OPSWAT Founder Benny Czarny Challenges Industry to Rethink Cybersecurity in New Book: "Cybersecurity Upside Down"

OPSWAT founder and CEO Benny Czarny released his first book, “Cybersecurity Upside Down,” which argues that organizations should reconsider how they handle files entering their systems. The work frames cybersecurity strategy around preventing malicious content from being trusted until verification occurs, rather than relying on detection after activity starts.

The release ties its argument to a security model where many modern cyberattacks succeed when strategies concentrate on detecting threats after they enter a system. It also describes faster threat evolution as a factor that strains traditional detection tools, with Artificial Intelligence (AI) cited as adding to the challenge. The author also calls for governments and policymakers to revisit cybersecurity standards and national initiatives with prevention-based controls.

Czarny said the book challenges reliance on antivirus and similar tools, describing a continuous “vicious cycle” in which detection cannot be perfect. Instead, he advocates Deep Content Disarm and Reconstruction (Deep CDR™) technology as a prevention approach that assumes files may be malicious and automatically rebuilds safe versions before they enter systems.

The book includes a set of topics that cover breaking the “detect and respond” model through prevention via file regeneration, how CDR works and how it compares to other cybersecurity solutions, and why signature-based and AI-driven detection tools cannot keep pace with modern cyber threats. Czarny also discussed personal insights and credited his career path at OPSWAT, alongside a collaboration that included illustrations by artist Serge Seidlitz. “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.” “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.”