Westcon-Comstor extends Proofpoint partnership to new European markets

Westcon-Comstor has expanded its partnership with Proofpoint, a leading cybersecurity and compliance company, into additional European markets.

The expansion will see Westcon distribute Proofpoint’s award-winning, human-centric security solutions to channel partners in Germany, Spain, and Portugal.

With distribution agreements already in place in France, Belgium, Netherlands, Nordics, Italy, Greece and the UK, the addition of the three new markets represents the latest stage in a phased rollout of the Westcon and Proofpoint partnership across Europe. Further expansion of the partnership is also expected in the future.

Proofpoint recently became the only evaluated vendor to be recognised with a Customers' Choice distinction in the 2024 Gartner® Peer Insights™ Voice of the Customer for Data Loss Prevention. This followed the publication of Proofpoint’s 2024 Data Loss Landscape report, which found that people are the root cause of most data loss incidents, with more than 70% of respondents identifying careless users as a cause of their data loss.

Meanwhile, Proofpoint’s 2024 Voice of the CISO report surveyed 1,600 Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) globally and found that 70% believe their organisation is at risk of a significant cyber-attack within the next year, with human error remaining a major vulnerability and AI presenting both opportunities and challenges.

It is against this backdrop that the company recently unveiled two industry-first innovations designed to redefine email security with the most comprehensive and effective end-to-end email protection across the entire email delivery chain. Proofpoint’s enhanced core email security packages now include what it calls the industry’s first and only pre-delivery defence against both social engineering threats and malicious links, while new adaptive email security capabilities offer a fully integrated layer of behavioural AI-based defence post-delivery to stop targeted threats.

Securing Proofpoint distribution rights in Germany, Spain, and Portugal will enable Westcon to provide Proofpoint’s industry-leading, expert security solutions to channel partners in these markets, ultimately protecting a wider population of organisations and their people against advanced email threats and related compliance risks.

Proofpoint is also one of 14 vendors participating in Westcon’s 3D Lab, which allows multi-vendor cybersecurity solutions to be tested against specific use cases in a dynamic virtual demo environment.

“We are thrilled to be taking our winning partnership with Proofpoint to new markets within Europe,” said Daniel Hurel, Senior Vice President, Westcon EMEA Cybersecurity & Next-Generation Solutions at Westcon-Comstor. “Proofpoint is a technology alliance partner of Palo Alto Networks, CrowdStrike and Zscaler, and as such is becoming a key player in our zero trust and cloud security strategy. Expanding our relationship into Germany, Spain and Portugal will enable partners in these countries to offer their customers a unique solution that spans network, endpoint security, cloud, email, and social media attack vectors via an integrated, multi-layered protection with shared threat intelligence, ultimately reducing the attack surface.”

“Email remains the number one threat vector and cybercriminals consistently use social engineering attacks to target organisation’s employees and trick them into falling victim to attacks,” said Kent Breaux, Senior Vice President, EMEA at Proofpoint. “Proofpoint is one of the first companies to integrate a human-centric view into its security platform to easily identify vulnerable users and create a tailored security approach to best protect each individual employee, across multiple cloud platforms. This extended collaboration with Westcon delivers first-class cybersecurity protection that meets the needs of all organisations facing today’s fast-evolving threat landscape and further enforces Proofpoint’s commitment to its channel business in the DACH and Iberia markets.”