NSS Labs relaunched with a new ownership structure and leadership, seeing a return for the security testing firm after its dissolution in 2020.

Founder Vikram Phatak returns as CEO for what’s being dubbed as NSS Labs 2.0, with the firm announcing it is now “wholly owned and operated by its senior partners and executive team.”

That team continues a crossover with CyberRatings.org, where NSS Labs has been named the official testing partner as part of its return to operations.

Since 2022, the non-profit, which publishes public test results and research on cybersecurity tech, has offered The NSS Labs archive, a library of material from NSS's operations prior to its dissolution.

Additionally, Cathy Main joins NSS as chief marketing and communications officer whilst continuing in the role of president at CyberRatings.org.

With its return, NSS Labs says it is tailoring confidential, data-driven testing services to enterprises, security vendors and service providers.

Intuitive interfaces are offered for real-time comparison and product performance insights, alongside an expansion of its testing portfolio with AI and machine learning powered tools, alongside post-quantum cryptography.

These will be offered alongside the standard protection for firewalls and SD-WAN, while reflecting the current state of play in security for networking managers. Since its 2020 exit, AI has overtaken the landscape, with customers invested in AI integration.

In a recent piece, SDxCentral was told cybersecurity use cases have become more mature and beyond automation – but accuracy remains a concern, as dependent on use of the right data and managing false positives.

This environment provides possible new testing opportunities for NSS Labs, with customers looking to justify their spend. According to McKinsey, more than half of enterprises (52%) believe securing AI systems will increase vendor costs by more than five percent.

The same report cites 70 percent of large enterprise buyers as “highly willing” to invest in AI-enabled cybersecurity tools.

Founded originally in 2007, NSS Labs arguably has a reliable heritage to draw upon with the networking industry as it makes its return, alongside vendors who showcased results from the firm during its tenure.

This could work both ways, as in the example of Palo Alto Networks. In 2014, the security giant criticized the firm’s testing methodology following the publication of less-than-average test results.

The company would later dissolve in 2020, due to what it termed as “COVID-related impacts.”

NSS Labs CEO Vikram Phatak commented on the company’s return: “We’ve preserved the integrity and rigor that put NSS Labs on the map, and supercharged it with interactive tools, modern methodologies, and a team with decades of hands-on experience evaluating cybersecurity products across a wide range of categories - including endpoint, cloud, AI, and post-quantum cryptography.”

Ian Foo, CTO and EVP of product for NSS Labs, added: “Our mission is to empower stakeholders with the data they need to make confident security decisions. By serving as the Official Testing Partner to CyberRatings, NSS Labs will help extend that mission.”