Norse Corp disappears shortly after CEO is asked to step down

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Over the weekend, Norse Corp, a company that was one placed towards the top of any threat intelligence vendor list, went dark.

 

On Saturday, investigative journalist Brian Krebs, citing sources familiar with the situation, said that Norse Corp CEO, Sam Glines, was asked to step down by the board of directors. The same sources told Krebs that employees were told that they could report to work on Monday, but that there was no guarantee they'd be paid for their work.

 

Less than a day after Krebs published his article, Norse Corp's website was offline, and attempts to email the company failed. The ever-popular Norse attack map was online for some of the weekend, but that too had gone dark by Sunday evening.

 

Speaking to Krebs, his sources said that Norse Corp assets would be merged with Solarflare. Emails to Solarflare seeking comment were not returned by the time this story went to publication.

 

Norse Corp was once a media darling, heavily cited for their reports on Iran last year, and prior to that, the company gained international headlines for their research into the Sony Pictures hack.

 

However, each time Norse Corp grabbed media attention, they were met with brutal backlash form the security community, and the common charge was that their assumptions and supporting data were flawed.

 

In the aftermath of Norse Corp's disappearance, the topic of flawed data and assumptions has once again resurfaced in a blog post written by ICS expert, Robert M. Lee.

 

The latest developments at Norse Corp follow a round of layoffs at the start of the New Year, and Krebs' story digs further into the situation by adding that nothing so far should have come as a surprise:

 

"A careful review of previous ventures launched by the company’s founders reveals a pattern of failed businesses, reverse mergers, shell companies and product promises that missed the mark by miles."

 

Adding to this, Krebs spoke to a senior data scientist at Norse Corp, Mary Landesman, who said the data used by the company isn't great, adding that it's "pretty much the same thing as if you looked at Web server logs that had automated crawlers and scanning tools hitting it constantly."

 

"But if you know how to look at it and bring in a bunch of third-party data and tools, the data is not without its merits, if not just based on the sheer size of it."

 

Read the rest: http://www.csoonline.com/article/3028104/techology-business/norse-corp-disappears-shortly-ceo-is-asked-to-step-down.html