Software Security
PR Newswire | October 16, 2023
BT and Google Cloud today announced a new partnership focusing on an enhanced commitment to cybersecurity innovation. Serving customers in more than 180 countries and with a team of 3,000 security professionals, BT works with the security industry's leading vendors to provide managed security solutions to private and public sector organisations around the world.
As part of the partnership, BT will become a managed services delivery partner for Google's Autonomic Security Operations (ASO) offering based on Google Chronicle. ASO is a holistic framework that combines principles, practices, and tools that enable organisations to take an adaptive and automated approach to threat management. Underpinned by Chronicle's peta-byte scale detection, a data lake powered by Google Cloud's data and analytics platform BigQuery, and rich, compelling analytics via Looker, the solution decreases the time to detect and respond to threats—which is essential in the face of the increasing volume and complexity of cyber-attacks.
Customers will benefit from the new partnership by gaining the technological capabilities of Google Chronicle, combined with BT's track record of delivering cybersecurity services to organisations with complex estates and requirements. Customers will be supported by experts from BT's Security Advisory Services team, who leverage BT's deep experience in security operations and integration to help organisations ensure that they have optimised their wider security architecture to fully align with their priorities and ambition.
Combining Google Chronicle's capabilities with BT's view of global networks and experience of providing managed security services is a really exciting prospect. The ASO solution will help our customers to rapidly identify risks and automatically enhance their cyber defences—providing the speed that's essential to combating cyber-attacks. It represents the first step in our partnership with Google Cloud on cybersecurity, with both companies committed to providing new innovations and solutions that help organisations stay ahead of an increasingly threatening cyber threat landscape, said Tris Morgan, Managing Director, Security at BT.
"Our partnership brings the best of BT's experience in deploying big data-based security platforms with Google Cloud's innovative security capabilities to help our multinational customers transform their approaches to cyber risk management in the face of a rapidly changing threat landscape," said Magali Bohn, Global Director, Partnerships & Channels at Google Cloud Security.
The partnership builds on BT Group and Google's existing relationship to house BT Group's data in Google Cloud to support its analytics and AI ambitions. BT and Google Cloud will also seek to incorporate solutions from Mandiant, a market leader in threat intelligence solutions acquired by Google in 2022, as an additional aspect of the partnership. Finally, BT is working with Google Cloud to trial Google's Vertex AI and Duet AI capabilities.
Read More
Software Security
PR Newswire | October 06, 2023
IBM (NYSE: IBM) today unveiled the next evolution of its managed detection and response service offerings with new AI technologies, including the ability to automatically escalate or close up to 85% of alerts,1 helping to accelerate security response timelines for clients.
The new Threat Detection and Response Services (TDR) provide 24x7 monitoring, investigation, and automated remediation of security alerts from all relevant technologies across client's hybrid cloud environments – including existing security tools and investments, as well as cloud, on-premise, and operational technologies (OT). The managed services are delivered by IBM Consulting's global team of security analysts via IBM's advanced security services platform, which applies multiple layers of AI and contextual threat intelligence from the company's vast global security network – helping automate away the noise while quickly escalating critical threats.
Security teams today are not just outnumbered by attackers, but also by the number of vulnerabilities, alerts and security tools and systems they're tasked with managing on a day-to-day basis, said Chris McCurdy, General Manager, Worldwide IBM Consulting Cybersecurity Services. By combining advanced analytics and real-time threat intelligence with human expertise, IBM's new Threat Detection and Response Services can augment organization's security defenses with a capability that is scalable, continuously improving and strong enough for tomorrow's threats.
Intelligently Adapting Threat Defenses
The new TDR Services are underpinned by a set of AI-powered security technologies that support thousands of clients across the world, monitoring billions of potential security events per day. It leverages AI models that continuously learn from real-world client data, including security analyst responses, engineered to automatically close low priority and false positive alerts based on a client-defined confidence level. This capability also automatically escalates high risk alerts that require immediate action by security teams and provides investigation context.
IBM's TDR Services are designed to provide:
Crowdsourced detection rules, Optimized alerts. Leveraging real-time insights from IBM's threat management engagements, the new services use AI to continuously assess and auto-recommend the most effective detection rules – helping to improve alert quality, and speed response times. This capability helped reduce low-value SIEM alerts by 45% and auto escalate 79% more high-value alerts that required immediate attention2. Organizations can approve and update detection rules with just two clicks through its co-managed portal.
MITRE ATT&CK assessment. To stay prepared for ransomware and wipe-out attacks, organizations will be able to see how their environment is covering MITRE ATT&CK framework tactics, techniques, and procedures as compared to their industry and geography peers. By applying AI, the new services are designed to reconcile the multiple detection tools and policies currently in place at an organization, providing an enterprise view into how to best detect threats and assess gaps to update within an ATT&CK framework.
Seamless end-to-end integration. With its open API approach, the new services can quickly integrate with a client's enterprise-wide security assets, whether on premise or in the cloud. Organizations can continue to access their ecosystem while also having the option to connect and collaborate and define their own response playbooks through a co-managed portal. This provides a unified enterprise view, precise remediation capabilities, and consistently enforces security policies across IT & OT.
24x7 global support. Organizations will have access to more than 6,000 IBM Cybersecurity Services professionals across the globe 24/7 x 365 to help augment security programs. IBM Consulting Cybersecurity Services' vast global network serves more than 3,000 clients around the world – managing more than 2 million endpoints and 150 billion security events per day.
"Security leaders today are trying to escape the vicious cycle of staff shortages, increased threats, and rising demands from the C-Suite to mature their cyber program without breaking the bank. For many organizations the old playbook of swapping out their tools for a vendor's preferred platform does not work, as they cannot afford to write off prior SOC investments," said Craig Robinson, IDC Research VP of Security Services. "A service like IBM's Threat Detection and Response offering can provide an off-ramp to these concerns, without requiring a full rip-and-replace of their prior security investments and help shift their human capital in the SOC to more of a proactive mode."
To support continuous improvement for security operations capabilities, IBM's TDR Services, which are now available, include access to IBM's X- Force Incident Response Services along with the option to include additional proactive security services from IBM X-Force, such as penetration testing, adversary simulation or vulnerability management. X-Force will also provide guidance to help clients improve their security operations over time, based on the current threat landscape, clients' evolving IT environment, and insights gleaned from engagements with thousands of IBM Cybersecurity Services clients around the world.
Read More
Platform Security
PR Newswire | October 26, 2023
OpenText (NASDAQ: OTEX), (TSX: OTEX), today announced the Nastiest Malware of 2023, an annual ranking of the year's biggest malware threats. For six consecutive years OpenText Cybersecurity threat intelligence experts have analyzed the threat landscape to determine the most notorious malware trends. Ransomware has been rapidly ascending the ranks, with ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) now the weapon of choice for cybercriminals.
This year four new ransomware gangs, believed to be the next generation of previous big players, topped the list. Newcomer Cl0p takes the prize for this year's nastiest malware after commanding exorbitant ransom demands with its MOVEit campaign. Cl0p's efforts helped skyrocket the average ransom payment which is rapidly approaching three quarters of a million dollars. Black Cat, Akira, Royal, Black Basta also made their debut, joined by the always present, Lockbit.
A key finding this year is the RaaS business model is another win for the bad guys. Profit sharing and risk mitigation are top contributors to RaaS success along with the ability to easily evade authorities, said Muhi Majzoub, EVP and Chief Product Officer, OpenText. There is a silver lining as research shows only 29% of businesses pay ransom, an all-time low. These numbers indicate people are taking threats seriously and investing in security to be in a position where they do not need to pay ransom.
This year's list highlights the tenacity of cybercriminals as they continue to reinvent themselves, coming back stronger each time (often with new names). Their scrappy mentality allows them to go beyond the norm to find new ways to invade their target.
2023 Nastiest Malware
Cl0p, a RaaS platform, became famous following a series of cyberattacks, exploited a zero-day vulnerability in the MOVEit Transfer file software developed by Progress Software. MOVEit victims include such notable organizations as Shell, BBC, and the United States Department of Energy.
Black Cat, recognized in our 2021 Nastiest Malware report, believed to be the successor to REvil ransomware group, has built their RaaS platform on the Rust programming language. They made headlines for taking down MGM Casino Resorts.
Akira, presumed to be a descendant of Conti, primarily targets small to medium sized businesses due to the ease and turnaround time. Most notably, Akira ransomware targeted Cisco VPN products as an attack vector to breach corporate networks, steal, and eventually encrypt data.
Royal, suspected heir to Ryuk, uses Whitehat penetration testing tools to move laterally in an environment to gain control of the entire network. Helping aid in deception is their unique partial encryption approach that allows the threat actor to choose a specific percentage of data in a file to encrypt.
Lockbit 3.0, a main stain on the list and last year's winner, continues to wreak havoc. Now in its third epoch, Lockbit 3.0 is more modular and evasive than its predecessors.
Black Basta is one of the most active RaaS threat actors and is also considered to be yet another descendant of the Conti ransomware group. They have gained a reputation for targeting all types of industries indiscriminately.
To learn more about the findings of this year's Nastiest Malware analysis, visit the OpenText Cybersecurity Community, as well as tune in to our Nastiest Malware Webinar.
Read More