deliver on the company’s mission and goal of simplifying privacy compliance for its customers as they continue to grow in their privacy program maturity -- and becoming the leading data privacy platform."

In light of high-profile hacks and data breaches, as well as regulations like GDPR and the California Consumer Privacy Act, privacy awareness and investment continues to grow among organizations. The risk's certainly growing. Companies are now spending an average of $11.45 million per year in remediation costs related to insider data breaches, per Proofpoint. And among organizations who must comply with the GDPR, 38% reported a breach in 2019 -- compared to just 16% in 2018.

It's not surprising, then, that 40% of organizations plan to invest in additional security service spending, according to a 2020 Gartner survey. It'll likely be well worth it. In its Data Privacy Benchmark study, Cisco found that more than 40% of organizations are seeing benefits at least twice that of their privacy spend.

Osano aims to be companies' go-to solution for privacy management.

Gilbert co-founded Osano in 2018 with Scott Hertel, inspired by Gilbert's observation that organizations were misunderstanding data privacy. From inception, Osano offered products dedicated to data privacy, but later grew into a platform and suite of products to build, automate and scale their privacy programs.

"Osano is a data privacy platform helping organizations build, manage and scale their privacy programs from the ground up," Gilbert explained. "Osano's global team of privacy experts continuously monitors the privacy landscape, from new laws to data protection authority rulings, to ensure the platform is always up-to-date."

Osano can be integrated with any website, Android app or iOS app to add data controls. The platform, which uses AI to help firms locate and classify the storage of protected information among their various data stores, offers an array of privacy-centered data management tools, including tools for cookie consent (the act of giving users the choice of whether to allow data-collecting cookies) and subject rights (rights granted to users in relation to personal data or information processed about them).

Osano also provides a dedicated team of attorneys via its "regulatory guidance" feature. Customers get an updated database of key laws, the reasons why they matter and what their response should be in order to stay compliant.

In addition, organizations using Osano are granted access to a framework and guide designed to Improve their privacy comprehension, as well as identify gaps and -- with any luck -- elevate their privacy programs.

"Unlike others in the industry, Osano has built its own products and is concentrated only on privacy," Gilbert said. "Privacy regulations are complex and constantly evolving. Keeping pace with the latest regulatory developments can be a challenge and takes an immense amount of specialized expertise and effort -- which Osano delivers."

Gilbert claims that Osano, which has raised a total of $44.4 million in capital to date, has more than 40,000 users on the platform and is delivering over 1 billion cookie consent banners every month. He credits the startup's laser focus on privacy with its success.

"In our market, we go head to head with competitors that commit to providing enterprise data privacy software solutions -- such as DataGrail and Securiti," Gilbert said. "While some in the space have built their platform offerings through acquisition or bled into other industries like security and environmental, social and governance, Osano has committed to data privacy; we don’t stray beyond our expertise. And we're an industry-agnostic solution, serving many different industries, including, but not limited to, financial services, e-commerce, healthcare, media, retail and consumer-packaged goods."

One thing's for sure: Osano occupies a large and growing market. Markets and Markets estimates that the privacy management software segment will grow from $2.7 million in 2023 to $15.2 billion by 2028, an impressive climb within the span of just a few years. No doubt, newly enacted privacy laws -- and increasing consumer awareness of those new laws -- is at least partially to thank.