Fancy Bear returns

The hackers responsible for Democratic National Convention (DNC) hack in 2016 are back in the news again. On May 23rd - Cisco announced a major breach of over 500,000 routers and network storage devices. FBI acted swiftly and seized the internet domain that was used in the attack, cutting off the communication between the hackers and the infected devices. For now, the hackers will not be able to exploit these half a million devices for their malicious intentions but the malware still resides in all these devices. The infected devices are spread over 50 countries and the most likely author of this Malware is Fancy Bear - the hackers behind the 2016 DNC hack.

Researchers found VPNFilter source code on these infected devices - the malware that was used by Russia to attack Ukraine including the massive power outage. VPNFilter is hard to detect, works in Stealth mode and is known to steal critical data from Infrastructure systems.

As an immediate next step - it is advised to reboot the devices, change the passwords, do not use default passwords and disable remote admin on all internet facing devices. Legacy security systems depend on static policies and rules for their providing security, In an ever changing threat landscape of current times - there is a need for RAP - Risk Adaptive Protection, which will understand the behavior of people and adversaries to dynamically change policies and rules to provide better security.

Forcepoint helping its customers build a secured data environment

My interview with VAR India

By VARINDIA    2018-04-23

Calling for a shift in the way cyber security is approached, Ajay Dubey, National Manager - Partners & Alliances – Forcepoint tells VAINDIA of how as a security focused company, Forcepoint is trying to address the challenges that crop up while securing its customers and their critical data - 
 

How is your organization geared up with security strategies for the industry at large?
Cyber security as a domain is going through a constant churn to help organisations stay focused on protecting against breaches, protecting critical business data at all times and complying with regulations. This is the reason, over the years, cyber security budgets have increased multi-fold, making it a huge industry. But, despite all these investments, the cyber security attacks have only increased. 

This calls for a complete shift in the way cyber security is approached. If you look at threats and technologies, they continue to evolve, but one thing that has remained constant throughout is people. This is what Forcepoint is doing, it is rethinking security from a human-centric approach. The approach emphasizes understanding human behaviour and user interaction with critical data over networks of different trust levels to combat cyber-attacks. 

Can you highlight the solutions you are offering for addressing the growing challenge of cyber security?
At Forcepoint, we have unique cyber security solutions for protecting the data - 

•    Our CASB (Cloud Access Security Broker) is designed to secure data on the cloud. CASB solutions address cloud service risks, enforce security policies, and comply with regulations, even when cloud services are beyond their perimeter and out of their direct control. We acquired Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB) firm Skyfence that has helped increase visibility, control and security as users interact with data wherever it resides, including within cloud applications.

•    Forcepoint’s UEBA (User and Entity Behaviour Analytics) helps organizations to baseline behaviour of users and also entities like endpoint servers or applications and then see if there are any deviations from normal baseline. We acquired Red Owl, a leader UEBA (User and Entity Behaviour Analytics) technology to better understand and manage human risk.

•    Forcepoint’s Web and Email Security Solutions protect users against multistage advanced threats that often exploit user’s data, which penetrate the organisation’s IT defences. 

•    Forcepoint NGFW (Next Generation Fire Wall) caters not only to network needs but also security needs of all the networks of our customers. With NGFW 6.4, network security admins can more clearly see and understand the rhythm of their people as they use network resources. 

•    Our data protection is integrated with DLP (Data Loss Protection) solution and now we have augmented our DLP with insider threat and UEBA (User Entity Behaviour Analytics) solution that understands the context and intent of user behaviour and dynamically applies enforcement policies to activity representing the highest risk.

How are you seeing the security trend to continue in 2018? 
The biggest security trend in 2018 will be EU’s GDPR regulation which will have a considerable impact on nations that control or process data of EU citizens. With the regulation of GDPR coming into action in May 2018, the focus should now shift towards three areas like the adoption of the prescribed nature of controls in the regulation in specific areas, improvement of the existing privacy structure to work according to the requirements of the regulation and reassessing the opportunity of processing in the context of GDPR. 

The second massive trend that’s being observed is the adoption of cloud. Even highly regulated industries like banks have started to adopt cloud on a big scale but the problem with cloud is that it opens up everything and it does not restrict the access anymore.  

Additionally, the IT security solutions are unable to understand behaviour of malicious, accidental or compromised users in spite of the technology investments. Therefore, cyber security must move from a technology-centric view to one that understands human behaviour and intent and employ a security system that can effectively do the same.

With new wave of security intelligence and its intensification, what are your prospect marketing plans?
Forcepoint’s unique brand strategy of focusing on cyber behaviours instead of emphasizing just on technology to protect a perimeter that no longer exists has helped customers in building a data secured environment. This approach requires both intelligent systems and transparent collaboration between an organization’s stakeholders. 

Our brand’s theme of protecting organisations against accidental, compromised or malicious users to protect against data thefts reflect the shift in the current security paradigm, which is largely technology-oriented, to focus on people as they interact with critical business data and intellectual property. 

How are you going to leverage your market strategy to further boost your presence in the country?

Our approach is to help our customers increase their security effectiveness while lowering risks as they accelerate digital transformation of their business. We continue to engage with companies across the entire ecosystem including Banking and Finance, IT and ITeS, Manufacturing, Government, Pharmaceutical, Insurance and many more to help them understand the need to protect critical data and importance of providing their employees access to the right data whenever and wherever it’s needed.