Enterprise Security
Honeywell | September 11, 2023
Honeywell has announced that it's the first company to incorporate quantum-computing-hardened encryption keys into smart utility meters, protecting end-user data from advanced cybersecurity threats.
Quantinuum's Quantum Origin provides an advantage over conventional solutions by generating keys with quantum-computing-enhanced randomness.
Honeywell's new Smart Energy and Thermal Solution products powered with Quantum Origin are now available to North American and European customers.
Honeywell recently made a groundbreaking announcement that it is the first company to incorporate quantum-computing-hardened encryption keys into smart utility meters, a move that provides advanced protection for end-user data against cyber threats. To achieve this, Honeywell will leverage Quantinuum's Quantum Origin technology to not only enhance data security but also contribute to building greater reliability and trust in the evolving utility sector.
The enhanced security utility meters establish a new standard for safeguarding against data breaches and ensuring the uninterrupted operation of water, gas, and electricity utility infrastructure for both commercial and residential applications.
Quantinuum's Quantum Origin provides an advantage over conventional solutions by generating keys with quantum-computing-enhanced randomness, thereby rendering them truly unpredictable and substantially enhancing the data security of utilities' end users.
No other organizations in the smart meter market presently offer quantum-hardened encryption protection. The incorporation of this technology into Honeywell's Smart Energy and Thermal Solutions' products will assist in addressing the industry's expanding data security requirements, especially as they pertain to critical infrastructure.
President of Smart Energy and Thermal Solutions at Honeywell, Hamed Heyhat, said,
By integrating Quantinuum's quantum-computing-hardened encryption technology into our smart meters, we are advancing data security for our customers and helping to shape the dialogue on how the utility industries should approach cybersecurity in the quantum era.
[Source – Cision PR Newswire]
Hamed Heyhat emphasized the significance of continuous innovation in enabling customers to stay ahead of the ever-changing threat landscape. It was noted that such a level of protection is crucial in our progressively digital and interconnected world.
Tony Uttley, President and COO of Quantinuum, mentioned,
Our work with Honeywell demonstrates the importance of using the power of today's quantum computers to create a more resilient cyber infrastructure to better protect customers.
[Source – Cision PR Newswire]
Smart Energy and Thermal Solution products from Honeywell with Quantum Origin are now available to North American and European customers. The collaboration will strengthen Honeywell's position as an industry-leading provider of innovative and secure solutions for the utilities industry.
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Data Security
Oracle | September 20, 2023
Oracle to participate in an industry-wide initiative to design a new open network and data security standard.
Oracle and Applied Invention are assisting to developing and promoting a novel network and data-centric security standard to tackle distributed cloud deployment challenges.
This standard will enable organizations to protect their data throughout its entire lifecycle without requiring modifications to their distributed cloud environments' underlying architecture.
Oracle, one of the world's largest database management companies, announced that it will participate in an industry-wide initiative to design a new open network and data security standards that will assist organizations in protecting their data in distributed IT environments. Oracle will collaborate with Applied Invention, a significant technology provider, and other industry leaders, including Nomura Research Institute, Ltd. (NRI), a global leader in consulting and system solutions. This new standard will enable networks to enforce shared security policies collectively, thereby augmenting the security architecture organizations already employ without requiring modifications to existing applications and networks.
Oracle plans to launch the Oracle Zero-Trust Packet Routing Platform, based on the new standard, to support this new initiative. This platform will assist organizations in preventing illegal access or use of their data without imposing additional obstacles on legitimate activities.
Executive Vice President of Security and Developer Platforms at Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, Mahesh Thiagarajan, said,
Over the last 20 years, the cybersecurity industry has produced many incremental changes, but we need a fundamentally novel approach to protect our data in the increasingly complex cloud era. Organizations require a way to describe their data security policies in one place where they can be easily understood and audited, and they need a way to make sure those policies are enforced across their entire computing infrastructure, including their clouds.
[Source – Cision PR Newswire]
As the adoption of cloud technology rises and IT landscapes become more intricate with distributed cloud deployments, organizations face escalating challenges in safeguarding their data using conventional methods and tools. For example, many existing systems necessitate security teams to orchestrate disparate solutions across various facets, including database, application, network, and identity security.
This complexity is further compounded when applied across diverse environments. Ensuring seamless collaboration among these solutions becomes a formidable task due to the dynamic and independent changes in applications, environments, and user profiles. Additionally, current security systems demand extensive configurations to accurately distinguish between different user categories, such as full-time employees and contractors, without compromising security or restricting access.
Research Vice President of Cloud and Edge Infrastructure Services at IDC, Dave McCarthy, said,
The new standard Oracle develop has the potential to change all of that by adding a unified layer of security on top of existing solutions. Building data protection policies into the network itself will assist users get the access they require while ensuring the data remains secure behind the scenes.
[Source – Cision PR Newswire]
Oracle and Applied Invention are assisting in designing and promoting a novel security standard, focusing on network and data-centric security, which aims to tackle these challenges. This innovative standard will empower organizations to safeguard their data across its entire lifecycle, including distributed cloud environments. To accomplish this, the standard will implement an intent-based security policy that is designed to be understandable, auditable, and interpretable by humans. This intent-driven approach will be put into practice at the network layer, ensuring that every data transmission contains authenticated attributes concerning the sender, receiver, and the nature of the data in transit.
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Software Security
Okta | October 09, 2023
Okta, Inc. announces Identity Threat Protection with Okta AI, a new product for Okta Workforce Identity Cloud.
It enables security teams and admins to constantly evaluate user risk during active sessions and respond automatically to Identity threats across the entire ecosystem.
Identity Threat Protection enables organizations to mitigate risk with enhanced threat detection and response capabilities.
Okta, Inc., the leading independent Identity partner, has introduced Identity Threat Protection with Okta AI, a revolutionary product within the Okta Workforce Identity Cloud. This innovative solution provides identity-based threat detection and mitigation in real-time. Identity Threat Protection goes beyond initial authentication by employing Okta AI and security infrastructure insights. It assures continuous user risk assessment during active sessions and enables automatic responses to Identity threats across the entire ecosystem.
Organizations are increasingly adopting diverse cybersecurity tools to counter evolving threats. However, this leads to a flood of detailed security data, making it daunting for administrators to set up efficient policies and identify crucial threats. This fragmentation makes it challenging to track the risk of any specific user session over time and requires navigating various consoles.
Okta stands out with its unified Identity deployment, offering a unique ability to evaluate risks across security domains and active user sessions. This innovative strategy solves a crucial business challenge as, according to Gartner, "By 2025, organizations that adopt a continuous adaptive trust strategy will reduce [account takeover] along with other identity risks by 30%..."
President and CDO of Workforce Identity Cloud at Okta, Sagnik Nandy, said,
Organizations need the ability to not only bring together risk insights at the point of login, but also to re-evaluate at any point in a user’s session. Identity Threat Protection extends Okta’s adaptive risk analysis and delivers automatic remediation and response, assisting businesses stop potential threats in real-time.
[Source – Business Wire]
Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is a vital tool in combating identity-based attacks. However, its effectiveness typically extends only to the login stage. Using shared signals throughout a user's active session, Identity Threat Protection equips organizations with enhanced threat detection and response capabilities, thereby mitigating risk. Initial launch capabilities include:
Continuous Risk Evaluation
Shared Signals Pipeline
Adaptive Actions
CIO at Palo Alto Networks, Meerah Rajavel, said,
Our world-class threat intelligence innovations assist secure enterprises against evolving attack methods. Partnering with Okta’s Identity Threat Protection is a great opportunity to further empower enterprises with security signal sharing, assisting them to better detect changes in user risk across their tech stack.
[Source – Business Wire]
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