Cisco | June 10, 2020
Cisco has done some work on its own enterprise blockchain tools, the networking firm is also using blockchain internally.
Cisco’s StealthWatch Cloud will be embedded in the enterprise blockchain platform offered by Lambda 256.
The StealthWatch solution uses machine learning and behavioral modeling to respond to cybersecurity threats.
South Korea’s Lambda 256 has partnered with Cisco for the security of its Blockchain as a Service (BaaS) platform, Luniverse. Cisco’s StealthWatch Cloud will be embedded in the enterprise blockchain platform offered by Lambda 256. The StealthWatch solution uses machine learning and behavioral modeling to respond to cybersecurity threats. Luniverse supports Hyperledger Fabric in its BaaS hosting offering. Even though this offering is enterprise focused, the company’s heritage is in the cryptocurrency sector.
Lambda 256 is part of Dunamu, which operates the Upbit crypto exchange and also a venture investment fund with ten blockchain investments. While Cisco has done some work on its own enterprise blockchain tools, the networking firm is also using blockchain internally. Four months ago, it partnered with NEC to use blockchain to ensure the authenticity of its networking equipment and make sure software is not tampered with. Cisco is also a participant in the Trust Your Supplier offering from Chainyard to manager supplier qualifications. Other members include IBM, Lenovo and Nokia.
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While most technologies aim to improve enterprise and societal problems, blockchain technology could stand out given its transparency and security while remaining decentralized and inclusive.
~ Cisco
Much has been written about blockchain’s potential as well as its unfulfilled promises. While blockchain is distributed and secure, verifying transactions through the network can be slow. As observers have indicated, blockchain could change industries, from finance to healthcare. From its origins as an airtight validation mechanism for bitcoin, a digital currency, enterprise blockchain technology has made its way into a range of industries, as it secures any valued digital asset.
It does so by recording digital asset transactions—payments, medical records, votes, and potentially many other things. Blockchain is seen as immutable and secure because the permanent, append-only ledger is distributed among blocks across many physical storage nodes. Code can be embedded in the blockchain to customize its security and behavior even further.
The result is a network of nodes that can locate relevant data – but that is protected from malicious hackers, because the hack would have to solve every hash solution in the chain–and the hash solutions are all spontaneous.
It's easy to see how the complexity of the security rules outlined above, computationally intensive as they are, would make a blockchain as slow as molasses–and most are. Early blockchains could manage only one or two transactions per second, and even today, five to seven transactions per second is considered blindingly fast. That's a deal breaker in many scenarios. Conceptually, a blockchain is a decentralized, distributed network. In practice, however, since every node in the network is aware of every transaction, a consensus protocol is required–and that forces a tradeoff between decentralization and low transaction throughput.
The methodologies emerging for scenario-specific blockchain implementation inevitably add a layer of complexity to an already complex undertaking. This complexity is the cost of doing business for a technology that swings for the fences quite assertively in an Internet-driven world, rife with security threats and infrastructural compromise. But any enterprise capable of wrestling with the intricate elegance of blockchain in the first place should be up to that task, and should reap game-changing rewards.
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DATA SECURITY
eSentire | October 11, 2021
eSentire, recognized globally as the Authority in Managed Detection and Response (MDR), and Guidewire Software, Inc. today announced that eSentire is leveraging Guidewire Cyence’s market-leading, internet-scale cyber data listening and modeling capabilities to support in financially quantifying and reducing cyber risk.
Cyber threats pose one of the greatest risks to businesses today, yet it is becoming increasingly harder to identify and protect against those risks and secure insurance coverage,The combination of eSentire and Guidewire Cyence technologies and expertise fill a significant gap to help businesses assess, design, and implement cyber risk solutions and quantify their security ROI and risk reduction.
eSentire Chief Technology Officer Dustin Hillard
eSentire’s technical cybersecurity expertise in 24/7 threat detection and response to real-time and zero-day threats, combined with Guidewire’s strengths in economic modeling, will enable cybersecurity leaders to tie the efficacy of their security spends to security program return-on-investment.
The eSentire Atlas XDR platform, ingesting data from over 1,000 customers across 70 countries worldwide, automatically blocks more than 1 billion threats per year and learns from more than 2 million rapid, human-led investigations per year, yielding a significant proprietary data set that maps internal risk factors to security outcomes. Guidewire’s cyber risk modeling and scoring data for more than 600,000 businesses is now integrated with eSentire’s asset risk scoring, providing security recommendations through eSentire’s Insight Portal:
Business Risk Scoring: eSentire customers now have access to Guidewire’s Cyence Risk Rating within the eSentire Insight portal. This business risk rating predicts the probability of a public data breach in the next 12 months. Each business risk rating is contextualized based on industry, size, and revenue band in comparison to its segment peers.
Asset Risk Scoring: eSentire customers will benefit from eSentire’s own artificial intelligence risk models learned from targeted attacks defended across its global customer base to determine the probability of an internal security incident originating at the asset level over the next three months. eSentire leverages these insights to make proactive security recommendations on how to reduce each customer organization’s risk.
The Royal United Services Institute reported that despite ransomware being the leading claim source for cyber insurers, many organizations are not approved due to open internet access, primarily through open Remote Desktop Protocols (RDP). Through their work together, eSentire and Guidewire have identified and remediated several open RDP scenarios, thereby reducing risk and enabling the organizations to improve their cyber insurance risk profile. In fact, eSentire and Guidewire have developed preferred cybersecurity insurance relationships with Guidewire customers that deliver improved deductibles and expansive coverage for eSentire customers.
Hillard added, “eSentire customers now have the opportunity to engage with an expert Cyber Risk Advisor to build a proactive security plan tailored to reducing risk in their environment while considering business- and asset-specific insights,” says eSentire Chief Technology Officer Dustin Hillard. “As a result of our work together, we earn the confidence of the insurance market and our customers get improved cyber risk insurance pricing and policy coverage.”
“We are thrilled to join eSentire in making tangible, transparent, and quantifiable cyber risk reduction a reality for businesses worldwide,” says Guidewire Chief Innovation Officer Paul Mang. “We are committed to helping organizations manage the economic volatility associated with cyber threats, both through the efficient use of risk transfer insurance solutions and through proactive risk management actions.”
This exciting innovation in cyber risk quantification has been complemented by the introduction of eSentire’s Cyber Risk Advisor program as part of the firm’s overall customer success engagement model. These advisors are security practitioners with consultative and solutions architecture experience, who act as an extension of the customer’s cybersecurity team, demonstrating a clear understanding of each organization’s business objectives and security priorities. The Cyber Risk Advisor supports customers with infrastructure assessments, regular service reviews, and interprets risk scoring metrics to develop a tailored risk reduction roadmap with recommendations that prioritize risk mitigation. These recommendations are based on the insights driven from eSentire’s 24/7 Security Operations Center, Threat Response Unit (TRU), and the new Guidewire Cyence Risk Rating integration.
About eSentire
eSentire, Inc., the Authority in Managed Detection and Response, protecting the critical data and applications of 1000+ organizations in 70+ countries from known and unknown cyber threats. Founded in 2001, the company’s mission is to hunt, investigate and stop cyber threats before they become business-disrupting events. Combining cutting-edge machine learning XDR technology, 24/7 Threat Hunting, and proven security operations leadership, eSentire mitigates business risk and enables security at scale. The Team eSentire difference means enterprises are protected by the best in the business with a named Cyber Risk Advisor, 24/7 access to SOC Cyber Analytics & Elite Threat Hunters, and industry-leading threat intelligence research from eSentire’s Threat Response Unit (TRU). eSentire provides Managed Risk, Managed Detection and Response and Incident Response Services. For more information, visit www.esentire.com and follow @esentire.
About Guidewire Software
Guidewire is the platform P&C insurers trust to engage, innovate, and grow efficiently. We combine digital, core, analytics, and AI to deliver our platform as a cloud service. More than 450 insurers, from new ventures to the largest and most complex in the world, run on Guidewire.
As a partner to our customers, we continually evolve to enable their success. We are proud of our unparalleled implementation track record, with 1,000+ successful projects, supported by the largest R&D team and partner ecosystem in the industry. Our marketplace provides hundreds of applications that accelerate integration, localization, and innovation.
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DATA SECURITY
GoVanguard | August 11, 2021
Technology security firm GoVanguard has completed it's acquisition of boutique cybersecurity company, Gotham Security. The move positions GoVanguard to expand its leadership in the cybersecurity sector, building its team and expertise to help clients' increasing need to prevent and mitigate emergent threats, such as ransomware attacks. The move comes as a natural extension of GoVanguard's mission to advance security awareness and provide elite-level cybersecurity services to its clients.
GoVanguard services a wide range of industries looking to secure their business. Clients include Odyssey Group, nTopology, Insurance Technologies and Abacus Group, as well as several international businesses, medium sized companies and small local firms, spanning organizations across the financial, healthcare, insurance and technology industries.
GoVanguard has built its reputation through its approaches to adversary simulation, risk reduction, threat management, and information security strategy. The acquisition completes the company's suite of offerings by acquiring a five-year partner and industry leader in red-teaming and pentesting—two essential services for companies protecting against security threats and staying ahead of risks to business information.
"As threat actors become more sophisticated, it's become obvious that the best defense is to go on the offensive. Adversary simulation has become increasingly valuable for organizations looking to quickly gauge and improve their security position. Afterall, if you can't measure it, you can't improve it," said Mahdi Hedhli, GoVanguard CEO. "Gotham Security has been a close partner for years and this was a natural next step to allow our red-teaming experts to take our clients' defenses to the next level and continue our dedication to finding the security gaps before cybercriminals do."
Underscoring the commitment to quality and continuity, Blake Shalem, Gotham Security COO, will be joining GoVanguard as its Chief Customer Officer. Blake said that the move will not only enhance services and expand resources to new and existing clients, it will also provide opportunities to further develop team members in the ever-evolving space of cybersecurity.
"This move allows us to elevate what we do best, which translates to a superior class of protection for our clients," said Blake.
Recent attacks on Kaseya, thousands of Microsoft Exchange Servers, Colonial Pipeline, JBS, a nuclear contractor, and a U.S. Congressional vendor, spotlight the brazenness and sophistication of cybercriminals, who are constantly probing for new angles of attack. Meanwhile, ransomware is becoming an increasingly lucrative venture for threat actors. The institute for Security and Technology estimates that U.S. companies paid out about $350 million in 2020, a year-over-year increase of 171 percent in the average ransomware payment.
GoVanguard's acquisition of Gotham Security positions clients to remain a step ahead of the criminals, specifically in the areas of red-teaming and pentesting to help companies eliminate existing vulnerabilities before cybercriminals strike.
"We're doubling down on our commitment to improve the cybersecurity landscape by honing our focus on red teaming," Hedhli said. "We feel this is the area where GoVanguard makes the biggest impact for our clients and the industry as a whole."
About GoVanguard
GoVanguard is a cybersecurity firm based in New York City dedicated to providing world class services with actionable results. The company's innovative team of technology and cybersecurity experts specialize in emulating sophisticated cybercriminals to find gaps in business security before criminals do. Using attack simulation, risk reduction, threat management and compliance and strategy guidelines, the company has been working toward its mission of developing security awareness and protection for organizations across the financial, healthcare, insurance, technology and other business enterprises across the U.S. for nearly a decade.
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