Author: bacohido

Boston, Mass., Nov. 7, 2023 —AppMap today announces its innovative Runtime Code Review solution that will transform software quality and the developer experience.

AppMap’s mission is to deliver actionable insights to developers where they work, and AppMap continues to deliver on the promise with its latest release for the GitHub Marketplace.

Unexpected runtime defects account for a staggering 40% of performance problems and 50% of security defects. AppMap directly addresses this issue with its industry-first automated Runtime Code Review to find and fix runtime flaws prior to release.

Unlike static code analysis and LLM-based code review, Runtime Code Review surfaces insights that are only visible while code executes with new data about code behavior and novel code quality analyses. AppMap’s new release detects and fixes critical runtime performance, security, and stability issues earlier than ever, ensuring trouble-free code release to production.

Without AppMap, developers typically spend a whopping 40% of their time each week in break-fix development cycles. With Runtime Code Review from AppMap, cycles of runtime investigation and code repair drop from weeks down to minutes saving organizations development time and money. AppMap’s first CI release, their new GitHub Action, brings instant insights to developers where they evaluate code quality: in the pull request.

AppMap’s users liken it to a robot software “architect” that evaluates and explains every permutation of a code change on the code’s runtime behavior. Each defect that AppMap finds gets a root cause diagnosis of problems, such as failing test cases, breaking API changes, newly introduced performance problems, and new runtime security flaws.

Beyond finding problems, each automated review includes a set of interactive visual maps explaining the behavior causing the issue. This analysis of new code behavior is particularly valuable in evaluating problems with AI-generated code. AppMap runtime code review and maps save development teams hours of time reproducing problems and making repairs and lightens the load on humans evaluating code changes for critical defects before release.

Lawler

“AppMap’s Runtime Code Review is a natural extension of the AppMap experience geared for software development organizations,” says Elizabeth Lawler, founder and CEO of AppMap. “Runtime code review detects code quality issues that organizations care about most: breaking changes, slow performance, and hidden application security defects. Runtime code review provides the insight every development team needs to evaluate the impact of code and release with confidence. Human coders or AI coders: runtime analysis works well for both.”

AppMap has raised $10 million from an assembled team of investors with deep expertise in developer-led growth, DevSecOps, and the observability market. Key investors include Work-Bench Ventures, Forgepoint Capital, Venture Guides, Unusual Ventures, and Dell Technology Capital, with support from Uncorrelated Ventures, Secure Octane, Argon Ventures, and select angels. Funding will be used to accelerate the development of AppMap’s industry-leading platform, grow the team, and expand the company’s go-to market.

The company has more than tripled its integrated development environment (IDE) installations since launching its code editor extensions at TechCrunch in 2022. AppMap’s language-specific libraries have been distributed to codebases in 160 countries worldwide, amassing over 1 million downloads. Today’s CI release in the GitHub Marketplace is the company’s first team-focused product built on the company’s enthusiasm for developer-focused products in the VS Code and JetBrains marketplaces.

Lehr

“Improving software behavior earlier in the Software Development Life Cycle is more critical than ever for enterprises as DevOps gains are slowing,” said Jon Lehr, General Partner of Work-Bench Ventures and AppMap Board member. “AppMap’s Runtime Code Review provides insights precisely when and where new code is introducing quality issues the business cares about, without the overhead and expense of instrumentation. With AppMap, enterprises can build faster and more securely, gaining significant competitive advantage.”

AppMap will officially unveil Runtime Code Review at the GitHub Universe 2023 Conference, November 8-9 in San Francisco. Conference attendees will be able to meet with the AppMap team to explore platform features, see live demonstrations, ask questions, and experience Runtime Code Review’s ability to transform their development processes.

About AppMap: AppMap is a leading developer of code visualization and runtime code review analysis technology. The company has a history of pioneering tech innovations, and its platform is redefining how developers improve their software. Founded in Boston, Massachusetts in 2020, AppMap has become one of the fastest-growing tools for software visualization and runtime analysis. For more information, follow AppMap on X (@getappmap) and LinkedIn, and visit www.appmap.io

QR code phishing attacks started landing in inboxes around the world about six months ago.

Related: ‘BEC’ bilking on the rise

These attacks prompt the target to scan a QR code and trick them into downloading malware or sharing sensitive information.

In June, we started seeing these types of attacks amongst our customer base. Since June, there has been a fourfold increase in the search volume around keywords associated with these types of attacks.

Within the last week we have identified 655,0000 QR codes for our customers, of which 1,000 contained suspicious text and 8,000 came from a domain with a low rank (a freemail or a new email address, which are both flags for malicious senders). This is a true reflection of the attack landscape.

Scans slip through

These attacks are so successful because many traditional email security tools focus only on text-scanning, allowing image-based attacks to slip through. When attacks reach the inbox, users have a natural reaction to “scan the code,” assuming it’s legitimate.

When they do, many users don’t have any apprehensions around scanning QR codes because the assumption is that QR codes are legitimate. Also, users generally receive the email on their device but scan the QR code with their phone.

Mobile phones often don’t have the same level of corporate protections that desktops do. A lot of companies find themselves looking in the rear-view mirror post-compromise to see the anomalies detected like a new IP address/device that sent the attack email.

Lieberman

At this stage, companies should (at a minimum) educate their employees about the prevalence of these attacks, and the key things to look out for as the most basic form of protection against them. For example, users should know that Microsoft, Zoom, ZenDesk and other platforms will NEVER ask you to log in via QR code, which is something that users may often fall prey to.

Attacker friendly

Looking at hacker economics here, it is easy to understand why these attacks are so popular: they come with a low investment of cost and time, and they can be scaled up without much effort. In some cases, these attacks are also hard to detect. As a few examples:

•Secure email gateways pick up the first URL a QR code sends them to, but not the malicious redirect.

•Text can be embedded in the image of the QR code itself, which text based systems won’t pick up – Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is required.

Best practices

So how do you defend your enterprise against QR code phishing attacks?

The first step business leaders should take is determining if there is a legitimate use case for QR codes being used via email in their business. QR codes only make life easier if they don’t come with a side of malware, or a scam to steal information. Beyond that, here are a few best practices:

•Determine if the email contains a QR code and if it is from an untrusted sender or a sender with a low domain rank. Each company has to determine what they deem to be an “untrusted sender,” it can be a sender with a recently registered domain, a first-time sender to the user or a user that has not been seen across the company or the platform.

•Read QR codes to determine if text is hidden in an image that isn’t in text form, or extract and follow the URL to determine if it is malicious. In image-based attacks, images can be added to a deny list and emails containing anything similar can be blocked.

•With the QR code landscape evolving and new QR codes coming out constantly, attackers can keep iterating these attacks. A recent method involves a malicious QR code in PDF attachments. As such, it is important to not only scan text and images in the email body, but in attachments as well.

•Use tooling to determine if you hover over the QR code and get a redirect. If not, you’ll know that the code is not legitimate.

Staying on top of how these attacks evolve and ensuring that your defense mechanisms follow suit can feel like a full-time job. However, cloud email security providers can offer a series of defense mechanisms—from QR code scanning, to perceptual hashing, OCR-based detection and URL and behavioral analysis.

Tools and services are readily available to ensure these attacks don’t hit users inboxes in the first place, and have a fighting chance at being successful in their phishing attempts.

Make sure to always check the waters before you swim (or in this case, scan).

About the essayist: Allen Lieberman is the Chief Product Officer at Tessian. Prior to Tessian, Allen was at VMware Carbon Black for nearly a decade, where he held roles including Senior Director of Product Marketing and VP of Product Management.

Phoenix, Ariz. — Nov. 1, 2023 — AdviserCyber, a cybersecurity service provider for Registered Investment Advisers (RIAs) with $500M to $3B Assets Under Management (AUM) who must comply with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) cybersecurity requirements, announced its formal launch today.

In the last year alone, advisers and wealth managers in financial sectors have witnessed an 80% increase in cyber threats and intrusion activity, with investment advisers being particularly vulnerable due to the sensitive nature of the data they handle.

AdviserCyber’s launch comes at a pivotal moment, as pending SEC regulations specifically geared towards RIAs and Broker/Dealers now require firms to prioritize cybersecurity practices like never before. The new rules are designed to enhance a firm’s risk management and data protection capabilities. AdviserCyber’s mission is to provide robust protection across entire enterprises, while ensuring compliance with the stringent regulations set by the SEC.

Cocanower

“The SEC has increased measures to ensure investment advisers adopt and implement effective cybersecurity policies,” said Michael Cocanower, founder and CEO of AdviserCyber. “Our solutions are designed with this in mind, ensuring customer data is protected, while also enabling customers to navigate the extremely complex regulatory landscape.”

As the SEC rolls out the new cybersecurity regulations for RIAs, compliance is critical. But real cybersecurity goes beyond checking a box for compliance to ensure RIAs are protected and prepared for ever-evolving cyber threats. AdviserCyber focuses only on cybersecurity compliance for RIAs, delivering a deeper level of cybersecurity with its unique and specific expertise.

AdviserCyber’s primary service offering — AdviserSecure — is a comprehensive suite of technology and services that meet compliance requirements with all current and proposed SEC cybersecurity regulations. A separate bundled offering, AdviserSecure Complete, is also available for prospective customers. AdviserCyber’s suite of services includes:

•Risk Assessment & Management: Comprehensive evaluations to identify vulnerabilities and ensure that all regulatory requirements are met in order to help RIAs make risk-informed decisions.

•Cybersecurity Training and Phishing Testing: The easiest part of a system to hack is the human being. The only way to prevent this part of your defense is through training and testing. Help your employees become better defenders of your data.

•Asset Discovery and Inventory: Identify and manage an organization’s digital assets to enhance security, reduce vulnerabilities, and ensure compliance with industry regulations and standards.

•Real Time Vulnerability Scanning and Remediation:  Scan for vulnerabilities both internally and externally in real time.  Classify vulnerabilities based on severity allowing you to focus on the most important items first.  Also includes an allocation of time every month to remediate any vulnerabilities found in your systems.

•Cybersecurity Toolset: Custom technology provides RIAs with the greatest possible defenses against threat actors.

•Incident Response: An expert in cybersecurity is on call whenever an organization needs them. Rapid action plans address and resolve any security breaches, minimizing potential damage. 24/7 incident detection monitoring ensures critical issues are realized and worked to resolve in real-time as they happen.

•Compliance Consulting: Expert guidance on navigating the SEC’s cybersecurity regulations, ensuring that investment advisers remain compliant. This includes staying up to date on all essential compliance documentation.

AdviserCyber also offers an advanced program — AdviserSecure Complete — that goes beyond the requirement of the SEC to greatly reduce the risk of cyberattacks. These additional services include:

•Penetration Testing: Penetration testing simulates real-world cyberattacks to identify vulnerabilities and weaknesses in digital systems, helping to proactively strengthen security defenses.

•Mobile Device Management: Goes beyond merely protecting data on an organization’s computers and extends the protection and monitoring out to include mobile devices such as phones and tablets.

•Advanced Email Protection: Email is the entry point for an overwhelming number of modern cyberattacks.  Advanced Email Protection provides comprehensive protection to help significantly mitigate the risk at an organization’s ‘front door.’

•Digital Rights Management:  Maintain control of the data both inside and outside your organization.  Scan data at exit points for confidential information such as account numbers or personally identifiable information and ensure it isn’t able to leave your organization without your knowledge.

AdviserCyber will work with a firm’s compliance team to ensure compliance is met and improve overall security of an adviser firm. To book a demo with AdviserCyber Founder Michael Cocanower and learn more about AdviserCyber’s offerings, visit www.advisercyber.com.

About AdviserCyber: AdviserCyber is a cybersecurity service that was created specifically for Registered Investment Advisers (RIAs) and Broker/Dealers to navigate the extremely complex regulatory framework. Led by founder Michael Cocanower, who holds Certified Ethical Hacker and Investment Adviser Certified Compliance Professional® certifications, AdviserCyber’s deep understanding of the financial sector and the regulatory landscape is second to none. AdviserCyber doesn’t just ship cybersecurity software and call it a day. It is a hands-on, human-led experience, leveraging both custom technology and the human expertise of our deeply knowledgeable cybersecurity team that monitors for threats in real-time 24/7. For more information about AdviserCyber, please visit advisercyber.com.

Media contact: Lauren Meckstroth, The Abbi Agency, lauren@theabbiagency.com, 775.446.4678

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San Francisco, Calif., Oct. 31, 2023 – Traceable AI, the industry’s leading API security company, proudly announces its continued recognition in the cybersecurity industry, with the latest accolade being the prestigious SINET16 Innovator Award for 2023.

The SINET16 Innovator Award recognizes the most innovative companies and technologies addressing today’s top cybersecurity threats and vulnerabilities.

Traceable was chosen from a competitive pool of 195 applications across 13 countries by a rigorous judging process involving 115 private and government security professionals.

In just a few months, Traceable’s innovative solutions have been consistently acknowledged. The company has been honored by the Cybersecurity Breakthrough Awards, the Globee Information Technology Awards, TMCNet Zero Trust Security Excellence Awards, Cybersecurity Excellence Awards, Fortress Cybersecurity Awards, and the Global InfoSec Innovator award.

Bansal

Jyoti Bansal, CEO and co-founder of Traceable, reflects on the company’s achievements: “It is critical to deliver compelling solutions that solve for the emerging challenges that our customers face today. The SINET16 Innovator Award, along with our other recognitions, are testaments to our innovative and comprehensive approach to API security in today’s intensely competitive cybersecurity landscape.”

In all of these latest awards, Traceable was honored for the significant impact of its API Security Platform. The platform is the only solution in the industry that creates a comprehensive, deep contextual understanding of the relationships between API activity, user behavior, data flow, and attacker actions over time.

Rodriguez

This rich understanding enables in-depth behavioral analysis of both APIs and users, providing comprehensive API discovery, attack detection and protection, contextually aware API security testing, and threat hunting capabilities – all of which are impossible to perform with traditional security solutions such as Web Application Firewalls (WAF), API Gateways, API Lifecycle Management, and Web Application and API Protection (WAAP) solutions.

“We would like to extend our heartfelt congratulations to Traceable and the rest of this year’s class of SINET16 winners. We are proud to play a role in accelerating innovation into a global marketplace by increasing the awareness of value-add companies,” said Rodriguez, chairman of SINET. “We look forward to watching Traceable continue to mature as they progress on an amazing entrepreneurial journey and their mission to protect APIs.”

To learn more about Traceable’s API Security Platform, visit https://www.traceable.ai/api-security-platform.

About Traceable: Traceable is the industry’s leading API Security company that helps organizations achieve API visibility and attack protection in a cloud-first, API-driven world. Traceable is the only intelligent and context-aware solution that powers complete API security – API discovery and posture management, API security testing, attack detection and protection, anywhere your APIs live. Traceable enables organizations to minimize risk and maximize the value that APIs bring their customers. To learn more about how API security can help your business, book a demo with a security expert.

Media contact: Shannon Cieciuch, Touchdown PR, traceable@touchdownpr.com

Salt Lake City, Utah, Oct. 31, 2023 —Ivanti, the tech company that elevates and secures Everywhere Work, today announced the results of its Executive Security Spotlight report as part of Ivanti’s Cybersecurity Status Report Series.

Ivanti surveyed over 6,500 executive leaders, cybersecurity professionals and office workers to understand today’s threats and discover how organizations are preparing for yet-unknown future threats.

Top executives — the employee group most targeted by threat actors — are frequently provided unfettered access to valuable data sources and networked assets. While 96% of leaders say they are at least moderately supportive and invested in their organization’s cybersecurity mandate, the reality is that 49% of CXOs have requested to bypass one or more security measures in the past year.

Although security leaders are aware that high-access executives present a unique security threat, the research reveals that executive security exceptions and low-risk time-savers lead to outsized organizational risks.

The report identifies several executive cybersecurity habits and behaviors that security professionals need to be aware of:

•One in five leaders have shared their work password with someone outside the company.

•77% use easy-to-remember password hacks, including birthdates or pet names.

•CXOs are three times more likely to share work devices with unauthorized users, such as friends, families and external freelancers.

•One in three executives admit to accessing unauthorized work files and data, and nearly two in three say that they could have edited those files/data when accessing them.

Moreover, the report highlights a critical issue of trust and communication between executives and the security teams responsible for protecting them. Executives reportedly are two times more likely to say their past interactions with security were ‘awkward’ or ‘embarrassing’ when sharing security concerns. This leads to executives being four times more likely to resort to external, unapproved tech support. To address this, the report emphasizes the importance of rebuilding trust and fostering a collaborative relationship between security teams and executives based on honesty and friendly support, rather than condemnation or condescension.

The report outlines steps businesses and security professionals can leverage to close the executive conduct gap including conducting audits, prioritizing remediation for the most common risks, conducting gamified security training sessions, and implementing “white glove” security programs.

To learn more about the results of Ivanti’s Executive Security Spotlight report, please visit here.

About Ivanti: Ivanti elevates and secures Everywhere Work so that people and organizations can thrive. We make technology work for people, not the other way around. Today’s employees use a wide range of corporate and personal devices to access IT applications and data over multiple networks to stay productive, wherever and however they work. Ivanti is one of the only technology companies that finds, manages and protects each IT asset and endpoint in an organization. Over 40,000 customers, including 88 of the Fortune 100, have chosen Ivanti to help them deliver an excellent digital employee experience and improve IT and security team productivity and efficiency. At Ivanti, we strive to create an environment where all perspectives are heard, respected and valued and are committed to a more sustainable future for our customers, partners, employees and the planet. For more information, visit?www.ivanti.com?and follow @GoIvanti.

 Media contact: Carrie Laudie, Ivanti, Associate Director, Public Relations, +1 650-963-6011, carrie.laudie@ivanti.com

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A new tier of overlapping, interoperable, highly automated security platforms must, over the next decade, replace the legacy, on-premise systems that enterprises spent multiple kings’ fortunes building up over the past 25 years.

Related: How ‘XDR’ defeats silos

Now along comes a new book, Evading EDR: The Definitive Guide for Defeating Endpoint Detection Systems, by a red team expert, Matt Hand, that drills down a premier legacy security system that is in the midst of this transition: endpoint detection and response, EDR.

Emerging from traditional antivirus and endpoint protection platforms, EDR rose to the fore in the mid-2010s to improve upon the continuous monitoring of servers, desktops, laptops and mobile devices and put security teams in a better position to mitigate advanced threats, such as APTs and zero-day vulnerabilities.

Today, EDR is relied upon to detect and respond to phishing, account takeovers, BEC attacks, business logic hacks, ransomware campaigns and DDoS bombardments across an organization’s environment. It’s a key tool that security teams rely upon to read the tea leaves and carry out triage, that is, make sense of the oceans of telemetry ingested by SIEMs and thus get to a position where they can more wisely fine-tune their organization’s automated vs manual responses.

Last Watchdog visited with Hand to get his perspective of what it’s like in the trenches, deep inside the world of managing EDRs, on the front lines of non-stop cyber attacks and reactive defensive tactics. He says he wrote Evading EDR to help experienced and up-and-coming security analysts grasp every nuance of how EDR systems work, from a vendor-agnostic perspective, and thus get the most from them. His guidance also happens to shed some revealing light about the ground floor of the cyber arms race while illustrating why network security needs to be overhauled.

LW: From a macro level, do security teams truly understand their EDRs? How much are they getting out of them at this moment; how much potential would you say is actually being tapped vs. left on the table?

Hand:   I don’t think that a majority of teams who rely on EDR truly understand their inner workings or are getting the most out of them. EDRs have historically been considered a “black box” – something that activity goes into, and alerts come out of. Most teams that I’ve encountered trust that their EDR works perfectly out of the box and unfortunately that’s just not the case.

Every EDR needs to be tuned to the specific environment in which it is deployed. Some vendors have a period during customer onboarding wherein the EDR observes what is typical in the environment and creates a baseline, but this shouldn’t be the end of tuning. The next step should be building custom detections tailored to the organization. Unfortunately, most SOCs are still understaffed so detection engineering often goes on the back burner in favor of managing the alert queue.

LW: Your chapter teasers suggest there remains a ton of viable attack paths in the nooks and crannies of Windows systems; is this where attackers are making hay with Living off the Land (LotL) tactics? Can you please frame what this looks like.

Hand:   In any significantly complex system, there will inevitably be edge and corner cases that we just can’t account for. Windows is a very complex operating system and there are a ton of native capabilities that attackers can leverage. This can include using traditional living-off-the-land binaries or something as niche as a Win32 API function that allows for arbitrary code to be executed.

Finding and closing all of these attack vectors is an immense, if not entirely unfeasible, task. This fact highlights the importance of growing beyond solely using brittle, signature-based detections and investing in robust detections that capture the common denominator between many techniques and operations that an attacker can employ. This is only a band aid though and we should be looking at Microsoft and other OS developers to invest more into secure-by-design principles.LW: Your book is targeted to precious commodity: experienced cybersecurity professionals. Aren’t reactive systems that require specialized human expertise, like EDR, on their way out?

Hand:   I don’t believe so. I think the biggest problem is in reactivity and how it forces us to use our more experienced engineers. Let’s say that there is some cool new post-exploitation technique circulating. Should I pull my most experienced engineers away from building proactive defenses to test, validate, and remediate any issues or should I rely more on my vendor(s) to ensure we’re covered? If a vendor can identify and shore up a deficiency in their product, it would benefit all customers and not just those with the technical expertise to throw at the problem.

Looking beyond this, if we accept the fact that we have a staffing shortage and truly senior engineers are rare, we have two options – forge more engineers or use ours more effectively. Right now, the impact an engineer has is typically limited to their own organization. For instance, if an engineer writes a detection to catch that cool new post-exploitation technique, the outside world will likely never know.

What if instead of keeping the output of the hard work that goes into extending the usefulness of an EDR (research, writing detections, tuning, etc.), we shared that information openly with others in the industry so that everyone can benefit from it? If a surgeon finds a cool new method to perform an operation that has better patient outcomes, do they squirrel it away at their hospital or do they publish it to a journal and teach others?

 LW: Where do you see EDR fitting in 10 years from now? Does it have a place in the leading-edge security platforms and frameworks that are shifting more to a focus on proactive resiliency at the cloud edge, instead of reactive systems on endpoints?

Hand:   Yes, 100%. At the end of the day, an endpoint is any system that runs code, whether those be workstations, servers, mobile devices, cloud systems, ICS, or any other type of system. The nature of endpoints has and will continue to change, but there will always be endpoints that need defending. Perimeter defense has also been around for ages, but now the nature of the perimeter is changing.

Hand

Trying to decide which is more important isn’t the conversation we should be having. Rather, we should accept that proactive hardening and increasing the resiliency of Internet-facing systems, which would fall into a “prevention” category, is equally as important as ensuring that we can catch an adversary that slips through the cracks. Realistically, if a motivated and well-resourced attacker wants to get into your environment, they will.

It’s just a matter of time. If we accept that fact, we should spend our limited time and resources making it reasonably difficult to breach the perimeter (MFA, asset management, inbound mail filtering, training) while also preparing for the inevitability of a breach by implementing robust detective controls that can catch an adversary as early in their attack chain as possible to reduce the impact of the breach and allow responders to more confidently evict them.

Acohido

Pulitzer Prize-winning business journalist Byron V. Acohido is dedicated to fostering public awareness about how to make the Internet as private and secure as it ought to be.

 

Boston, Mass., Oct. 27, 2023 – Today, the Healey-Driscoll Administration announced a $2.3 million grant through the MassTech Collaborative’s MassCyberCenter to CyberTrust Massachusetts, a nonprofit dedicated to strengthening the cybersecurity ecosystem, to support cybersecurity resiliency for Massachusetts communities and help develop a talent pipeline at Masschusetts colleges and universities to encourage students to enter the field.

The CyberTrust Massachusetts grant was announced at the seventh annual Massachusetts Cybersecurity Forum held at the State House today during Massachusetts Cybersecurity Month.

“Our administration knows how important it is to protect our municipal governments, small businesses, and community organizations from cybersecurity threats,” said Secretary Yvonne Hao of the Executive Office of Economic Development. “This grant to CyberTrust Massachusetts will help support cybersecurity resiliency in our cities and towns while bringing new students into the field through training and career development opportunities.”

“This grant is a game changer,” said Carolyn Kirk, Executive Director of the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, the parent organization of the MassCyberCenter. “When you recognize that cybersecurity impacts us at every level, from the state government to your personal laptop, it becomes apparent that you need to build a strong plan to solve such a complex and pervasive issue.

“That is why we have taken a multi-pronged approach that educates students about the opportunities that exist in a cybersecurity career, providing the critical training on cutting-edge tools, and the mentorship they need to succeed in a career. As a former mayor, the support that these students will provide to municipalities and small businesses, supported by the award to CyberTrust Massachusetts, will help protect small organizations that face critical funding and staffing challenges which leave them exposed to emerging cyber threats. Through our support for CyberTrust Massachusetts, we can accomplish this dual mission – to provide new career opportunities for Massachusetts students, while at the same time bolstering our cyber readiness statewide.”

Sherlock

“This is more than a financial grant; it builds on the institutional capital our consortium members are investing in the future of cybersecurity in Massachusetts. After a strong start, we look forward to being able to scale,” said Peter Sherlock, CEO of CyberTrust Massachusetts. “We are creating a new model, where experiential learning meets cutting-edge technology to fortify our cybersecurity infrastructure across the state and ready the next generation of cyber professionals for meaningful and impactful careers.”

The funding will allow CyberTrust Massachusetts to support cybersecurity resiliency for local governments in Massachusetts through Security Operations Centers (SOCs), which are centers staffed by security experts who protect the cybersecurity of an organization through monitoring, detection, and response to cyber threats. The SOCs will provide 24/7 services for municipalities, which often cannot afford to hire outside SOCs or security experts to support their technical infrastructure, and help these communities conduct assessments to test their vulnerability to cybersecurity risks. The funding will also allow CyberTrust Massachusetts to hire students from affiliated academic organizations in Massachusetts and provide training, experience, and career development for these young cybersecurity professionals. In addition to municipal support, CyberTrust Massachusetts will continue providing key training tools used by cyber ranges at community colleges and universities across the state where students and young professionals can learn how to respond to cyber threats in a simulated environment.

Petrozzelli

“Cybersecurity is often perceived as a technical discipline that is exclusive to coders and professionals with STEM degrees, but there is a strong demand in the field for individuals with diverse skills like problem solving and critical thinking that do not require advanced degrees,” said John Petrozzelli, Director of the MassCyberCenter at MassTech. “In order for the cybersecurity ecosystem in Massachusetts to improve and grow, it’s essential that we communicate to students the opportunities that are available in cybersecurity and how valuable these skills are, so that anyone interested in becoming a cybersecurity expert knows these career pathways exist and are not limited to a select few. At the MassCyberCenter, we believe this approach will not only build new pathways for students and enable companies to hire new talent, but believe it will significantly improve the cybersecurity posture of our municipalities and businesses alike.”

Today’s Massachusetts Cybersecurity Forum brought together industry experts, academic leaders, and government officials to discuss partnerships, identify resources, and share innovative ideas about how to meet the state’s cybersecurity goals. The event featured a keynote from John Petrozzelli, Director of the MassCyberCenter, as well as discussions about collaborations for cyber defense and how Massachusetts organizations are confronting the cybersecurity implications of artificial intelligence and quantum computing.

“It is critically important that we not only make our governments, industries, and constituents secure against the cyber threats of today, but also that we foster a pipeline for the next generation of cybersecurity professionals that can fight the cyber criminals of tomorrow. This generous grant from the Healey-Driscoll Administration does just that,” said State Senator Michael Moore (D-Millbury). “I’d like to thank the Governor for recognizing how important it is to harden our online systems and to make them more resilient against bad actors. I am confident that CyberTrust Massachusetts will use these funds to help build a better, stronger, more secure Commonwealth.”

About the MassCyberCenter at the MassTech Collaborative: The MassCyberCenter was launched in September 2017 to enhance opportunities for the Massachusetts cybersecurity ecosystem and strengthen the resiliency of the state’s public and private communities. Earlier this month, the center held the 2023 Massachusetts Municipal Cybersecurity Summit in Worcester, which brought together municipal leaders, first responders, utility providers, and IT personnel from across the state to discuss threats, training, workforce development and cyber incident response planning. The MassCyberCenter works with cities, towns, universities, and the private sector to build cyber awareness, institute best practices, leverage future workforce talent, and create a more powerful cyber defense force to guard against future threats. Learn more at masscybercenter.org.

Media Contact: Jake Stern, MassTech, (781) 801 8845, stern@masstech.org.

Singapore, Oct. 25, 2023 – Hardware cybersecurity solutions pioneer Flexxon (the “Company”) today announced the appointment of ex-Intel and Microsoft executive Mr Ravi Agarwal to its advisory board.

An industry veteran with over three decades of experience, Mr Agarwal will lend his extensive expertise to the Company’s strategic growth and innovation strategy across its markets of operation.

Commenting on his appointment to the board, Mr Agarwal said, “I am delighted to accept this role and bring Flexxon and its innovative cybersecurity solutions to the fore of our industry’s development.

“Cybersecurity is one of the greatest necessities in today’s digitized society, and I look forward to playing a part in hastening the process through my work with the forward-looking and dynamic team at Flexxon.”

Ms Camellia Chan, Co-Founder and CEO of Flexxon, said, “We are thrilled to welcome Ravi to our distinguished advisory board, an invaluable sounding board and source of insight as we take the company to new heights across the globe.

Chan

“With Ravi’s extensive and proven depth of expertise and experience, I have no doubt that we will be able to strengthen our efforts in bringing truly effective, intelligent and impactful cybersecurity solutions to organisations and individuals across the globe – and change the state of play in our favour against hackers.”

Mr Agarwal, is a well-respected global technology executive with deep experience in strategy and brand development, and business transformation. In his capacity of Intel’s Director of Marketing, he conceived and launched the “intel in it” branding initiative in Japan. A landmark initiative which was then leveraged to create the worldwide “Intel Inside” campaign. For his contribution, Ravi received Intel’s most prestigious Intel Achievement Award.

Agarwal

An active contributor to the community, Mr Agarwal spearheaded a mentorship program for under-privileged college students in partnership with the Ministry of Education in Singapore. He is also an active member of the Harvard Club Singapore and lent his time as a professor at Singapore’s Nanyang Business School as a Practice Faculty specializing in emerging markets strategies. He also served on the board of the Singapore American School for five years.

Headquartered in Singapore and with offices in the US, Malaysia, Taiwan and Hong Kong, Flexxon continues to expand on its novel hardware-based cybersecurity solutions portfolio. Its X-PHY Cybersecure SSD was unveiled in 2021 and has since been integrated into laptops from leading PC manufacturers including Lenovo, HP, ASUS and more. This secure endpoint offering is also available as an option in Singapore’s largest telecommunications provider, SingTel’s, SME cybersecurity solutions suite of offerings. In the coming months, Flexxon will build on the X-PHY’s success and officially unveil its latest innovation, which will deliver another industry first. This time, in its approach to securing data centers and servers.

About Flexxon:Founded in 2007 and headquartered in Singapore, Flexxon is a global company that specialises in next generation hardware-based cybersecurity solutions and industrial NAND flash storage devices. Rooted in its strong pedigree as a leading industrial NAND flash storage solutions provider, Flexxon is committed to protecting the basic rights of all citizens of the digital economy through constant innovation to address the evolving cybersecurity needs of today. Today, the company has offices globally including Singapore, USA, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Taiwan. With over thirty patents and counting, Flexxon’s market-leading products and solutions aim to deliver the utmost security and confidentiality standards to users. For more information, please visit:Flexxon: flexxon.com

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North Andover, Mass., Oct.25, 2023— DataPivot Technologies, a prominent provider of Data Center, Cloud and Data Protection Solutions, understands that healthcare providers  today are scrambling to solve complex clinical, operational and patient data backup & recovery challenges.

In response to this industry’s data growth and complexity, DataPivot is delivering innovative data protection solutions that are modern, flexible and scalable, empowering their clients to navigate the complexities of digital health with confidence.

In an era marked by cyber threats, and unforeseen system and application downtime, many healthcare providers still rely on siloed products to protect their physical, virtual, and cloud-based applications that generate the most important clinical and patient data.  As this data grows and instantaneous access from anywhere on any device becomes standard, the need for a modern, unified data Backup & Recovery solution that can centralize, simplify, and scale with all data types has become crucial. This modern solution should also provide additional value through data governance, orchestration, automation, and eCompliance & discovery, reducing risk while lowering data management costs.

DataPivot’s pioneering approach enables hospitals to reposition their backup and recovery requirements from a cost center to a dynamic catalyst for business value by enhancing their backup efficiency, lowering data management costs, and elevating operational capabilities:

•DataPivot engaged with Gaylord Specialty Healthcare to deliver a comprehensive approach to their Data Protection, improving backup processes and lowering data management costs. DataPivot further enabled this leading medical rehabilitation healthcare provider to enhance its business continuity capabilities with a faster time to data recovery as part of their incident response testing criteria.  DataPivot continues to support Gaylord Specialty Healthcare with ongoing consulting, best practice implementation and reporting.

•UConn Health, an innovative, high-growth academic medical center, has been collaborating with DataPivot on a software-defined data protection architecture, resulting in more agility, a reduction in data backup costs and a stronger security posture.

•DataPivot has also provided essential professional services and support to Cambridge Health Alliance, Harvard Medical School’s world-renowned teaching hospital. Serving as the first-call triage for IT support for their data backup environment, DataPivot modernized their IT solution resulting in 40% performance improvement with lower costs and higher scalability. An additional layer of security was added with an immutable copy of the backup data, further ensuring the integrity and safety of critical healthcare data.

Westie

“We are deeply committed to simplifying and reducing the cost of data backup and recovery, and we’ve identified clear opportunity for efficiencies within the healthcare sector,” said Giles Westie, Founder and President, DataPivot Technologies. “We are proud to be at the forefront of revolutionizing how healthcare providers safeguard their growing clinical, patient and operational data.”

“Gaylord Specialty Healthcare is a health system dedicated exclusively to medical rehabilitation, providing inpatient and outpatient care for people at every point in their medical journey.  With DataPivot as our key technology partner, we are extremely confident in our ability to cost-effectively backup, recover and secure our critical data,” said Andy Huang, IT Manager for Gaylord Specialty Health.

By providing tailored solutions and unparalleled support, DataPivot ensures hospitals and other healthcare organizations can focus on delivering exceptional patient care while maintaining the highest standards of data security and accessibility. For more information about DataPivot Technologies, please visit www.datapivottech.com.

About DataPivot Technologies: DataPivot Technologies is a Data Center and Cloud Technologies solutions company largely focused on data protection with unique expertise in backup and recovery. The company delivers on a client-centric approach with an emphasis on customer service, accountability, and technical expertise. As business and sales professionals with combined decades of experience, DataPivot has the knowledge and industry expertise to help enterprise clients achieve their organizational goals. For more information about DataPivot Technologies, please visit https://www.datapivottech.com. 

Media Contact: Nina Pfister, MAG PR at nina@mooringadvisorygroup.com.

Scottsdale, Ariz., Oct.  24, 2023 — Lumifi, a cybersecurity industry leader, is embarking on a strategic expansion plan by targeting cybersecurity firms.

This strategic direction gains its foundation from Lumifi’s recent landmark acquisition, Castra, valued at $14 million, which further fortifies the SOC Visibility Triad, a concept initially introduced in a Gartner® research report titled “Apply Network-Centric Approaches for Threat Detection and Response“1 We believe that Lumifi has followed this path diligently for 15 years.

By integrating top-tier cybersecurity analysts with cutting-edge systems, Lumifi steadfastly maintains its gold standard in safeguarding its esteemed clientele. This development comes in the wake of Lumifi’s $30 million acquisition of Datashield from ADT in April 2022. The company is now primed to secure 2-4 more acquisitions within the next 6 to 18 months, bolstering its position in the cybersecurity landscape.

According to Gartner® “The renewed focus on the human element continues to grow among this year’s top cybersecurity trends,” says Gartner Senior Director Analyst Richard Addiscott. “Security and risk management leaders must rethink their balance of investments across technology, structural, and human-centric elements as they design and implement their cybersecurity programs.” 2

Each day brings new threats and challenges, further compounded by artificial intelligence (AI). Cybercriminals have become more sophisticated, and thus, the detection and mitigation of security threats must be thorough. Lumifi’s approach to cybersecurity integrates system, network, and device monitoring with human expertise. The company’s advanced security framework is monitored 24 hours a day/7 days a week by a team of U.S.-based cybersecurity analysts and former military and DoD experts.

Lumifi/DataShield is the pioneer in managed detection and response (MDR), and has established itself as a prominent industry leader. With over 15 years of experience, initially focusing on packet captures and forensics, Lumifi/Datashield gained recognition in its early stages for its instrumental role in shaping the current MDR landscape. Today, Lumifi stands as a premier outsourced service, dedicated to equipping organizations with specialized threat-hunting capabilities and swift responses to emerging security risks.

Malone

“We are experiencing increasing demand for our comprehensive and proactive MDR services,” said Michael Malone, CEO of Lumifi. “Keeping our customers out of harm’s way 24/7 requires the perfect combination of breakthrough yet highly reliable and proven technology solutions and qualified human expertise.  Now, our next steps for expansion necessitate finding and acquiring the best MDR companies that complement and expand upon all that we are presently offering.”

While many cybersecurity solutions necessitate regular oversight, Lumifi sets itself apart by providing a cutting-edge Managed Detection and Response (MDR) service. This unique approach synergizes the capabilities of our Security Operations Center with our in-house developed platform, ShieldVision™. Recognized as a top-tier Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) solution, ShieldVision™ stands out in threat detection, with proactive hunting, and immediate automated interventions. As Lumifi pursues acquisitions of firms like Castra, our focus is not just on expanding our technology arsenal, but also on deepening our engineering expertise.

Norlin

David Norlin, CISO at Lumifi, notes, “Our strategic partnerships with technology frontrunners like Palo Alto Cortex, Extrahop, and Exabeam highlight our dedication to pushing boundaries and strengthening our industry leadership.”

Lumifi’s growth strategy has garnered unwavering support from its investors, who eagerly anticipate expanding its technology stack and human capital. The recent success of the Castra acquisition has further fueled investor excitement as they eagerly look forward to Lumifi surpassing customer expectations across diverse industries, including Fortune 500 companies, prominent government agencies, and discerning legal firms. Castra recently was recognized for the second year in a row as one of CRN’s fastest growing technology vendors in North America.

“We are amazed about the high caliber of protection technology and services provided by Lumifi,” said Chris Graber, Managing Director, Corporate Investments & Acquisitions at BOKF Capital. “They have a winning combination of human and cybersecurity integrated solutions that effectively detect and thwart cyberattacks.  The Lumifi cybersecurity services are resonating with top-tier clients.”

Staying ahead of cybercriminals is no easy task, but Lumifi continues to evolve and innovate. The strategic initiative to acquire new MDR partners is another game-changing move that further strengthens Lumifi’s capabilities to provide unparalleled defense of critical customers.

“Lumifi is defining the future of cybersecurity,” said Frank Mora, Senior Partner of HCAP Partners. “The company is well positioned to acquire additional MDR partners and will fortify their customers with the best possible system, network, and device monitoring capabilities.”

For cybersecurity firms looking to explore collaborative opportunities and consider becoming a part of the Lumifi family, contact Matthew Decker at mdecker@lumificyber.com. We are eager to engage with partners who share our vision and commitment to excellence.

About Lumifi: Lumifi, headquartered in Scottsdale, is a vanguard in the cybersecurity industry, dedicated to protecting digital assets and fortifying cyber defenses for businesses across the board. With a team of experts and state-of-the-art technology, Lumifi is shaping the future of cyber safety.