OPSWAT founder urges prevention-first cyber defence

OPSWAT founder and chief executive Benny Czarny has published a book arguing that organisations should rethink their cybersecurity strategies. It makes the case for a prevention-first approach to defending systems.

In Cybersecurity Upside Down, Czarny argues that many security teams remain too reliant on detecting threats after they have already entered networks and devices. He contends that this model is no longer keeping pace with the volume and speed of modern attacks, particularly as artificial intelligence makes it easier for attackers to generate new threats.

The book, Czarny's first, draws on more than two decades in the cybersecurity industry. Its central proposition is simple: organisations should treat every file entering their systems as untrusted until it has been verified as safe.

Prevention first

This puts Czarny at odds with what he describes as the industry's long-standing reliance on antivirus products and other detection-led tools. In his view, those products leave defenders stuck in a cycle of identifying and responding to threats only after they have crossed the perimeter.

Instead, he advocates Deep Content Disarm and Reconstruction, or Deep CDR, which sanitises files by rebuilding safe versions before they enter a system. The approach assumes incoming content may be malicious and aims to remove the risk before any user opens the file.

The book arrives as companies and public bodies reassess how they protect critical systems, data and supply chains. Ransomware, software vulnerabilities and phishing campaigns have pushed boards and policymakers to ask whether conventional security spending is reducing exposure or merely containing the damage after an intrusion.

Artificial intelligence has added a new dimension to that debate. Security vendors and corporate buyers have invested heavily in AI-based tools to improve detection, but attackers are also using the technology to create more convincing lures, automate code generation and vary malicious files quickly enough to blunt the effectiveness of signatures and pattern-matching systems.

Czarny addresses that issue directly in the book.

"For years the cybersecurity industry tried to achieve prevention through detection which worked for a time. But that model is broken. Attackers can now generate new threats faster than we can detect them, and AI is accelerating the problem," said Benny Czarny, Founder and CEO, OPSWAT.

His argument is aimed not only at chief information security officers and technical teams, but also at business leaders and government decision-makers. He calls for cybersecurity standards and national programmes to place greater emphasis on prevention-based controls.

Industry debate

The wider cybersecurity market has long been shaped by a mix of preventive, detective and responsive tools. Firewalls, endpoint software, email filters and network monitoring systems often work in tandem, with buyers building layered defences rather than relying on a single method. As a result, Czarny's critique enters an established debate over where resources should be focused and whether newer attack techniques have tipped the balance away from detection-led models.

OPSWAT has built much of its business around protecting critical infrastructure and securing the movement of files and data between systems. The company has promoted file sanitisation technologies for years, and the book reflects that background by presenting prevention not as an adjunct to detection, but as the starting point for cyber defence.

Alongside its technical arguments, Cybersecurity Upside Down includes Czarny's account of building OPSWAT from a startup into an international cybersecurity company. It also uses visual elements and illustrations by artist Serge Seidlitz to explain ideas often discussed in specialist terms.

The book explains how file regeneration works, how Czarny believes it differs from other security products, and why he sees both signature-based tools and AI-driven detection as unable to keep pace with present-day threats. It therefore sits within a growing strand of industry thinking that seeks to limit exposure before code, documents or data are allowed to interact with core systems.

Czarny says the book is intended to challenge assumptions that have become embedded in security strategy over many years.

"This book is my personal reflection on why there is an urgent need for a fundamental reset on tackling cyber threats. The message is simple: it is time to reverse the detection-based models we have relied on and think prevention first," said Czarny.