Category: Product Review

The increasing complexity of hybrid and multi-cloud environments, along with the rising frequency of sophisticated DNS-based attacks, has created significant challenges in managing and securing DNS infrastructure. As a result, organizations face increasingly sophisticated security threats such as DNS tunneling and hijacking, which exploit vulnerabilities in DNS infrastructure.

What are your biggest operational, day-to-day headaches trying to protect cloud workloads?

Cybersecurity professionals are faced with numerous day-to-day operational challenges when it comes to protecting cloud workloads. Lack of security visibility tops the list (38%), followed by compliance requirements (36%) and the perennial lack of qualified security staff (32%).

Source: 2022 Security Visibility Report produced by Cybersecurity Insiders

OVERVIEW

To address these security challenges, BlueCat Edge offers a robust Protective DNS solution that provides Lack of feature parity with on-prem security solution 17% Securing tra•c •ows advanced visibility, control, and detection capabilities for DNS queries. By capturing detailed DNS query data, it enables network and IT teams to establish 14% smarter policies, optimize traffic, and meet stringent compliance requirements while enhancing the overall security posture through intelligent threat detection and response capabilities, leveraging detailed DNS data for comprehensive protection and analysis.

Bluecat Edge adds a much-needed layer of visibility, control,  and detection for corporate DNS

To accomplish this, Edge captures all DNS queries and their associated responses, providing deep, actionable insights into network traffic and resource usage. This detailed DNS data supports threat hunting and investigations, enhancing existing security measures. Serving as the initial hop for all DNS queries, Edge acts as a robust security layer by identifying and blocking malicious queries using threat feeds, security-defined block lists, and its flexible policy system. This capability not only bolsters security but also optimizes network performance and compliance.

KEY FEATURES

Edge offers a comprehensive suite of features designed to enhance DNS security and performance: 

•DNS Threat Protection: Utilizes advanced threat feeds, DGA and Tunneling algorithms to rapidly identify and stop DNS threats before they reach critical applications or data.

•Identity Security Service: Enriches DNS data with user identities to enable faster investigation and remediation of security threats.

•Edge Security Dashboard: Provides a detailed view of the network’s security health, highlighting the most compromised or vulnerable endpoints.

•Cisco Umbrella Integration: Delivers enhanced context and actionable data for threat identification and mitigation.

•Comprehensive Logging and Reporting: Collects and analyzes DNS query data for diagnostic and investigative purposes, integrating with SIEM solutions for enhanced threat hunting.

•Zero-Touch Deployment: Allows the deployment of unlimited virtual service points without changes to existing DNS infrastructure.

•Policy Configuration: Enables the creation and application of policies to block, redirect, or monitor DNS requests based on security requirements.

KEY BENEFITS

Edge provides several key benefits that significantly enhance DNS security and performance:

1.Enhance Your Security Stack:  Utilize detailed DNS data on the sources and targets of network traffic to bolster your security stack.

2.Protect Against DNS Attacks:  Actively monitor and protect your organization against DNSspecific threats such as tunneling and hijacking. Implement granular security policies based on comprehensive query insights.

3.Gain Unprecedented Visibility & Control:  Receive complete visibility into DNS traffic from the first hop of any DNS query, down to the individual endpoint IP address, allowing for granular, intelligent traffic management and security policies, threat detection in internal and external queries, blocking of malicious DNS queries, and effective diagnostics and investigation.

4.Optimize Network Performance:  Improve DNS resolution paths and reduce latency, ensuring high network availability and resilience with seamless cloud and onpremises integration.

5.Streamline Threat Hunting:  Integrate with SIEM solutions for advanced threat analysis and hunting, enhancing security team collaboration and efficiency.

INTEGRATION WITH CISCO UMBRELLA

Network operations and security teams face significant challenges in correlating endpoint threats that move laterally within the network. To address these challenges, Edge integrates seamlessly with Cisco Umbrella, capturing rich DNS data and contextualizing it to provide critical insights into suspicious endpoint activity. This integration allows teams to connect North-South and EastWest traffic effectively, answering the essential questions in network security: Who, What, When, and Why. This powerful combination enhances threat detection and response, ensuring robust and comprehensive network security.

DEPLOYMENT AND PRICING 

Edge is delivered as a cloud service under the Software as a Service (SaaS) model. Deployment is quick and efficient; using automation tools such as Terraform, the infrastructure can be set up in minutes for hybrid and multicloud environments. The creation of policies, configuration of threat feeds, and integration with Cisco Umbrella can be completed swiftly through the user-friendly GUI.

Commercially, Edge starts with the Smart Cache package, offering basic functions and weekly reporting. Advanced capabilities for security, networking, and cloud can be unlocked through add-ons. Pricing is subscription-based and varies according to the number of active IP addresses, with data retention options available for up to one year.

CONCLUSION

Edge stands out as a robust solution for addressing the multifaceted challenges of DNS security. With its comprehensive suite of features, including advanced threat protection, identity security services, and seamless integration with Cisco Umbrella, Edge offers unparalleled visibility and control over DNS traffic. It excels in optimizing network performance, streamlining threat hunting, and ensuring high availability through zero-touch deployment. 

BlueCat Edge provides advanced threat protection that also blocks malicious queries—so threats never get close to your critical systems.  Watch the video.

These capabilities collectively enhance an organization’s overall security posture, making Edge an exceptional choice for securing and managing network infrastructure efficiently and effectively.

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Securing Operational Technology (OT) in today’s industrial environments has never been more challenging, with blind spots like unmanaged legacy assets, transient devices, and unauthorized USBs presenting significant vulnerabilities. To make things worse, OT systems often rely on older, specialized equipment that lacks built-in cybersecurity defenses and cannot afford downtime for updates and security audits.

However, these vulnerabilities extend far beyond individual devices and assets. The complexity of securing OT systems lies in the multiple, interconnected workflows that organizations must manage. From ensuring supply chain security to safeguarding air-gapped systems and performing regular machine inspections, every step introduces distinct challenges. Each process requires tailored security measures, making it difficult to maintain a unified and seamless defense strategy.

To overcome these challenges, organizations need a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy that integrates People, Process, and Technology into their operations. This strategy must not only establish secure supply chain practices but also ensure continuous protection for daily operations and isolated systems without disrupting business activities. By streamlining processes and adopting the right technology, organizations can prevent interruptions, minimize risks, and create a resilient OT environment capable of withstanding evolving cyber threats.

INTRODUCING TXONE’S ELEMENT PORTFOLIO: A Comprehensive Suite for OT Security

This is where TXOne Networks steps in, offering the Element portfolio, a suite of products designed specifically for OT security to support existing processes without introducing additional complexity or burden on already stretched-thin teams. The Element portfolio comprises several key solutions:

ElementOne: A centralized management platform at the heart of the Element portfolio that provides a holistic view of OT assets, risk assessments, and audit logs to mitigate risks while simplifying operations. It streamlines security management by integrating Portable Inspector and Safe Port, enabling centralized policy enforcement, configuration deployment, and scan log management, all from one interface.

Portable Inspector: An agentless, malware scanning USB-based tool designed for OT assets, including air-gapped and standalone systems. It inspects devices without the need for software installation or system reboots, making it ideal for environments requiring continuous uptime. Its Secure Storage feature ensures safe file transfer, allowing only clean data into the OT environment.

Safe Port: A media sanitization station that rapidly scans and cleans external media (like USB drives) before they are introduced into sensitive OT environments, preventing malware from entering critical infrastructure. It integrates with Portable Inspector to centralize audit log management, streamlining security processes and ensuring comprehensive protection across devices.

ELEMENTONE: The Command Center for Comprehensive OT Security

A major challenge in OT environments is the lack of visibility into system vulnerabilities, assets, and security posture. Security teams often struggle to maintain a real-time understanding of which systems are running outdated software, which devices are compromised, and which patches are missing. This lack of insight forces organizations to adopt a reactive security approach, responding to threats only after they’ve caused damage.

ElementOne transforms this scenario by providing a comprehensive and unified platform that aggregates data from across the OT landscape. By integrating Portable Inspector and Safe Port, ElementOne enables centralized control over malware scanning, asset management, and log collection. This integration ensures efficient synchronization of scan logs and security data, creating a streamlined security workflow across all OT assets.

ElementOne Dashboard

KEY CAPABILITIES: ELEMENTONE

To better understand how ElementOne transforms OT security, let’s look at its key capabilities:

•Centralized Asset-Centric and Risk Management: ElementOne provides a comprehensive overview of OT assets, displaying system specifications, OS versions, installed applications, and vulnerabilities, such as missing patches. This centralization ensures organizations have clear visibility into their OT environment and can assess risks more effectively.

•Holistic View for Risk Assessment: In addition to asset management, ElementOne offers a risk assessment dashboard that prioritizes vulnerabilities and highlights areas requiring attention, enabling security teams to proactively address critical risks.

•Centralized Log Management: ElementOne collects and consolidates logs from connected devices like Portable Inspector and Safe Port, simplifying audit trails and tracking malware scans and security events across the OT environment.

•Detailed Asset Reporting: The platform generates detailed, exportable reports on system configurations, installed applications, vulnerability scans, and active services. These reports are essential for meeting compliance requirements and ensuring operational transparency.

•Audit and Compliance: ElementOne streamlines compliance by providing automated malware-free reports and tracking all security-related activities, allowing organizations to meet regulatory requirements with minimal effort.

•Pattern Distribution: Portable Inspector and Safe Port obtain the latest malware patterns from ElementOne, ensuring all security products are up to date without manual intervention, significantly reducing the risk of outdated protection.

•Role-Based Access Control with SAML SSO: Security teams can assign access rights based on user roles, minimizing the risk of unauthorized access to critical systems and ensuring only the right personnel can interact with sensitive data. With support for SAML Single Sign-On (SSO), ElementOne integrates seamlessly with existing Identity Providers (IdPs), allowing users to authenticate using their corporate credentials and simplifying account management.

•SIEM Integration: ElementOne integrates with Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) platforms like Splunk, enabling enhanced threat detection, incident response, and centralized security management.

These capabilities directly translate into several benefits for organizations:

KEY BENEFITS

1.EFFICIENCY

By consolidating security processes such as asset and log management, vulnerability tracking, and reporting into a single platform, ElementOne eliminates the inefficiencies caused by fragmented tools and reduces the overhead required for manual operations such as vulnerability tracking and compliance reporting. This significantly reduces operational complexity and streamlines security processes across the OT environment.

2.PROACTIVE RISK MANAGEMENT

ElementOne’s risk assessment solutions allow organizations to prioritize remediation efforts based on realtime vulnerability insights. This proactive approach helps prevent breaches before they occur by addressing the most critical risks first.

3.COMPLIANCE AND AUDIT SIMPLIFICATION

The platform automatically generates comprehensive asset reports and audit logs, ensuring that organizations meet regulatory requirements with minimal manual effort. The ease of generating these reports simplifies both internal and external audits.

4.IMPROVED VISIBILITY

ElementOne provides a holistic view of OT systems, assets, and vulnerabilities, giving security teams better control over their environment and helping to identify hidden risks across isolated or air-gapped systems.

5.SCALABILITY

ElementOne’s flexible architecture supports both small businesses and large enterprises. As the needs of the organization grow, the platform scales to accommodate more assets, users, and security operations without compromising performance. With SIEM integration, it can seamlessly integrate with customers’ existing SIEM systems, allowing organizations to scale their security operations without disrupting their current infrastructure.

6.REDUCED OPERATIONAL OVERHEAD

The platform’s ability to synchronize malware pattern updates and centralize log management reduces the amount of manual work required from IT and security teams, freeing up resources for other critical tasks.

7.ENHANCED SECURITY CONTROLS

With role-based access control and support for SAML Single Sign-On (SSO), ElementOne strengthens security by ensuring that only authorized personnel can access sensitive systems and by enhancing overall threat detection capabilities through advanced integrations.

PORTABLE INSPECTOR: Agentless Malware Scanning for Isolated OT Systems

One of the greatest challenges in OT security lies in protecting OT assets, especially standalone or air-gapped systems—networks or devices isolated from the internet or broader IT infrastructure for safety and operational reasons. Additionally, ensuring supply chain security is crucial when shipping and receiving new machines. Both suppliers and customers must ensure that equipment is malware-free before it is deployed, maintaining its original state and security integrity. Conventional security tools are often inadequate for these systems because they rely on constant updates, internet access, or complex installations that disrupt operations.

Portable Inspector

Portable Inspector was designed specifically to overcome these limitations. As a portable, USBbased product, it delivers on-demand malware scanning for isolated OT devices, requiring no software installation or system reboots. This ensures that critical operations remain uninterrupted, while systems are thoroughly protected from external threats.

For instance, in a manufacturing plant with legacy equipment that cannot afford downtime, Portable Inspector allows security teams to scan systems on-demand without impacting production, ensuring continued uptime while maintaining robust protection. Additionally, Portable Inspector is ideal for both suppliers and customers in the supply chain. Suppliers can generate malware free reports before shipping new machines, and customers can verify the machines are secure upon receipt, ensuring they are malware-free before deployment into production environments.

KEY CAPABILITIES: PORTABLE INSPECTOR

Let’s explore the key capabilities that make Portable Inspector so effective:

•Agentless Malware Scanning: Portable Inspector provides on-demand malware scans without requiring software installation or a system reboot. This ensures that OT environments with critical uptime requirements are protected with minimal operational disruption, making it ideal for systems that cannot afford downtime.

•Cross-Platform and Legacy System Support: Portable Inspector is compatible with a wide range of operating systems, including both modern and legacy platforms such as Windows XP and Linux distributions. This extensive platform support ensures that even outdated or isolated OT assets are protected.

•Detailed Asset Information Collection: In addition to scanning for malware, Portable Inspector automatically collects detailed system snapshots, including information on the operating system, installed applications, and vulnerability status. This data is invaluable for improving visibility across OT environments.

•AES-256 Encrypted Secure File Transfer (Pro Edition): For environments requiring secure data transfer between air-gapped systems, Portable Inspector’s Pro Edition offers AES-256 hardware encryption to ensure that sensitive files are safely transferred while remaining malware-free.

•Centralized Log Management: Portable Inspector integrates seamlessly with ElementOne, allowing scan logs and asset information to be uploaded either directly or via Safe Port. This centralization simplifies the auditing process and provides security teams with a unified view of all scanning activities across OT environments.

•User-Friendly LED Indicators: Portable Inspector features intuitive LED indicators that display scanning progress and results in real time. This feature allows even non-technical staff to quickly understand the scan status, ensuring easy deployment in industrial settings and reducing the need for dedicated security personnel on the ground.

With these capabilities, Portable Inspector offers distinct benefits to OT environments:

KEY BENEFITS

1.OPERATIONAL CONTINUITY

Portable Inspector’s agentless design allows it to scan isolated or air-gapped systems without requiring installations or reboots. This ensures minimal disruption to operations, which is critical in OT environments where uptime is essential.

2.ENHANCED SECURITY

The product provides robust protection for OT assets without the need to modify system configurations or add complex setups. By scanning without leaving a software footprint, Portable Inspector minimizes the attack surface while maintaining security on legacy systems.

3.IMPROVED ASSET VISIBILITY

Beyond malware scanning, Portable Inspector collects detailed asset information, including OS, application versions, and patch statuses. This capability greatly enhances visibility into the OT environment, helping security teams identify hidden risks and shadow IT.

4.SECURE DATA TRANSFERS

For organizations using the Pro Edition, Portable Inspector enables AES-256 encrypted file transfers between isolated systems, ensuring that sensitive data remains protected while being moved across air-gapped environments.

5.SIMPLIFIED AUDITING AND COMPLIANCE

By integrating with ElementOne and Safe Port, Portable Inspector can automatically upload scan logs and asset data, either directly or via Safe Port, simplifying audit processes and providing a comprehensive view of security operations. This centralization reduces manual work, making it easier to meet compliance requirements.

6.EASY DEPLOYMENT AND USE

The intuitive design of Portable Inspector, including its LED indicators, allows even non-technical personnel to operate the product effectively. This ensures that security processes can be integrated seamlessly into industrial workflows, reducing the need for extensive training.

7.LEGACY AND CROSS-PLATFORM PROTECTION

With support for both modern and legacy systems, Portable Inspector ensures that even outdated OT systems are protected. This broad compatibility makes it easier for organizations to secure their entire infrastructure without needing multiple tools.

SAFE PORT: Rapid Media Sanitization for OT Environments

Removable media continues to be one of the most significant attack vectors for malware in OT environments. USB drives and other external devices are essential for transferring data across OT systems, but they also introduce a potential entry point for cyberattacks, especially in environments where security controls are less stringent. This makes protecting against malware from external media a critical concern for industries with sensitive OT infrastructure.

Safe Port

 

Safe Port addresses this challenge by providing a ruggedized, industrial-grade media sanitization solution. It rapidly scans and cleans removable media, such as USB drives, before they can be introduced into OT systems, ensuring that malware is detected and neutralized at the perimeter. Built specifically for industrial environments, Safe Port is designed to handle the unique demands of OT plants, offering speed, simplicity, and enhanced protection.

Additionally, Safe Port integrates with ElementOne and Portable Inspector to further simplify security workflows. Portable Inspector logs and malware patterns can be automatically uploaded to ElementOne. This integration streamlines both the scanning and update processes, making Safe Port a central hub for both media sanitization and managing Portable Inspector’s logs and pattern updates. This allows security teams to manage scan logs centrally and streamline compliance reporting. It combines ease of use with industrial-grade durability, making it a trusted solution for safeguarding OT environments against malware threats introduced via removable media.

KEY CAPABILITIES: SAFE PORT

Let’s explore the key capabilities of Safe Port:

•Rapid Scanning and Media Sanitization: Safe Port processes up to 7,200 files per minute, ensuring that removable media such as USB drives are scanned and sanitized quickly, minimizing operational delays in OT environments. It supports three flexible scan modes: “Log Only” for detailed reporting, “Clean” for malware removal, and “Lock” for isolating and encrypting unscannable or malicious files. This speed is critical in industries where continuous uptime is paramount, as it allows for fast media processing while preventing malware from entering sensitive systems.

•Rugged Design for Industrial Environments: Safe Port is built to withstand the demanding conditions of industrial OT plants, with a ruggedized design that ensures durability and reliability. Its construction allows it to operate effectively in harsh environments where typical IT equipment may fail, making it suitable for continuous operation in OT settings.

•Centralized Audit Log Collection: Safe Port integrates with ElementOne and Portable Inspector, allowing scan logs, sanitization data, and asset information to be automatically uploaded to a centralized management console. This simplifies audit trails, compliance processes, and overall security management by ensuring all activities are tracked and reported in real time.

•Seamless Integration with ElementOne: Safe Port works as part of the Element portfolio, allowing security teams to manage all scan logs and compliance data through the ElementOne platform. This centralization ensures that all removable media activities are part of a cohesive security strategy, reducing manual intervention and simplifying reporting.

•Automated Malware Pattern Updates: Safe Port can synchronize malware pattern updates with ElementOne, ensuring it has the latest threat definitions and protections in place. This capability eliminates the need for manual updates, reducing the risk of outdated security measures.

•User-Friendly Touchscreen Interface: Safe Port features an intuitive touchscreen interface that allows non-technical staff to easily scan and sanitize media. This simplicity ensures that Safe Port can be deployed quickly in industrial environments without requiring specialized training.

•Hardened Security Features: Safe Port enhances system security with several hardening measures, including TXOne’s proprietary BIOS, restrictions on inbound transmissions, and the disabling of physical inputs (such as mouse and keyboard). These measures ensure that Safe Port itself is protected from external threats while handling sensitive media.

By utilizing these capabilities, Safe Port delivers several key benefits for OT environments:

KEY BENEFITS

1.IMPROVED SECURITY

By scanning all removable media before they are introduced into OT environments, Safe Port ensures that malware is detected and neutralized early, reducing the risk of infections in critical systems. This proactive approach strengthens the security perimeter and prevents the introduction of malicious software into industrial networks.

2.OPERATIONAL CONTINUITY

With its rapid scanning capabilities of up to 7,200 files per minute, Safe Port ensures minimal downtime, allowing organizations to securely process media without disrupting operational workflows. This benefit is crucial for industries where continuous operations are essential.

3.EASE OF USE

The intuitive touchscreen interface and simple operation make Safe Port accessible to non-experts, reducing the need for specialized security staff to manage media sanitization. This feature allows industrial staff to quickly sanitize media without the need for extensive training, making it suitable for a wide range of environments.

4.CENTRALIZED MANAGEMENT WITH ELEMENTONE

When integrated with ElementOne, Safe Port enables security teams to manage media scans and sanitize logs from a centralized dashboard. Additionally, Safe Port can serve as a hub for Portable Inspector by uploading logs and malware patterns to ElementOne through Safe Port. This integration streamlines both media sanitization and asset management processes, optimizing workflows and simplifying audits.

5.REGULATORY COMPLIANCE

Safe Port helps organizations maintain compliance with industry regulations by ensuring that all media sanitization activities are recorded and stored for audit purposes. This capability reduces the administrative burden of proving compliance and enables more streamlined reporting.

6.REDUCED RISK OF HUMAN ERROR

Safe Port reduces the likelihood of human error by automating key processes such as scanning and logging through ElementOne. This automation ensures consistent scanning and logging of all removable media, minimizing the risk of malware bypassing protection due to human oversight.

7.SEAMLESS INDUSTRIAL INTEGRATION

Safe Port is designed to integrate seamlessly into existing OT workflows without disrupting operations. Its durable, industrial-grade build ensures reliable performance in demanding environments, making it suitable for continuous use in OT settings.

CONCLUSION: A Proactive, Game-Changing Solution for OT Security

The TXOne Element portfolio represents a transformative solution, uniquely addressing the complex security challenges faced by OT environments. With ElementOne at the core, security teams gain unparalleled visibility and control over OT assets, vulnerabilities, and audit logs through a single, unified platform. Complemented by Portable Inspector for seamless, agentless malware scanning in isolated systems and Safe Port for rapid, industrial-grade media sanitization, TXOne delivers a comprehensive and proactive approach to securing critical OT infrastructures.

By integrating these three products, the Element portfolio significantly improves people and process workflows. It reduces dependency on specialized security personnel by providing intuitive interfaces and automated processes that can be managed by non-expert users. With enhanced asset visibility, media sanitization, and secure file handling, the Element portfolio not only strengthens operational security but also ensures consistent protection across OT environments, all while maintaining operational uptime and reducing operational burdens.

Furthermore, streamlined workflows such as automated log collection, centralized management, and simplified compliance reporting enable organizations to optimize resources. These capabilities allow security teams to focus on addressing critical threats rather than being bogged down by manual tasks, ultimately improving both security outcomes and operational efficiency.

In a world where cyber threats evolve rapidly, the TXOne Element portfolio stands out as a robust, scalable,

and future-proof solution. With its ongoing updates and flexibility to scale alongside organizational growth,

TXOne ensures that businesses are always equipped to tackle emerging risks. This suite of products positions itself as an essential investment for any OT environment seeking to strengthen its security posture while confidently protecting its most critical systems against today’s and tomorrow’s cyber threats.

ABOUT TXONE

At TXOne Networks, we work together with both leading manufacturers and critical infrastructure operators to develop practical, operations-friendly approaches to cyber defense. The OT zero trust based technologies we’ve developed go beyond the limitations of traditional cyber defense to streamline management, reduce security overhead, and resolve challenges faster. We offer both network- and endpoint-based solutions that integrate with the layered arrangements and varied assets common to work sites, providing real-time, defense-in-depth cybersecurity to both mission critical devices and the OT network. www.txone.com

The post PRODUCT REVIEW: TXONE NETWORKS FOR PROACTIVE OT DEFENSE appeared first on Cybersecurity Insiders.

The Governance Risk and Compliance (GRC) platform market is predicted to see healthy growth for the next five years. A recent market report forecasts a CAGR of 13.64% through 2028. This growth indicates that enterprises acknowledge the importance of GRC as they encounter new risks and deal with a stricter regulatory landscape.

Notably, GRC solutions are evolving with the changes in cybersecurity risks and regulations. They offer a host of functions to help enterprises undertake operations and resource governance, risk management, and compliance oversight more efficiently. These solutions are often marketed as GRC automation tools, but they usually come with capabilities that go beyond automation.

Cypago, for one, is known for being an enterprise cyber GRC automation solution. However, this SaaS offering actually has several features that significantly enhance compliance oversight and other GRC tasks. Here’s a look at some Cypago features that make GRC significantly easier for organizations.

Code-Free Automation Workflows

The automation of cyber compliance management tasks involves a meticulous process that includes data integration, the identification and analysis of risks, policy and issue management, reporting and analytics, and the configuration of the software tool being used. Things become even more challenging when coding is a must to get things automated.

Cypago addresses this difficulty through no-code automation workflows. Cypago provides a flexible and intuitive interface for orchestrating tasks or workflows that match the specific requirements of an organization. This innovation in security and compliance management empowers enterprises to automate security controls, including the collection of data and security monitoring. 

Many aspects of addressing compliance gaps can be addressed on the spot, using integrated controls or rule-based automation flows, while others can be assigned to relevant team members using platform-native project management modules which sync with third-party tracking systems like Jira and Monday.

Cypago also enables organizations to create bespoke cyber GRC programs and controls. This system provides the means to dynamically customize processes and policies, which are optimized to aptly address specific requirements in different systems. It ensures a fine-tuned security approach that includes context-aware rules and precise risk identification.

Seamless Integration with SaaS, IaaS, and PaaS Tools

Cypago takes advantage of cutting-edge technologies such as SSO and OAuth to enable seamless integration with SaaS, IaaS, and PaaS tools. It can connect with a wide range of tools, from 1Password to AWS and Zendesk, to simplify governance and compliance oversight. The process does not require any coding knowledge. 

Cypago has a one-click connection mechanism, wherein users simply have to choose from a list of supported integrations. This integration is important because of the growing adoption of “as a service” tools as organizations become increasingly digital, so having the ability to effortlessly collect and consolidate compliance evidence from so many sources is extremely helpful.

Cypago’s integrations also help cyber GRC teams to gain visibility into aspects of compliance that would otherwise be impossible. For example, scanning code for compliance issues is easier when you can automate a data sync with your GitLab libraries and Azure DevOps server, and user access reviews are simplified when you can automate a data sync with identity platforms like Okta and HR information systems like Hibob.

Custom Frameworks to Match Varying Requirements

Organizations rarely have the same requirements when it comes to their governance and risk management. Your company may need to adhere to frameworks related to your industry (HIPAA, PCI DSS), your geo-market (SOX ITGC, GDPR) or the tech you use (NIST AI RMF). You might also decide to take on additional frameworks (ISO 27018, SOC 2) as a means to signal your adherence to strict safety measures. 

Some of these frameworks may have overlapping requirements, while there may be other controls that your team sees as necessary but aren’t included in the third-party frameworks you care about. That’s why it’s important to come up with custom policies to properly address specific needs and objectives. 

For this, Cypago works with tailor-made security frameworks, enabling organizations to upload and integrate custom security plans to ascertain that the GRC an organization implements is the GRC it needs.

Cypago acts as a platform for open compliance, or a way to expand compliance capabilities. While Cypago already supports several pre-installed standards and frameworks, you can also add or build out new frameworks, regulations, or standards that your team deems applicable to address specific concerns. This feature is particularly important given the rapid evolution of cyber threats and regulations. If there are new regulations or anticipated risks, all that is needed is to upload the corresponding new controls.

Robust Risk Management with Intelligent Gap Analysis

One crucial step in GRC is the identification of the differences or gaps between the existing and ideal states of an organization’s governance, risk management, and compliance. It is important to know if an organization has achieved its goals and detect the areas where it needs more work to reach or approximate its ideal state.

Cypago’s intelligence gap analysis engine is designed to automatically spot security gaps across all of the SaaS tools used by an organization as well as the security infirmities in the cloud environments you work with. Cypago lets the security team define the risks or threats that should be detected and the system automatically undertakes meticulous cyber monitoring and management with an eye on long-term security compliance and unhindered business operations.

There’s no need to scramble at audit time. The platform’s intelligence gap analysis operates as part of a broader risk management system that aims to stop risky activities and ensure full security compliance. It is linked to continuous monitoring and effective mitigation mechanisms to maximize the benefits of automatic security gap identification.

Continuous Control Monitoring 

The current threat landscape makes it clear that periodic security testing or scanning is no longer enough. It is important to undertake continuous monitoring to keep up with the increasing aggressiveness and sophistication of modern-day threats. This is why new cybersecurity terms such as continuous threat exposure management (CTEM) have been introduced. There is a need to continuously track and manage cyber hygiene across all environments.

Cypago affords organizations the continuous security control monitoring needed to avoid getting blindsided by new threats. The platform ceaselessly tracks critical controls and generates timely findings as well as actionable insights to help organizations address risks and threats before they turn into actual attacks or compromises. This is a form of proactive threat management and mitigation every organization should consider adopting.

Cypago provides real-time security visibility through its Continuous Control Monitoring (CCM) feature, which covers different security control domains, including data security and confidentiality, the management of user identities and access, and response to security incidents. CCM also extends into the monitoring of the Software Development Life Cycle to make sure that apps are checked against GRC objectives before they are deployed.

Moreover, Cypago provides customized reporting and comprehensive analytics. It features intuitive dashboards that make it easy to generate custom reports and useful insights to accurately evaluate compliance and operational needs.

In Conclusion

Cyber GRC is not an optional concern for modern organizations. To achieve sensible operational and resource governance, risk management, and compliance, it is important to use a reliable GRC tool that enables efficient and continuous monitoring, custom automation, strong risk management functions, integration with existing tools, and compatibility with custom security frameworks and standards.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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THE GROWING CHALLENGE OF BRAND IMPERSONATION

Brand impersonation has become one of the most damaging threats facing organizations in the digital age. It involves malicious actors mimicking a brand’s identity across various online channels to deceive customers, employees, or partners. This can manifest in numerous forms, including look-alike domains, counterfeit websites, unauthorized social media profiles, fake mobile apps, and fake ads. The consequences are severe, ranging from reputational damage and loss of consumer trust to direct financial fraud and security breaches. As organizations increasingly rely on digital platforms for their operations and marketing, the need for robust brand protection has never been more critical.

Brand fraud protection is increasingly vital as fraud incidents rise, with 70% of consumers experiencing fraud at least once and 40% experiencing it multiple times, according to a global SAS study. This surge has led 89% of consumers to demand more robust safeguards from organizations. Critically, two-thirds of consumers are willing to switch providers if they experience fraud or if another company offers better protection, underscoring the importance of robust fraud defenses for retaining customers in a competitive market.

However, organizations face significant challenges in managing brand protection effectively:

1.Lack of Visibility Across Digital Channels: Brand impersonation often occurs across multiple platforms, including social media, websites, and search engines. Without comprehensive visibility, teams are unable to effectively monitor and manage all the channels where their brand might be at risk.

2.High Volume of Brand Mentions to Manage: With the vast amount of data generated online, distinguishing between legitimate mentions and potential threats is a significant challenge. Teams are often overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information, making it difficult to focus on the most critical issues.

3.Inability to Quickly Mitigate Brand Abuse: In today’s fast-paced digital environment, the speed at which a brand can detect and address impersonation or misuse is crucial. Many organizations struggle to respond swiftly to these threats, leading to prolonged exposure and potential damage.

4.Limited Time, Expertise, and Budget: Many organizations do not have the necessary resources— whether personnel, expertise, or budget—to dedicate to ongoing brand protection efforts. This limitation makes it difficult to sustain an effective brand protection strategy over time.

In this review, we will explore Fortra’s Digital Brand Protection Solution, a comprehensive suite designed to tackle these challenges head-on. We will dissect three core services—Domain Monitoring, social media protection, and counterfeit protection—each tailored to address specific types of digital brand abuse. By the end of this review, you will have a detailed understanding of how Fortra’s solution operates, its key features, and its competitive advantages in the cybersecurity market.

1.DOMAIN MONITORING: SAFEGUARDING THE FIRST LINE OF DIGITAL DEFENSE

What Is Fortra’s Domain Monitoring Service?

Fortra’s Domain Monitoring service is a vital component of their digital brand protection solution, designed to detect and mitigate threats associated with malicious web domain activities. Domain-based attacks, such as phishing sites, typosquatting, and look-alike domains, are some of the most common forms of brand impersonation. These attacks often serve as the initial vector for broader cyberattacks that target customers, employees, and other stakeholders.

Organizations face several key challenges when it comes to Domain Monitoring, which include the overwhelming noise generated by domain-related threats, making it challenging to detect real risks effectively. Additionally, there is a significant lack of visibility into the lifecycle of both new and existing domains that are used maliciously, hindering timely threat identification. Furthermore, many organizations struggle due to insufficient relationships within the digital ecosystem and a lack of knowledge necessary to mitigate domain threats quickly, coupled with limited expertise, time, and budget to dedicate to comprehensive Domain Monitoring efforts.

KEY FEATURES AND BENEFITS

Fortra’s Domain Monitoring service leverages a combination of automated and manual processes to provide comprehensive coverage across various domain-related threats. Key features include:

•Daily Detection Across a Wide Variety of Domain Intelligence Sources: Fortra’s platform conducts daily scans of over 2,000 top-level domains (TLDs), including both gTLDs and ccTLDs, as well as SSL certificate registrations, passive DNS data, and DNS zone files, enabling it to detect a wide range of domain threats, including domain spoofing and look-alike domains. This ensures that any newly registered or modified domains that could harm your brand are quickly identified.

•Human Curation and Threat Ranking: Detected domains are not only automatically flagged but also reviewed and monitored by expert analysts. These analysts rank the severity of threats based on various parameters, which includes changes to website content, WHOIS information, A-records, MX records, SSL certificates, and more. This hybrid approach reduces false positives and ensures that only the most relevant threats are escalated.

•Rapid Takedown with Automated Alerts and Detailed Reports: One of the standout features of Fortra’s Domain Monitoring is its ability to facilitate rapid takedown of malicious domains. Leveraging an extensive network of trusted registrar partners and automated kill switches, Fortra ensures the fastest possible removal of threats.

This capability is crucial in minimizing the window of opportunity for threat actors to exploit compromised domains. The service can also strengthen internal security tools by providing additional intelligence to block malicious domains proactively. Clients receive timely alerts and comprehensive reports that provide insights into the severity and nature of the threats. The Domain Monitoring service is further enhanced when combined with Fortra’s Agari DMARC Protection, which helps organizations enforce email authentication protocols to prevent domain spoofing and email-based impersonation attacks. This integration provides a comprehensive defense against both domain and email-based threats.

COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGES

Fortra’s Domain Monitoring stands out in the market due to its blend of automation and expert analysis. Unlike many competitors that rely solely on automated systems, Fortra’s inclusion of human curation allows for more accurate threat prioritization and mitigation. This reduces the risk of false positives and ensures that security teams can focus on the most pressing issues. Additionally, Fortra’s established relationships with domain registrars and internet service providers (ISPs) enable quicker takedown of malicious domains, providing a critical edge in time-sensitive situations.

2.SOCIAL MEDIA PROTECTION: DEFENDING BRAND REPUTATION ACROSS DIGITAL PLATFORMS

What Is Fortra’s Social Media Protection Service?

Social media platforms have become a prime target for cybercriminals seeking to exploit brand identities. Fortra’s Social Media Protection service is designed to monitor and mitigate threats across the broad and evolving landscape of social media.

This service addresses issues ranging from account impersonation and financial scams to unauthorized use of brand assets and even physical threats to executives.

Social media platforms have become a prime target for cyber criminals seeking to exploit brand identities.

Organizations face significant challenges when defending against social media threats due to the vast and rapidly evolving landscape of social platforms. The high volume and variety of threats, such as impersonation, fraud, and data leaks, make it difficult for teams to efficiently identify and mitigate risks. Moreover, the broad reach and ease of use of social media enable threat actors to execute attacks quickly, often outpacing an organization’s ability to respond. Compounding these issues is the lack of established relationships with platform providers and proper access needed to swiftly take down harmful profiles and posts, making it challenging to protect the brand across all digital channels.

“Excellent organization and staff to deal with, the blanket price for unlimited take downs during an incident pays for itself quickly. When everything is working the time from detection to take down can be exceptional.” – IT Security Architect, Banking

KEY FEATURES AND BENEFITS

Fortra’s Social Media Protection service is comprehensive, covering a wide array of platforms and threat types:

•Broad Monitoring Across Major and Niche Platforms: Fortra continuously monitors a vast array of social media platforms, forums, and other online repositories. For example, the service collects data from top social media platforms such as Facebook, X, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. It also constantly monitors hundreds of additional sources, including forums, blogs, gripe sites like Glassdoor, and repositories like GitHub, ensuring no stone is left unturned.

The service is designed to adapt to the dynamic nature of social media, ensuring that even new and emerging platforms are included in the monitoring process.

•Curation and Threat Assessment: Fortra uses a combination of sophisticated curation technology and human analysis to collect, identify, classify, and prioritize threats in posts, comments, profiles, and pages. This dual approach allows the service to distinguish between informational and actionable threats, reducing noise and false positives, and instead focusing on high-risk incidents. For example, executive impersonation or leaked credentials may trigger automatic mitigation, while less critical threats might be flagged for informational purposes.

•Optimized Takedown Processes: With strong relationships across social media platforms, Fortra’s team takes swift action to address identified threats, leveraging established protocols and platform specific processes to remove harmful content. The service is designed to ensure that actionable threats are dealt with promptly, minimizing the potential damage of social media threats on brand reputation.

COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGES

Fortra’s Social Media Protection service is distinguished by its deep integration with social media platforms and its ability to scale across a wide range of sources. Unlike competitors that may focus only on major platforms, Fortra’s solution extends to niche sites and forums, offering much broader coverage. Additionally, the service’s ability to finely tune threat response based on client-specific needs ensures that mitigation efforts are both effective and efficient.

3.COUNTERFEIT PROTECTION: SAFEGUARDING AGAINST FAKE GOODS AND FRAUDULENT ADS

What Is Fortra’s Counterfeit Protection Service?

Counterfeit goods and fraudulent advertisements are a significant threat to brands, especially in industries where intellectual property is a key asset. Fortra’s Counterfeit Protection service is designed to detect and mitigate the spread of counterfeit products and unauthorized use of brand assets across digital channels. Organizations face significant challenges in defending against counterfeit threats, particularly due to the scale and complexity of these attacks.

Counterfeit goods and fraudulent advertisements pose significant challenges for organizations due to the scale and complexity of these attacks.

One of the primary issues is the inability to quickly take down fake profiles, counterfeit ads, and fraudulent websites that damage brand reputation and result in financial losses. Additionally, there is often a lack of visibility across the multiple channels where these counterfeit activities occur, making it difficult to identify and mitigate real threats efficiently. Compounding these challenges are the limited expertise, time, and budget to monitor and manage counterfeit threats at scale, further hindering organizations’ ability to effectively protect their brand.

One of the primary issues is the inability to quickly take down fake profiles, counterfeit ads, and fraudulent websites that damage brand reputation and result in financial losses. Additionally, there is often a lack of visibility across the multiple channels where these counterfeit activities occur, making it difficult to identify and mitigate real threats efficiently. Compounding these challenges are the limited expertise, time, and budget to monitor and manage counterfeit threats at scale, further hindering organizations’ ability to effectively protect their brand.

KEY FEATURES AND BENEFITS

This service offers a robust set of features to combat counterfeit activities:

•Comprehensive Monitoring: Fortra continuously and broadly monitors social media profiles, domain registrars, search engines, and the open web for counterfeit marketing and websites. This ensures that any unauthorized use of brand logos, images, or content is quickly identified and addressed.

Counterfeit websites can damage brand reputation and result in financial losses.

•Detection and Scoring of Counterfeit Threats: The service employs automated tools to detect counterfeit sites and ads. Following detection, threats identified as malicious are reviewed by human analysts, who verify they are indeed counterfeit and not originating from your brand. Items are then scored based on the potential impact, with high-severity threats prioritized for immediate action.

•Effective Mitigation: Verified counterfeit threats are categorized and escalated for takedown. Fortra’s strong relationships with social media platforms, hosting providers, domain registrars, and search engines facilitate the rapid removal of counterfeit ads and look-alike domains, and the shutdown of infringing websites selling counterfeit goods.

COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGES

Fortra’s Counterfeit Protection service excels in its ability to monitor and mitigate threats across multiple channels simultaneously. Its comprehensive monitoring capabilities, combined with expert analysis, ensure that no counterfeit threat goes unnoticed. The service’s effectiveness is further enhanced by Fortra’s established takedown processes, which are faster and more reliable than those offered by many competitors.

CONCLUSION

In summary, Fortra’s digital brand protection solution is a robust and comprehensive service offering that addresses the multifaceted challenges of brand impersonation in today’s digital landscape. Each service we reviewed—Domain Monitoring, Social Media Protection, and Counterfeit Protection—provides targeted capabilities that together form a cohesive defense strategy for safeguarding brand integrity. Beyond the core services we reviewed, the Brand Protection solution can also include Mobile App Protection, Open Web Monitoring, and Source Code Monitoring, all contributing to comprehensive digital risk management.

Fortra’s PhishLabs Brand Protection service is designed for easy deployment, enabling organizations to integrate the system with minimal operational impact. The service continuously monitors various digital channels, including the open web, dark web, and social media, to detect threats like look-alike domains and counterfeit ads. A user-friendly portal simplifies threat management, allowing security teams to submit, monitor, and escalate threats efficiently.

We like that Fortra handles the entire threat mitigation process, reducing the workload on internal teams. Additionally, Fortra provides expert curation of incident data to ensure customers are only reviewing the legitimate threats that can impact their business, as well as a robust set of tools for incident management, including an executive dashboard, intuitive workflows, and detailed reporting APIs. These tools help organizations integrate digital threat intelligence directly into their existing security operations, enhancing overall situational awareness and response capabilities.

In conclusion, Fortra’s digital brand protection solution is a critical asset for any organization seeking to protect its brand from digital threats. With its blend of automated technology and expert analysis, Fortra offers a reliable, scalable, and effective defense against the growing threats targeting your brand.

ABOUT FORTRA

Fortra is a cybersecurity company like no other. We’re creating a simpler, stronger future for our customers. Our trusted experts and portfolio of integrated, scalable solutions bring balance and control to organizations around the world. We’re the positive changemakers and your relentless ally to provide peace of mind through every step of your cybersecurity journey. Learn more at fortra.com.

 

The post PRODUCT REVIEW: Fortra’s Digital Brand Protection Solution appeared first on Cybersecurity Insiders.

Today’s digital transformation is rapidly changing the IT and cybersecurity landscape: Remote work and the increased shift to the cloud has broadened the attack surface, introducing new vulnerabilities as employees connect from everywhere. This situation is compounded by the rise of sophisticated cyber threats, like ransomware and phishing, demanding proactive defensive security measures.

Addressing these challenges, Syxsense Enterprise offers a comprehensive solution engineered to reduce an organization’s attack surface and risk profile.

Syxsense Enterprise is the world’s first cloud-based IT management and cybersecurity solution that combines patch management for operating systems and third-party applications, security vulnerability scanning, and remediation with a powerful no-code automation engine. This combination delivers a complete, unified solution that supports patching, security, and compliance needs efficiently.

What level of visibility do you have into vulnerabilities across your IT environment?

About half of the respondents (49%) have high or complete visibility into vulnerabilities across their IT environment, while the other half (51%) have, at best, only a moderate level of visibility. This is concerning, as lack of visibility can lead to unaddressed vulnerabilities and subsequent breaches.

Source: 2023 State of Vulnerability Management Report produced by Cybersecurity Insiders

COMPLETE VISIBILITY AND MANAGEMENT OF IT ASSETS

According to a 2023 Cybersecurity Insiders vulnerability management survey, 49% of the respondents have high to complete visibility into vulnerabilities across their IT environment, while the other half (51%) have, at best, only a moderate level of visibility. Syxsense Enterprise addresses this challenge by providing complete visibility and management of IT assets regardless of their operating system (Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS and Android) or location (roaming, at home, on the network, or in the cloud). This is achieved through a live, two way connection to devices, providing real-time data that enables not just automated remediation but also more accurate compliance reporting.

ROBUST ENDPOINT MANAGEMENT

The platform’s endpoint management capabilities deliver critical intelligence on operating systems, hardware, software inventory, and a complete endpoint timeline. This feature ensures that any missing patches, from the operating system to third-party applications like Adobe, Java, and Chrome, are immediately visible, presenting a clear picture of device changes over time. This allows security and IT operations teams to scan, track, prioritize, and customize security and patching actions, focusing on the most critical patches relative to exposed risk.

With additional features such as pre-built security vulnerability remediations, a policy-based, Zero Trust evaluation engine, and extensive integration capabilities with ITSM tools through its Open API, Syxsense Enterprise addresses the multifaceted challenges posed by current IT and cybersecurity trends. It not only ensures the security of systems but also supports robust audit and compliance initiatives, including compliance proof, ultimately enabling organizations to maintain operational efficiency and security.

UNIFIED SECURITY VULNERABILITY MANAGEMENT

Syxsense Enterprise also offers a single console for vulnerability scanning, remediation, and advanced policy automation. Coupled with endpoint management, this unified approach enables teams to work from a singular information source that is fully aware of the environment’s health and each endpoint’s state. Such comprehensive visibility is critical for improving security, making smarter decisions to reduce risk, and maintaining compliance through actionable insights.

Furthermore, the integration of endpoint management and remediation workflows alongside a Zero Trust evaluation engine allows organizations to build trusted profiles for enterprise devices and verify each device is in a trusted state before granting access, ensuring a seamless blend of security and management capabilities.

ENHANCED PRODUCTIVITY WITH NO-CODE AUTOMATION AND ORCHESTRATION

At the core of Syxsense Enterprise is Syxsense Cortex™, a no-code workflow designer that enables operational staff to orchestrate complex IT and security processes without needing specialist scripting skills. Cortex is designed to streamline IT and security operations through automated endpoint and vulnerability management, enabling organizations to concentrate on their core business objectives rather than being bogged down by IT and cybersecurity risks.

KEY CAPABILITIES

Syxsense Enterprise distinguishes itself with an array of innovative features that empower organizations to streamline processes, enhance security, and ensure comprehensive endpoint management:

1.Syxsense Cortex™ Workflow Builder: An intuitive, no-code automation and orchestration builder that simplifies complex IT and security processes with a drag-and-drop interface. Syxsense Enterprise includes an extensive library of pre-built Cortex™ playbooks, ready to deploy at the push of a button for effective management and monitoring of devices.

2.Security Policy Enforcement: Easily implement a Zero Trust approach for continuous evaluation and authentication of both user and device, alongside automatic remediation of noncompliant endpoints to enforce compliance with security policies.

3.Vulnerability Scanning and Remediation: Automatically identifies and resolves vulnerabilities upon detection through policies triggered by predefined conditions.

4.Vulnerability Database: Features over 3,800 common configuration vulnerability fixes and more than 1,500 security remediation workflows. These are designed to conditionally respond to behavioral and state changes and are available as standalone tasks or as part of automated policies on local systems.

5.Unified Secure Endpoint Management with Open API: Cloud-native and OS-agnostic, Syxsense supports cross-platform management (Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, and Android), enabling the administration of desktops, laptops, servers, virtual machines, and mobile devices (MDM) from a single console. Syxsense Enterprise includes software distribution, feature updates, configuration management, a network map, and troubleshooting tools like remote control.

6.Patch Management and Deployment: Detects OS and third-party patch updates and security configuration issues, prioritizing the management and deployment of updates to devices at critical risk. It keeps systems up to date on releases, prioritizes critical patches, and targets vulnerable devices with accurate detection and rapid deployment.

7.Customizable Dashboards: Allows customization and sharing of discoveries and actionable insights with key stakeholders through interactive visualizations of vital security metrics.

8.Compliance Reporting: Generates proof of compliance reports for audits by regulatory agencies, covering standards like HIPAA, PCI, and SOX.

KEY BENEFITS

Exploring the benefits of Syxsense Enterprise, we highlight how it enhances security, improves operational efficiency, and drives cost savings for organizations:

  • Reduced Risk of Security Breaches: The risk of data breaches and unauthorized access due to exploitation of unpatched vulnerabilities is markedly reduced with Syxsense Enterprise’s comprehensive approach to vulnerability scanning and remediation. The capability to quickly identify and address vulnerabilities is crucial, especially when considering that 44% of organizations report systems with unintended open access and 24% have reported breaches caused by unaddressed vulnerabilities.
  • Improved Security Posture & Uninterrupted Productivity: Syxsense Enterprise offers real-time visibility into all devices within an organization, identifying those in need of patches or harboring vulnerabilities. This enables IT teams to prioritize critical tasks effectively, ensuring that productivity remains uninterrupted, contributing to a remarkable 80% reduction in unplanned downtime.
  • Improved Productivity & Reporting: With Syxsense, reporting on key IT infrastructure metrics becomes effortless, from patch status and time-to-patch to compliance with regulatory requirements. This streamlined reporting contributes to a 30% decrease in IT support cases related to maintenance. Moreover, the solution facilitates a more than 50% faster resolution of IT support cases, underlining its efficiency-boosting benefits.
  • Cost Savings Through Automation: The solution offloads tedious tasks, allowing IT professionals to redirect their focus on more strategic initiatives. Specifically, Syxsense has been shown to reduce patch management resource needs by up to 90% by automating policy application and software installation, freeing up significant amounts of time for IT staff.

DEPLOYMENT

As a cloud-native software vendor, Syxsense delivers its solutions via Software as a Service (SaaS), ensuring a seamless integration into existing IT infrastructures without the need for additional hardware investments. This cloud-based delivery model not only facilitates rapid deployment and scalability but also offers the flexibility required to adapt to evolving security needs.

Speed of Deployment

One of the standout features of Syxsense Enterprise is its quick deployment time. Organizations can have the solution up, configured, and operational within 15 minutes, a stark contrast to the days or even weeks required for deploying traditional IT management solutions. This rapid deployment capability is especially beneficial in scenarios requiring swift action to mitigate existing vulnerabilities or to enhance IT management efficiency without significant downtime.

Subscription Pricing

Syxsense operates on a subscription-based pricing model, which is dependent on the number of endpoints managed. This model allows for a scalable and flexible approach to pricing, ensuring that organizations can tailor their subscriptions according to their specific needs and growth trajectories. Additionally, for Managed Service Providers (MSPs), Syxsense offers specific packaging options, enabling MSPs to utilize the platform both for managing their endpoints and for offering vulnerability management services to their clients.

Free Trial

Prospective clients can explore the benefits of Syxsense through a free trial, available for up to 50 devices and 50 mobile devices for 14 days. This trial offers organizations the opportunity to evaluate the solution’s effectiveness and ease of use in their environment before committing to a subscription.

CONCLUSION

In summary, Syxsense Enterprise stands out as a unified solution tailored for the modern digital enterprise, tackling the multifaceted challenges of endpoint and vulnerability management with a comprehensive, efficient, and scalable approach. By providing detailed visibility, control over endpoints, and a suite of automated vulnerability management and remediation tools, it enables organizations to safeguard their IT environments against the evolving threat landscape while ensuring compliance and operational efficiency. In essence, Syxsense offers a robust platform that not only fortifies an organization’s cybersecurity framework but also streamlines its IT operations. Its comprehensive approach to managing security, efficiency, and compliance across a variety of use cases makes it an extremely valuable asset in the arsenal of modern IT and cybersecurity teams.

ABOUT SYXSENSE

Syxsense is the world’s first software vendor providing cloud-based, automated endpoint and vulnerability management solutions that streamline IT and security operations. With our advanced platform, businesses gain complete visibility and control over their infrastructure, reducing IT risks and optimizing operational efficiency. Our real-time alerts, risk-based vulnerability prioritization, pre-built remediations, and intuitive automation and orchestration engine enable organizations to focus on their core business goals—confident in the knowledge that their enterprise is secure, compliant, and running smoothly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Amidst evolving cybersecurity challenges, including sophisticated cyber-attacks, cloud vulnerabilities, and the expansion of attack surfaces, there is an acute need for solutions that not only detect and respond to threats but also provide comprehensive visibility and risk management across diverse infrastructures.

Trend Vision One – Cloud Security directly addresses this insight by offering a modern, AI-driven cybersecurity platform that spans data centers, cloud workloads, applications, and cloud-native architectures. It delivers comprehensive visibility, risk assessment and prioritization, and multi-cloud detection and response (CDR), across servers, workloads, containers, and files. This solution is designed to meet organizations at any stage of their security journey, enhancing their ability to detect threats earlier, respond faster, and effectively reduce risk through a powerful enterprise cybersecurity platform.

The solution integrates best of breed capabilities such as Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM), External Attack Surface Management (EASM), Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM), agentless vulnerability and malware scanning, API visibility, and compliance checks. It secures workloads across AWS, Azure, GCP, multi-cloud, and on-premises environments.

The key to its effectiveness is its role within the Trend Vision One platform, which consolidates telemetry from diverse sources including networks, workloads, endpoints, email, and identities. This integration enhances visibility across an organization’s complex multi- and hybrid-cloud environment.

The Trend Vision One platform is a comprehensive cybersecurity solution designed to enhance the security posture of organizations across various cloud and on-premises environments.

The platform consists of several key components, each addressing specific security needs:

Attack Surface Risk Management (ASRM) for Cloud

  • Visibility and Decision-Making: Enhances visibility into an organization’s security posture with over 900 AWS and Azure rules, facilitating informed security decisions.
  • Risk Management: Identifies, prioritizes, and remediates high-risk violations and misconfigurations, including overly permissive IAM policies and compliance risks.
  • Compliance and Innovation: Supports over 30 compliance regulations with customizable checks and integrates Infrastructure as Code (IaC) scanning to foster secure coding practices.
  • Attack Path Analysis: Graphs asset connections to identify and analyze potential attack vectors.

XDR for Cloud (CDR)

  • Hybrid Cloud Investigations: Leverages AWS CloudTrail logs for insights into user, service, and resource activities to stay ahead of security threats.
  • Automated Response Actions: Automates response actions via playbooks triggered by CloudTrail alerts, enhancing the security response mechanism.
  • Cloud Environment Protection: Offers on-demand and runtime protection for VMs, containers, storage, databases, and APIs, ensuring comprehensive cloud security.

A TRANSFORMATIVE APPROACH TO CYBERSECURITY

The Trend Vision One platform provides a transformative approach to cybersecurity, designed to unify, simplify, and standardize security across diverse IT environments.

Unify- The platform brings integrated security controls under a single pane of glass, offering centralized visibility and management across security layers, service providers, and cloud environments. This unification eliminates silos and fosters cohesive security operations, enhancing the ability to monitor and manage security across varied landscapes without toggling between disparate systems.

Simplify- Trend Vision One optimizes user experiences by connecting platform workflows with cloud automation and orchestration processes. This simplification streamlines operations, making complex security tasks more manageable and enabling teams to focus on strategic security initiatives rather than being bogged down by routine tasks.

Standardize- The solution ensures consistency across cloud platform functions and on-prem data centers. With features like asset discovery and security policy management, organizations can maintain uniform security standards, simplifying licensing and policy enforcement across their entire IT estate.

A COMPREHENSIVE, INTEGRATED CYBERSECURITY SOLUTION

Robust capabilities offer a comprehensive, integrated approach to cybersecurity, enabling organizations to navigate the complexities of modern IT landscapes with greater efficiency, visibility, and control.

1.Cloud Security Posture Assessment: Offers a free tool to scan cloud infrastructures for misconfigurations and security risks based on common standards and best practices.

2.Proactive Threat Identification: The platform aids in the early detection of cloud threats, visualizing risks and prioritizing vulnerabilities, thus enabling organizations to address potential security issues before they escalate.

3.Rapid Response and Mitigation: Users can quickly respond to security threats and effectively mitigate breaches, minimizing potential damage and downtime.

4.Versatile Management Options: Supports both agent and agentless, as well as runtime and on-demand services, offering flexibility in how security is deployed and managed across environments.

5.Tool Consolidation: By reducing complexity, Trend Vision One paves the way for tool consolidation, potentially lowering costs and simplifying security operations.

6.Enhanced Insights and Compliance: Facilitates asset discovery, security policy management, and licensing, providing richer insights for better security posture management. Operational metrics can be easily aggregated for executive reporting and meeting compliance requirements.

7.Orchestration and Automation: Supports best practices in orchestration and automation, enhancing efficiency and aligning with cloud-native operational models.

8.Connected Workflows for Incident Management: Enables the protection, investigation, and remediation of security incidents through connected platform workflows, streamlining the incident response process.

9.Workload Security: Integrated threat protection provides advanced protection, detection, and response capabilities for servers and cloud workloads, optimizing security outcomes across various environments.

10.Container Security: Comprehensive container protection secures containers from build to termination with image security, admission control policy, runtime protection, and detection and response capabilities.

11.File Security: Malware protection for files delivers instant scanning capabilities for all file sizes and types, protecting workflows from malware across cloud storage platforms.

Each component of the Trend Vision One platform is designed to work seamlessly together or stand alone, providing organizations with the flexibility to tailor their cybersecurity strategy to meet specific needs, ensuring robust protection across their digital assets.

“Part of the reason we were drawn to Trend Micro’s ecosystem was their ability to correlate information from the multiple layers of the decentralized environment that we have—from laptops, mobiles, tablets, servers, multi-clouds for AWS, Azure, and Oracle Cloud. They have really helped us. The product’s automation helps us analyze and detect. The crucial factor we looked for at the beginning was virtual patching, given the fact we have legacy environments.” -Jim Leong, CISO, Clough

ABOUT TREND MICRO

Trend Micro, a global cybersecurity leader, helps make the world safe for exchanging digital information. Fueled by decades of security expertise, global threat research, and continuous innovation, Trend Micro’s cybersecurity platform protects hundreds of thousands of organizations and millions of individuals across clouds, networks, devices, and endpoints.

As a leader in cloud and enterprise cybersecurity, the platform delivers a powerful range of advanced threat defense techniques optimized for environments like AWS, Microsoft, and Google, and central visibility for better, faster detection and response. With 7,000 employees across 65 countries, Trend Micro enables organizations to simplify and secure their connected world. More: www.TrendMicro.com

The post PRODUCT REVIEW: TREND VISION ONE CLOUD SECURITY appeared first on Cybersecurity Insiders.

The management of day-to-day cloud security operations presents a multifaceted challenge for organizations, requiring a delicate balance between technological, procedural, and human factors. Multi-cloud environments significantly increase the complexity and challenges of managing and securing cloud workloads. To effectively address these challenges, organizations should leverage integrated security solutions that offer visibility and control across multi-cloud environments, supporting consistent data protection and privacy standards. Emphasizing partnerships with vendors that provide comprehensive multi-cloud security capabilities and fostering skills development can empower businesses to overcome the complexity of securing multi-cloud architectures. This approach not only mitigates the identified challenges but also harnesses the full potential of multi-cloud environments for enhanced agility, scalability, and innovation.

What are your biggest challenges securing multi-cloud environments?

Multi-cloud environments significantly increase the complexity and challenges of securing cloud workloads. Ensuring data protection and privacy in each environment is identified as the most significant multi-cloud security challenge, with 55% of respondents highlighting it as a concern.

Source: 2024 Cloud Security Report produced by Cybersecurity Insiders

                 

INTRODUCING THE FORTINET FORTIGATE CLOUD NATIVE FIREWALL (CNF)

FortiGate Cloud-Native Firewall (CNF) is a SaaS delivered Next Generation Firewall (NGFW)  service designed for cloud environments, offering scalable security for outbound traffic from multiple cloud networks without requiring network redesign or infrastructure management. It supports geolocation policies, malware protection, and compliance enforcement. Automatically scaling its network protection on AWS, FortiGate CNF meets the dynamic demands of cloud computing with ease.

“With FortiGate CNF, customers can build confidently, boost agility, and take advantage of everything AWS has to offer. As a fully managed cloud-native service, FortiGate CNF provides enterprise-level firewall services and network security that help reduce risk, improve compliance, and optimize customers’ security investments.” 

–Dave Ward, GM, Application Networking, AWS

FortiGate Cloud-Native Firewall (CNF) confronts a broad spectrum of security challenges that plague modern cloud environments, focusing on mitigating threats associated with unsecured outbound traffic.

These challenges include, but are not limited to:

  • Malware: FortiGate CNF provides robust protection against connections to compromised servers, which could lead to unintentional malware downloads. By monitoring and controlling outbound traffic, it prevents malware from infiltrating the network.
  • Data Exfiltration: The solution addresses the critical issue of data exfiltration by blocking compromised systems from communicating out and sending sensitive data to unauthorized systems. This is vital for safeguarding proprietary and personal data against external threats.
  • Command and Control (C2) Communication: It effectively cuts off compromised workloads from communicating with C2 servers. By preventing these communications, FortiGate CNF disrupts the ability of attackers to execute commands or steal data, thus neutralizing the threat.
  • Crypto Mining: By identifying and blocking connections to IPs known for exploiting cloud resources for crypto mining purposes, FortiGate CNF ensures that organizational resources are not siphoned off for malicious gain.
  • Compliance Violations: The solution enforces compliance by preventing unauthorized communications with restricted or prohibited countries, systems, or entities. This feature is particularly crucial for organizations needing to adhere to strict regulatory and compliance guidelines.

KEY CAPABILITIES

FortiGate Cloud-Native Firewall (CNF) offers a suite of key features designed to fortify cloud environments against a wide range of cyber threats, ensuring seamless integration, dynamic scalability, and stringent compliance with regulatory standards.

1. Egress Security: In today’s landscape, where cloud adoption is ubiquitous, securing egress traffic has become paramount. Egress security from FortiGate CNF mitigates risks such as data exfiltration, malware propagation, and botnet activities. It enables organizations to control traffic leaving their cloud environments, ensuring that sensitive data remains protected and that malicious communications are effectively blocked.

2. Known Bad IP Filtering: Leveraging FortiGuard Labs IP Reputation Intelligence, this feature enhances security by preventing access to malicious IPs and Command and Control servers. This proactive measure significantly reduces the risk of security breaches and cyber attacks, ensuring that organizational resources are safeguarded against known threats.

Figure 1 – Known Bad IP Blocking in FortiGate CNF

3. Geo Fencing: Geo Fencing provides the ability to enforce country-level security policies with ease, a crucial capability for organizations needing to comply with regulatory requirements or to implement geographic restrictions on their cloud resources. This feature simplifies the enforcement of geo-specific rules, aiding in compliance and data sovereignty efforts.

Figure 2 – Geo Fencing Example

4. East-West Security: Protecting cloud-based workloads— including dynamic objects like serverless resources, Kubernetes resources, and auto-scaling groups— is essential for maintaining the integrity of internal networks. By enforcing network security policies dynamically, FortiGate CNF ensures comprehensive protection, facilitating secure communication and data transfer within cloud environments.

5. Dynamic Security: The ability to define security policies using intuitive objects (like countries, FQDNs, and AWS resource metadata) empowers organizations to adapt swiftly to changes in their cloud environments. This dynamic security approach reduces the need for constant manual policy updates, enhancing efficiency and responsiveness.

6. Regulatory Compliance: Assisting in meeting various regulatory compliance requirements, such as GDPR, HIPAA, and PCI-DSS, FortiGate CNF helps organizations protect sensitive data and maintain privacy standards. This capability is invaluable for businesses in highly regulated industries, providing a foundation for compliance and data protection strategies.

7. FortiGuard Labs Services: Integration with FortiGuard Labs ensures that FortiGate CNF benefits from up-to-date security intelligence, including multiple security signatures and IP reputation information. This integration enhances the overall security efficacy, offering proactive protection against emerging and existing threats.

8. AWS Firewall Manager Integration: The automation of VPC attachment and policy rollouts through AWS Firewall Manager underscores FortiGate CNF’s commitment to seamless integration and ease of use within the AWS ecosystem. This feature streamlines security management, allowing for more efficient and centralized control over cloud security policies.

Figure 3 – AWS Firewall Manager Integration

9. Advanced Network Security: By offering the latest in network security functionalities, such as IPS, AV, and SSL inspection, managed through FortiManager, FortiGate CNF ensures that organizations can maintain a high level of security without compromising on performance. This comprehensive coverage is essential for defending against sophisticated cyber threats.

10. FortiManager and FortiAnalyzer Integration: The seamless integration with FortiManager and FortiAnalyzer provides advanced management and analytics capabilities. This cohesive integration allows for the centralized management of security policies and insightful analytics, enhancing operational efficiency and security visibility across the network.

Figure 4 – Configuring FortiGate CNF to Send Logs to FortiAnalyzer

“We have been using FortiGate Cloud-Native Firewall for a few years now. It is the most stable and recommended firewall. Users with less technical knowledge can easily manage complex network and security components using it.” -Senior System Administrator

KEY BENEFITS

FortiGate Cloud-Native Firewall (CNF) stands out as a comprehensive solution for securing cloud environments, combining advanced technology and user-centric features to deliver unparalleled security. Here’s an overview of the key benefits that underscore its unique position in the market:

1. Market-Leading Security: FortiGate CNF is powered by Fortinet’s cutting-edge Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) technology, including intrusion prevention systems (IPS) and advanced threat intelligence from FortiGuard. This robust security framework ensures real-time protection against emerging and sophisticated threats.

2. Frictionless Deployment: Designed with cloud first principles, FortiGate CNF offers a seamless deployment experience, optimizing protection for cloud networks. Its cloud-native architecture ensures that it integrates effortlessly with existing cloud infrastructures, making it an ideal solution for modern digital enterprises.

Figure 5 – The Easy-To-Use Deployment Wizard in FortiGate CNF

3. Cost-Effective Security: With its pay-for-use security model, FortiGate CNF allows organizations to only pay for the traffic that is secured across their cloud accounts, networks, and workloads. This flexible pricing ensures that businesses can maintain robust security without incurring unnecessary costs.

4. Simplified Security Management: The intuitive dashboard and predefined policies of FortiGate CNF streamline the security setup process. Customers can easily specify their security policies and network preferences, while FortiGate CNF handles the complex aspects of security management, offering a hands-off approach to network protection.

5. Consolidated Security Architecture: A single FortiGate CNF instance can protect multiple AWS accounts, networks, VPCs, and availability zones within a region. This capability provides significant economic advantages by reducing the need for multiple security solutions and simplifying the security architecture.

6. Dynamic Security Policies: FortiGate CNF’s dynamic security policies offer consistent protection that adapts to changes in cloud workloads. This eliminates the need for manual updates to security policies when IP addresses or workloads change, ensuring continuous and effective security coverage.

7. Flexible Management Options: With integration options for FortiManager and AWS Firewall Manager, FortiGate CNF provides unified control over security policies across cloud and hybrid environments. This flexibility allows for consistent security management, regardless of the deployment model or environment.

QUICK DEPLOYMENT AND FLEXIBLE PRICING OF FORTIGATE CNF

FortiGate CNF is a cloud-delivered SaaS solution that can be deployed rapidly, often within 15 minutes, offering a swift enhancement to security postures with minimal downtime. It utilizes a flexible, pay-as-you-go pricing model, billed monthly based on actual consumption, ensuring cost efficiency and scalability for organizations. This approach, combined with the option for procurement through private offers or partnerships, makes FortiGate CNF a highly accessible and adaptable security solution for modern cloud environments.

OUR VERDICT

In conclusion, FortiGate CNF is set to revolutionize how organizations approach cloud security. By streamlining security operations through the automation of infrastructure management and the deployment of predefined policies, it significantly reduces the time to protection, enabling security teams to concentrate on higher level strategic initiatives. Furthermore, FortiGate CNF’s comprehensive coverage across outbound, east-west, and inbound traffic fortifies customers’ security posture, ensuring thorough protection against a broad spectrum of threats. 

The blend of enhanced security, operational efficiency, and cost-effectiveness positions FortiGate CNF as a cornerstone of modern cloud security frameworks, underscoring its value for businesses aiming to navigate the complexities of today’s digital landscape safely.

ABOUT FORTINET

Fortinet (NASDAQ: FTNT) is a driving force in the evolution of cybersecurity and the convergence of networking and security.

Our mission is to secure people, devices, and data everywhere, and today we deliver cybersecurity everywhere you need it with the largest integrated portfolio of over 50 enterprise grade products.

Well over half a million customers trust Fortinet’s solutions, which are among the most deployed, most patented, and most validated in the industry.

FOR MORE INFORMATION: aws.fortigatecnf.com

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By Holger Schulze, Scott Gordon

The increasing sophistication, targeting, and volume of cyber threats facing organizations, coupled with attack surface management dynamics, requires cybersecurity solutions to move towards curated findings that help security teams become more efficient in handling the increased likelihood of exposures, attacks and breaches. This does not necessarily mean building out a bunch of AI prompts.

Modern security tools like Extended Detection and Response (XDR) have significantly improved SOC capabilities over the years. These tools progress detection and response by integrating various data sources and providing a comprehensive view of the threat landscape. Additionally, advancements in Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) and Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) platforms have streamlined security operations, allowing for enhanced incident management .

Today’s Cybersecurity Challenge

Despite substantial investments in cybersecurity tools, the number of successful attacks is increasing. Over 80% of cyber breaches result from external threat actors conducting phishing, session hijacking, account takeover, and malware attacks – putting organizations under mounting pressure to improve their security posture and automate cyber response. This increase in successful attacks stems from an ever-expanding attack surface combined with increasing coordination and advancement of attack methods.

Factors contributing to the expanding attack surface include the use of multi-cloud services, distributed applications, unaccounted-for internet-facing assets, siloed technology acquisitions across business units, and broader supply chain dependency – all introducing more potential attack points for cyber adversaries​​​. Criminal and state-sponsored adversaries are taking advantage of attack surface soft spots with increasingly AI-gen augmented attack methods to exploit susceptible users and vulnerabilities in systems to accomplish their objectives.

The sheer size, scope, and velocity of attacks and issues are inundating security analysts with alerts—often exceeding 11,000 per day for large organizations—leading to missed exposures, delayed action, and analyst burnout​. Conventional threat intelligence tools provide security teams with relevant information, but still requires analysts to exert consideration assessment, research, and inference workload. Even with alert reduction capabilities, analysts must exert effort to examine, investigate, and validate. This overload has real-world consequences, as seen in notable breaches where overwhelmed analysts were unable to prioritize and focus on the most serious threats. For example, in the case of the 2023 T-Mobile data breach, crucial threats were missed due to the SoC team struggling with prioritizing alerts and managing threats, leading to data exposure that affected millions of customers. Other breaches, such as the 2024 Mintlify and Acer Philippines, demonstrate threat actor sophistication and third-party risk.

Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM)

Given this reality, organizations are adopting more proactive processes and advanced security tools that enable security operations teams to respond faster and enable their companies to become more resilient against rapidly evolving threats. One innovative approach is Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM), which focusing on workflows processes to mitigate potential threats before they escalate.

Introduced by Gartner in 2022, CTEM addresses the limitations of reactive vulnerability management by proactively anticipating threats. In a nutshell, CTEM operates through a cyclical process of five key stages: Scope, Discover, Prioritize, Validate, and Mobilize. This structured methodology ensures that organizations not only identify and understand their attack surface but also respond to risks and remediate vulnerabilities in a more strategic and proactive manner.

  • Scope: Define the organization’s total attack surface and risk profile, including internal and external vulnerabilities.
  • Discover: Utilize advanced tools to identify potential threats and vulnerabilities within the defined scope.
  • Prioritize: Rank threats based on their likelihood of exploitation and potential impact on the organization.
  • Validate: Confirm the existence and severity of identified threats using techniques like automated penetration testing and breach simulation.
  • Mobilize: Implement remediation measures for validated high-priority threats, ensuring alignment with business objectives and effective communication across departments.

Balancing Security Posture and Defense

CTEM strikes an important balance between maintaining a robust security posture and being capable of dynamic response. This balance is crucial because a purely defensive stance may leave organizations vulnerable to novel attack vectors, while a focus solely on response may lead to unaddressed vulnerabilities and missed threats. By integrating posture and response, CTEM enables organizations to prioritize and address the most critical vulnerabilities in real time, aligning security efforts with business objectives and operational realities​.

The Need for a Better Approach

As discussed earlier, traditional threat intelligence sources and assessment tools fall short in refining the signal-to-noise ratio, covering the extended attack surface and managing threat volume and sophistication. This still leaves analysts coping with how to more efficiently triage and respond to the deluge of often irrelevant, inaccurate, and outdated alerts and intelligence data – often missing truly critical findings.

To bridge this gap, TacitRed was developed by continuous intelligence solutions provider Cogility to empower security teams with tactical attack surface intelligence. Unlike traditional tools that often overwhelm analysts with data, TacitRed delivers fully curated, prioritized, and detailed findings on pertinent cyber issues. This allows security teams to take immediate, decisive actions on compromised and at-imminent-risk assets to mitigate exposures.

Tactical Attack Surface Intelligence with TacitRed

TacitRed continuously monitors, maps, and analyzes an organization’s external attack surface, offering an on-demand assessment of an organization’s security posture and providing curated, valid, and detailed active threat findings.

As a turnkey, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution, TacitRed automatically maps an organization’s external attack surface and correlates connections and threat activity between its digital presence, cyber adversaries, and third-party entities.

Security operations, security analysts, and risk analysts can instantly examine curated attack surface risks and active issues of over 18 million U.S. entities on demand by simply entering a business domain name. Users can examine compromised and imminent target assets and novel attack findings categorized by severity, threat type, and cyber kill chain stage. The on-demand, accurate, and actionable intelligence with full contextualization sets TacitRed apart from conventional, query-based external attack surface management tools.

Attack Surface Intelligence Process

TacitRed’s approach to attack surface intelligence can be summarized in five key steps that are closely aligned with the principles of Continuous Threat Exposure Management (CTEM) model discussed earlier, which serves to anticipate and mitigate potential threats before they can escalate:

  • Inventory: Continuously maps and analyzes internet-facing assets, while dynamically monitoring the connections and threat activity and active exploits.
  • Discover: Identifies compromised and at-imminent-risk assets, helping security teams understand the overall security posture of their organization’s external attack surface. A calculated Threat Score based on active threat actor activity informs analysts about the extent of assets that are compromised or are at imminent risk and require priority action.
  • Investigate: Provides comprehensive, curated findings enabling analysts to readily examine compromised and high target assets with full contextual details of affected machines and users, prioritized by severity and categorized within the cyber attack chain stage. This allows analysts to focus their investigation on valid security issues with high fidelity.
  • Respond: Expedites mitigation efforts by sharing curated findings with incident response teams, including asset severity rating and detailed exposure evidence. The system enables the integration of active attack surface asset enumeration and threat findings to existing SIEM, SOAR, and IT Asset Management tools via API.
  • Extend: Enables security teams to assess their extended attack surface of third-party entities, such as subsidiaries, partners, suppliers, agents, and service providers. By sharing threat scores and critical security insights, organizations can facilitate corrective actions to reduce supply-chain risk.

An Example of How AI Unleashes the Full Potential of Threat Intelligence

Leveraging Expert AI and event stream processing technologies, TacitRed is able to deliver accurate, actionable threat intelligence at scale. At the heart of TacitRed is Cogility’s patented Hierarchical Complex Event Processing (HCEP) analytic. It applies pattern-matching logic at machine speed to dynamically process billions of streamed records each hour through its cloud-scaled event stream processing engine – while maintaining state. By synthesizing available industry threat intelligence with proprietary sources, such as domain and internet routing registries, malware and botnet logs, bulletproof hosting, C2 node identification, and internet traffic sampling, TacitRed provides the best possible curated threat insights that can enable organizations to respond to and prevent incidents. The Expert AI behavioral analysis identifies active cyber attacks, including threat actors, targeted entities, exposed assets, compromised credentials and sessions, and malware activities. Additionally, TacitRed evaluates third-party risks and presents actionable results with similar details as first-party risk assessments.

This is presented in a simple, intuitive SaaS GUI allowing analysts to ascertain risk, examine active compromised and target assets, and mobilize mitigation efforts using detailed threat contextualization – or to push findings to other internal systems via API.

“The interface is straight-forward and purposely uncomplicated. The speed, depth, and usefulness of threat detail from TacitRed is astonishing – saving us considerable time and potential claim loss,” according to Ross Warren, VP of E&O and Cyber at ATRI Insurance Services.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, TacitRed is a game-changer in delivering tactical attack surface intelligence that can help organizations realize the promise of Continuous Threat Exposure Management. The SaaS solution’s ability to provide continuous, curated, prioritized and detailed active security findings empowers security teams to assess active threats faster and mitigate them more efficiently. By enhancing security analyst capacity and capability, the tool can help fortify the way SOC operations manages external attack surface risk.

For more information, visit https://tacitred.com and check out their free 30-day trial at https://tacitred.com/trynow

The post Transforming SOC Operations: How TacitRed Curated Threat Intelligence Boosts Analyst Efficiency and Delivers Tactical Attack Surface Intelligence appeared first on Cybersecurity Insiders.

Today’s Security Operations Centers (SOCs) are under immense pressure as they face an onslaught of challenges: a rising volume of security alerts, increasingly sophisticated cyber threats, and a persistent shortage of skilled analysts.

This combination leads to a heightened risk of breaches from overlooked threats, alert fatigue among existing staff, and difficulty in effectively identifying and mitigating threats.

The Radiant Security Gen AI SOC Co-pilot addresses these critical issues head-on. Its AI-driven approach not only streamlines threat detection and response but also compensates for the perennial analyst shortage by enhancing the productivity and effectiveness of existing SOC teams.

This solution steps in as a much-needed ally in an arena where the volume, velocity and complexity of threats are overwhelming traditional defense mechanisms and existing teams, and hiring more analysts is simply not feasible. Let’s take a closer look at how the platform accomplishes this.

PRODUCT OVERVIEW

Radiant’s SOC Co-pilot is a comprehensive solution designed to address the critical challenges faced by Security Operations Centers. It stands out for its AI-driven approach to threat detection, analysis, and response. Here’s a detailed review of its key features and capabilities:

1. AI-Driven Alert Triage:

The threat management systems SOCs rely on detect too much noise and false positives.

 This makes it nearly impossible to find the alerts that matter and investigate them further. The Radiant platform makes it possible to enrich and review every single alert across identities, emails, endpoints, networks, cloud, and other data types—then to intelligently categorize and prioritize genuine alerts. This reduces the noise from false positives, enabling SOC teams to focus on genuine threats, a crucial need in today’s high-alert environments.

2. Automated Threat Investigation:

Radiant SOC Co-pilot leverages AI to delve deep into genuine alerts. It connects data across security tools to see the entire picture of attacks and provides detailed investigations to determine the root cause and full scope of every malicious alert. This feature ensures SOCs are able to see and understand the entirety of every incident that is uncovered.

This also greatly reduces the manual effort required in threat analysis, enhancing efficiency and empowering even junior analysts to perform more advanced investigations.

3. Rapid and Intelligent Response:

Incident response is complex, time-consuming work for understaffed SOC teams, leading to long response times and opportunities for attacks to dwell and expand across the network. The Radiant solution slashes response times by streamlining and automating responses to confirmed threats, from isolating systems to deploying countermeasures.

Radiant’s co-pilot dynamically builds a response plan based on the specific needs of the uncovered security issue. This unique capability provides analysts with step-by-step remediation guidance on how to respond to incidents, including flexible automation options including manual, single-click or fully automated response. This rapid response is vital for minimizing the impact of fast-moving attacks.

4. Boost SOC Team Productivity:

SOC teams don’t have enough staff hours in the day to triage and investigate every alert that comes their way. The result: Work is left undone and attacks go unnoticed.

Using out of the box capabilities, Radiant automates 80% to 90% of triage and investigation tasks, freeing analysts from tedious, time consuming tasks and allowing teams to focus on strategic aspects of cybersecurity, increasing security, efficiency and job satisfaction.

5. User-Friendly Interface:

With its intuitive user interface, the Radiant SOC Co-pilot ensures easy navigation and effective management of threats, making complex data and processes accessible to all skill levels and empowering even junior analysts to take on more complex work.

With its intuitive user interface, the Radiant SOC Co-pilot ensures easy navigation and effective management of threats, making complex data and processes accessible to all skill levels and empowering even junior analysts to take on more complex work.

6. Scalability and Integration:

The platform’s design for scalability and seamless integration with existing infrastructure (such as security tools like EDR, SIEMs, Firewalls, etc., IT infrastructure such as ticketing and authentication solutions, and communications platforms like Slack and Microsoft teams) makes it adaptable to complex and growing organizational needs.

7. Continuous Learning and Adaptation:

The AI models utilized by the platform are designed to continually learn and adapt, ensuring the SOC is equipped with the latest defense strategies.

These features collectively enable the Radiant SOC Co-pilot to significantly improve SOC operations, boost analyst productivity, detect real attacks through unlimited in-depth investigations, and rapidly respond to incidents. The AI engine powering the co-pilot addresses not only current challenges but also learns from daily threat investigations to equip SOCs for future threats.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, the Radiant Security’s Gen AI SOC Co-pilot stands as an exceptional choice, setting a new standard in threat management and SOC automation. Its AI-driven capabilities not only streamline operations but also significantly enhance threat detection and response. The platform empowers SOC teams, allowing them to focus on strategic tasks by automating routine processes. This leads to improved efficiency, reduced response times, and a more robust cybersecurity posture. Radiant’s solution, with its user-friendly interface and scalable infrastructure, makes it an adaptable and forward-looking tool, equipped to meet both current and future cybersecurity challenges.

ABOUT RADIANT SECURITY

Radiant Security, led by a team of cybersecurity industry veterans who played pivotal roles in the success of companies like Imperva and Exabeam, offers an AI-powered security co-pilot for Security Operations Centers (SOCs). Radiant enables SOCs to harness the power of AI to boost analyst productivity, detect more real attacks, and slash incident response times from days or weeks to minutes. Deployed in minutes via API, Radiant Security provides rapid time to value and immediately reduces analyst workloads by as much as 95%.

radiantsecurity.ai

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Today’s digital transformation is rapidly changing the IT and cybersecurity landscape: Remote work and the  increased shift to the cloud has broadened the attack surface, introducing new vulnerabilities as employees  connect from everywhere. This situation is compounded by the rise of sophisticated cyber threats, like  ransomware and phishing, demanding proactive defensive security measures.  

Addressing these challenges, Syxsense Enterprise offers a comprehensive solution engineered to reduce an  organization’s attack surface and risk profile.  

Syxsense Enterprise is the world’s first cloud-based IT management and cybersecurity solution that combines  patch management for operating systems and third-party applications, security vulnerability scanning, and  remediation with a powerful no-code automation engine. This combination delivers a complete, unified  solution that supports patching, security, and compliance needs efficiently. 

What level of visibility do you have into vulnerabilities across your IT environment?

About half of the respondents (49%) have high or complete visibility into vulnerabilities across their IT environment, while the other half (51%) have, at best, only a moderate level of visibility. This is concerning, as lack of visibility can lead to unaddressed vulnerabilities and subsequent breaches

Source: 2023 State of Vulnerability Management Report produced by Cybersecurity Insiders

COMPLETE VISIBILITY AND MANAGEMENT OF IT ASSETS 

According to a 2023 Cybersecurity Insiders vulnerability management survey, 49% of the respondents have  high to complete visibility into vulnerabilities across their IT environment, while the other half (51%) have, at  best, only a moderate level of visibility. Syxsense Enterprise addresses this challenge by providing complete  visibility and management of IT assets regardless of their operating system (Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS and  

Android) or location (roaming, at home, on the network, or in the cloud). This is achieved through a live, two way connection to devices, providing real-time data that enables not just automated remediation but also  more accurate compliance reporting. 

ROBUST ENDPOINT MANAGEMENT  

The platform’s endpoint management capabilities deliver  critical intelligence on operating systems, hardware, software  inventory, and a complete endpoint timeline. This feature ensures that any missing patches, from the operating system  to third-party applications like Adobe, Java, and Chrome, are  immediately visible, presenting a clear picture of device changes over time. This allows security and IT operations teams to scan, track, prioritize, and customize security and patching actions, focusing on the most critical patches relative to exposed risk. 

With additional features such as pre-built security vulnerability remediations, a policy-based, Zero Trust  evaluation engine, and extensive integration capabilities with ITSM tools through its Open API, Syxsense  Enterprise addresses the multifaceted challenges posed by current IT and cybersecurity trends. It not only  ensures the security of systems but also supports robust audit and compliance initiatives, including compliance  proof, ultimately enabling organizations to maintain operational efficiency and security. 

UNIFIED SECURITY VULNERABILITY MANAGEMENT  

Syxsense Enterprise also offers a single console for vulnerability scanning, remediation, and advanced  policy automation. Coupled with endpoint management, this unified approach enables teams to work from  a singular information source that is fully aware of the environment’s health and each endpoint’s state.  Such comprehensive visibility is critical for improving security, making smarter decisions to reduce risk, and  maintaining compliance through actionable insights. 

Furthermore, the integration of endpoint management and remediation workflows alongside a Zero Trust  evaluation engine allows organizations to build trusted profiles for enterprise devices and verify each device is  in a trusted state before granting access, ensuring a seamless blend of security and management capabilities. 

ENHANCED PRODUCTIVITY WITH NO-CODE AUTOMATION AND ORCHESTRATION 

At the core of Syxsense Enterprise is Syxsense Cortex™, a no-code workflow designer that enables operational staff to orchestrate complex IT and security processes without needing specialist scripting skills. Cortex is designed to streamline IT and security operations through automated endpoint and vulnerability management, enabling organizations to concentrate on their core business objectives rather than being bogged down by IT and cybersecurity risks.

KEY CAPABILITIES

Syxsense Enterprise distinguishes itself with an array of innovative features that empower organizations to  streamline processes, enhance security, and ensure comprehensive endpoint management: 

  1. Syxsense Cortex™ Workflow Builder: An intuitive, no-code automation and orchestration builder  that simplifies complex IT and security processes with a drag-and-drop interface. Syxsense Enterprise  includes an extensive library of pre-built Cortex™ playbooks, ready to deploy at the push of a button  for effective management and monitoring of devices. 
  2. Security Policy Enforcement: Easily implement a Zero Trust approach for continuous evaluation  and authentication of both user and device, alongside automatic remediation of noncompliant  endpoints to enforce compliance with security policies. 
  3. Vulnerability Scanning and Remediation: Automatically identifies and resolves vulnerabilities upon  detection through policies triggered by predefined conditions. 
  4. Vulnerability Database: Features over 3,800 common configuration vulnerability fixes and more  than 1,500 security remediation workflows. These are designed to conditionally respond to behavioral and  state changes and are available as standalone tasks or as part of automated policies on local systems.
  5. Unified Secure Endpoint Management with Open API: Cloud-native and OS-agnostic,  Syxsense supports cross-platform management (Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, and Android), enabling  the administration of desktops, laptops, servers, virtual machines, and mobile devices (MDM) from  a single console. Syxsense Enterprise includes software distribution, feature updates, configuration  management, a network map, and troubleshooting tools like remote control.
  6. Patch Management and Deployment: Detects OS and third-party patch updates and security  configuration issues, prioritizing the management and deployment of updates to devices at critical  risk. It keeps systems up to date on releases, prioritizes critical patches, and targets vulnerable devices  with accurate detection and rapid deployment.  
  7. Customizable Dashboards: Allows customization and sharing of discoveries and actionable  insights with key stakeholders through interactive visualizations of vital security metrics.
  8. Compliance Reporting: Generates proof of compliance reports for audits by regulatory agencies,  covering standards like HIPAA, PCI, and SOX.

KEY BENEFITS

Exploring the benefits of Syxsense Enterprise, we highlight how it enhances security, improves  operational efficiency, and drives cost savings for organizations: 

  • Reduced Risk of Security Breaches: The risk of data breaches and unauthorized access  due to exploitation of unpatched vulnerabilities is markedly reduced with Syxsense Enterprise’s  comprehensive approach to vulnerability scanning and remediation. The capability to quickly  identify and address vulnerabilities is crucial, especially when considering that 44% of  organizations report systems with unintended open access and 24% have reported breaches  caused by unaddressed vulnerabilities.  
  • Improved Security Posture & Uninterrupted Productivity: Syxsense Enterprise offers  real-time visibility into all devices within an organization, identifying those in need of patches or  harboring vulnerabilities. This enables IT teams to prioritize critical tasks effectively, ensuring that  productivity remains uninterrupted, contributing to a remarkable 80% reduction in unplanned  downtime.
  • Improved Productivity & Reporting: With Syxsense, reporting on key IT infrastructure  metrics becomes effortless, from patch status and time-to-patch to compliance with regulatory  requirements. This streamlined reporting contributes to a 30% decrease in IT support cases  related to maintenance. Moreover, the solution facilitates a more than 50% faster resolution of IT  support cases, underlining its efficiency-boosting benefits.
  • Cost Savings Through Automation: The solution offloads tedious tasks, allowing IT  professionals to redirect their focus on more strategic initiatives. Specifically, Syxsense has  been shown to reduce patch management resource needs by up to 90% by automating policy  application and software installation, freeing up significant amounts of time for IT staff.

DEPLOYMENT

As a cloud-native software vendor, Syxsense delivers its solutions via Software as a Service (SaaS), ensuring  a seamless integration into existing IT infrastructures without the need for additional hardware investments.  This cloud-based delivery model not only facilitates rapid deployment and scalability but also offers the  flexibility required to adapt to evolving security needs.

Speed of Deployment  

One of the standout features of Syxsense Enterprise is its quick deployment time. Organizations can have the solution up, configured, and operational within 15 minutes, a stark contrast to the days or even weeks required for deploying traditional IT management solutions. This rapid deployment capability is especially beneficial in scenarios requiring swift action to mitigate existing vulnerabilities or to enhance IT management efficiency without significant downtime.

Subscription Pricing

Syxsense operates on a subscription-based pricing model, which is dependent on the number of endpoints managed. This model allows for a scalable and flexible approach to pricing, ensuring that organizations can tailor their subscriptions according to their specific needs and growth trajectories. Additionally, for Managed Service Providers (MSPs), Syxsense offers specific packaging options, enabling MSPs to utilize the platform both for managing their endpoints and for offering vulnerability management services to their clients.

Free Trial

Prospective clients can explore the benefits of Syxsense through a free trial, available for up to 50 devices and 50 mobile devices for 14 days. This trial offers organizations the opportunity to evaluate the solution’s effectiveness and ease of use in their environment before committing to a subscription. 

CONCLUSION

In summary, Syxsense Enterprise stands out as a unified solution tailored for the modern digital enterprise, tackling the multifaceted challenges of endpoint and vulnerability management with a comprehensive, efficient, and scalable approach. By providing detailed visibility, control over endpoints, and a suite of automated vulnerability management and remediation tools, it enables organizations to safeguard their IT environments against the evolving threat landscape while ensuring compliance and operational efficiency. In essence, Syxsense offers a robust platform that not only fortifies an organization’s cybersecurity framework but also streamlines its IT operations. Its comprehensive approach to managing security, efficiency, and compliance across a variety of use cases makes it an extremely valuable asset in the arsenal of modern IT and cybersecurity teams.

ABOUT SYXSENSE

Syxsense is the world’s first software vendor providing cloud-based, automated endpoint and vulnerability management solutions that streamline IT and security operations. With our advanced platform, businesses gain complete visibility and control over their infrastructure, reducing IT risks and optimizing operational efficiency. Our real-time alerts, risk-based vulnerability prioritization, pre-built remediations, and intuitive automation and orchestration engine enable organizations to focus on their core business goals—confident in the knowledge that their enterprise is secure, compliant, and running smoothly

 

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