SailPoint Technologies is riding a wave of interest in cybersecurity. The company priced its initial public offering at the NYSE at $12, well above the price talk of $9 to $11, and opened Friday at $14.90, up over 20 percent.
I spoke with CEO Mark McClain about how SailPoint fits in to the cybersecurity space. Their part of the equation is identity and access management. Simply put, they track users on networks.
McClain points out that many cybersecurity breaches have happened because individuals gained access to corporate networks with stolen passwords or because authorized employees on a network engaged in unauthorized activities.
McClain notes that SailPoint is focused on who has access to a corporate network and who should have access.
Using artificial intelligence, the company is also beginning to focus on a third issue, whether authorized users are using their access appropriately. This would allow them to see if users were attempting to access parts of the network they are not authorized to access.
McClain also addresses cybersecurity since the Equifax breach. The good news: corporate America has greatly elevated cybersecurity as a high-priority issue. The bad news: there is still a long way to go, and there still are no gold-plated assurances that a company cannot get hacked no matter how much effort is made.