Jason Whyte steps into Cythera MD role to lead local expansion

The cybersecurity services provider is sharpening its focus on data sovereignty and local expertise.

Local cybersecurity firm Cythera has appointed Jason Whyte as managing director for Australia, with a remit to expand the business on the local scene.

With stints at Trustwave, Verizon and Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Whyte brings more than 25 years experience in the cybersecurity industry.

Whyte told CRN Australia he believes it’s a “pivotal time for the sector” as organisations increasingly need comprehensive security solutions delivered with local experience.

His mission is to help organisations “stay resilient against the rising tide of sophisticated threats while keeping their data sovereign”.

However, Australian organisations are under-served with many existing cybersecurity services. In particular, data sovereignty and jurisdictional control are insufficient, according to Whyte.

“Many rely on MSSPs where telemetry and response data may flow offshore, raising concerns around sovereignty, access and storage of that data,” he said.

Furthermore, he noted there’s an over-reliance on automated detection, which can miss “sophisticated, low-and-slow attacks, zero-day and adversary living-off-the-land techniques”.

Whyte is also pitching Cythera as a service tailored to the market with a strong human element — something that’s lacking in existing offerings.

“Organisations regularly struggle to get proactive threat hunting, custom integrations and executive-level insights without large in-house teams,” he added.

With Cythera, telemetry is handled by local analysts, and security operations align with local regulations and reporting obligations and frameworks such as Essential Eight.

The business is seeing strong demand across all sectors for its sovereign, human-led model as organisations value an Australian partner who ‘gets’ their environment.

“[We] understand the market requirement with Australian-specific context and provide genuine hands-on support rather than only dashboards and alerts,” he told CRN Australia.

“We’re also seeing traction with organisations frustrated by global providers’ rigid playbooks that are not specific to Australian business and have slower than expected points of escalation on incidents,” he added.

In this role, Whyte will also oversee the integration of Seamless Intelligence’s managed services and Phronesis Security consulting services into the Cythera business, with growth on the agenda.

To do so, however, the business will be competing with other providers for skilled employees at a time when there’s a skills gap that includes cybersecurity and digital services.

“Having a strong talent pool is vital to be able to deliver scalable solutions that have a strong value proposition,” he ended.