60 INTERVIEW Enterprise-level security for all businesses Chris Bisnett shares how Huntress is protecting Microsoft environments, addressing new threats, and supporting both outsourced and in-house security teams BY ALICE CHAMBERS The Huntress 2025 Cyber Threat Report reveals a surge in sophisticated cyberattacks on businesses of all sizes and industries in 2024. Committed to defending organisations without enterprise budgets, cybersecurity firm Huntress helps all businesses secure their Microsoft environments, combat emerging threats like session theft and complement in-house security teams. Chris Bisnett, chief technology officer and co-founder of Huntress, explains how. What is Huntress’s mission and primary goal? We started in 2015 with three founders doing government contracts, but competing with big companies led us to ask: ‘Who are they not selling to, and why?’. Talking to businesses outside of large enterprises, we found that implementing cybersecurity measures was too expensive for them – not just buying and deploying the tools but also developing the expertise to manage them. That led us to an underserved market: businesses below the Fortune 500 that struggle to afford cybersecurity tools or hire experts yet remain prime targets for attacks. For these businesses, cybersecurity isn’t a priority; it’s a burden. A restaurant owner, for example, is focused on taxes, not security. So, we built solutions tailored to their needs, helping them move above the cybersecurity poverty line. How are you managing and protecting Microsoft environments? We protect endpoints with our endpoint detection and response agent and collect logs into our security information and event management product to detect malicious activity. Over the past five years, we’ve focused on securing Microsoft 365 as more businesses migrate from on-premises solutions to the cloud. This shift removes traditional network firewalls, making security more complex. When files are accessible from anywhere, strong controls like multifactor authentication and conditional access are essential. We help businesses implement these measures to secure their workloads. Why is session theft a growing concern for cloud security, and how do you detect and respond to these breaches? We focus on detecting and responding to security breaches. When attackers steal active sessions, often through phishing, they can access cloud data in Microsoft 365 and OneDrive without passwords. Instead of giving them time to exploit this, we alert customers immediately, shut down compromised sessions and force password resets to prevent further damage. If a company already has a security operations centre team, how does Huntress add value to their security strategy? We’re often asked, ‘if we use Huntress, what happens to our security team?’. My response is
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