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As threat complexity increases and the boundaries of an organization have all but disappeared, security teams are more challenged than ever to deliver consistent security outcomes. One company aiming to help security teams meet this challenge is  Stellar Cyber .  Stellar Cyber claims to address the needs of MSSPs by providing capabilities typically found in NG-SIEM, NDR, and SOAR products in their Open XDR platform, managed with a single license. According to Stellar Cyber, this consolidation means faster security analyst ramp time and customer onboarding with far less manually intensive tasks required. Stellar Cyber currently counts 20+ of the top MSSP providers as customers, providing security for over 3 million assets. In addition, stellar Cyber claims after deployment, users see up to 20x faster mean time to respond (MTTR), a bold claim. We recently took a closer look at the Stellar Cyber Security Operations Platform.  Before we begin Before digging into the platform, here are

Cybersecurity researchers have elaborated a novel attack technique that weaponizes programmable logic controllers ( PLCs ) to gain an initial foothold in engineering workstations and subsequently invade the operational technology (OT) networks. Dubbed " Evil PLC " attack by industrial security firm Claroty, the issue impacts engineering workstation software from Rockwell Automation, Schneider Electric, GE, B&R, Xinje, OVARRO, and Emerson. Programmable logic controllers are a crucial component of industrial devices that control manufacturing processes in critical infrastructure sectors. PLCs, besides orchestrating the automation tasks, are also configured to start and stop processes and generate alarms. It's hence not surprising that the entrenched access provided by PLCs have made the machines a focus of sophisticated attacks for more than a decade, starting from  Stuxnet to PIPEDREAM  (aka INCONTROLLER), with the goal of causing physical disruptions.  "The

As a relatively new security category, many security operators and executives I've met have asked us "What are these Automated Security Validation (ASV) tools?" We've covered that pretty extensively in the past, so today, instead of covering the " What is ASV?" I wanted to address the " Why ASV?" question. In this article, we'll cover some common use cases and misconceptions of how people misuse and misunderstand ASV tools daily (because that's a lot more fun). To kick things off, there's no place to start like the beginning. Automated security validation tools are designed to provide continuous, real-time assessment of an organization's cybersecurity defenses. These tools are continuous and use exploitation to validate defenses like EDR, NDR, and WAFs. They're more in-depth than vulnerability scanners because they use tactics and techniques that you'll see in manual penetration tests. Vulnerability scanners won't relay hashes or combine vulnerabilities to further attacks, whic

The end of the year is coming, and it's time for security decision-makers to make plans for 2022 and get management approval. Typically, this entails making a solid case regarding why current resources, while yielding significant value, need to be reallocated and enhanced. The Definitive 2022 Security Plan PPT Template is built to simplify this task, providing security decision-makers with an off-the-shelf tool to clearly and easily present their plans and insights to management. While many security decision-makers have the tools and expertise to build their case technologically, effectively communicating their conclusions to the organization's management is a different challenge. Management doesn't think in terms of malware, identity compromise, or zero-day exploits, but in terms of monetary loss and gain: Would investment A in a security product reduce the likelihood of cyberattack derived downtime? Would outsourcing a certain security functionality to a service p

Ukraine's Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-UA) warned of new phishing attacks aimed at its citizens by leveraging compromised email accounts belonging to three different Indian entities with the goal of compromising their inboxes and stealing sensitive information. The agency  cautioned  that the emails arrive with the subject line "Увага" (meaning "Attention") and claim to be from a domestic email service called Ukr.net, when in actuality, the email address of the sender is "muthuprakash.b@tvsrubber[.]com." The messages purportedly warn the recipients of an unauthorized attempt to log in to their accounts from an IP address based out of the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk, further prompting them to click on a link to change their passwords with immediate effect. "After following the link and entering the password, it gets to the attackers," CERT-UA noted in a Facebook post over the weekend. "In this way, they gain access to

Meta Platforms on Thursday revealed it took steps to deplatform seven cyber mercenaries that it said carried out "indiscriminate" targeting of journalists, dissidents, critics of authoritarian regimes, families of opposition, and human rights activists located in over 100 countries, amid mounting scrutiny of surveillance technologies. To that end, the company  said  it alerted 50,000 users of Facebook and Instagram that their accounts were spied on by the companies, who offer a variety of services that run the spyware gamut from hacking tools for infiltrating mobile phones to creating fake social media accounts to monitor targets. It also removed 1,500 Facebook and Instagram accounts linked to these firms. "The global surveillance-for-hire industry targets people across the internet to collect intelligence, manipulate them into revealing information and compromise their devices and accounts," Meta's David Agranovich and Mike Dvilyanski said. "These compa

One of the side effects of today's cyber security landscape is the overwhelming volume of data security teams must aggregate and parse. Lean security teams don't have it any easier, and the problem is compounded if they must do it manually. Data and log management are essential for organizations to gain real-time transparency and visibility into security events.  XDR provider Cynet has offered up a new guide ( read it here ) that helps lean organizations understand the importance of centralized log management (CLM). The truth is that even the most well-stocked and staffed teams would have trouble manually handling their log management needs, which is why organizations are increasingly going the automated route.  On top of the efficiency of automation, CLM gives organizations much greater visibility into their environment and security events that impact them. However, the benefits of deploying CLM tools and reducing the level of human intervention in log management and analysis are m

Patching really, really matters – patching is what keeps technology solutions from becoming like big blocks of Swiss cheese, with endless security vulnerabilities punching hole after hole into critical solutions. But anyone who's spent any amount of time maintaining systems will know that patching is often easier said than done. Yes, in some instances, you can just run a command line to install that patch, and that's it. These instances are increasingly rare though – given the complexity of the technology environment, you're more likely faced with a complex process to achieve patching best practice. In this article, we'll outline why database patching matters (yes, databases are vulnerable too!), explain what the problem is with patching databases, and point to a novel solution that takes the pain out of database patching. Watch out – your database services are vulnerable too We know that database services are critical – databases underpin IT operations in countle

Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) are an essential pillar of an organization's defense, and they must account for a lot. Especially for new CISOs, this can be a daunting task. The first 90 days for a new CISO are crucial in setting up their security team, so there is little time to waste, and much to accomplish.  Fortunately. A new guide by XDR provider Cynet ( download here ) looks to give new and veteran CISOs a durable foundation to build a successful security organization. The challenges faced by new CISOs aren't just logistical. They include securing their environment from both known and unknown threats, dealing with stakeholders with unique needs and demands, and interfacing with management to show the value of strong security.  Therefore, having clearly defined steps planned out can help CISOs seize the opportunity for change and implement security capabilities that allow organizations to grow and prosper. Security leaders can also leverage the willingness of orga

The Linux community was caught unprepared when, in December 2020, as part of a change in the way Red Hat supports and develops CentOS, Red Hat suddenly announced that it's cutting the official CentOS 8 support window from ten years – to just two, with support ending Dec 31, 2021. It created a peculiar situation where CentOS 7 users that did the right thing and upgraded quickly to CentOS 8 were left using an OS with just a year's official support remaining – while users of CentOS 7 still get full support until June 30, 2024. Worse, the fact that stable releases of CentOS were discontinued in exchange for the rolling-release CentOS Stream means that to secure their workloads most CentOS 8 users have to opt for an entirely different Linux distribution, with just a year to choose, evaluate and implement an alternative. Red Hat's unexpected decision underlined to what degree software users depend on official support windows for their software security. Countless organization

The Incident Response (IR) services market is in accelerated growth due to the rise in cyberattacks that result in breaches. More and more organizations, across all sizes and verticals, choose to outsource IR to 3rd party service providers over handling security incidents in-house. Cynet is now launching a first-of-its-kind offering, enabling any Managed Security Provider (MSP) or Security Integrator (SI) to add Incident Response to its services portfolio, without building an in-house team of incident responders, by using Cynet's IR team and technology at no cost. Managed Service providers interested to add Incident Response to their service portfolio with no investment in people or technology can apply here . As cyber threats grow in sophistication and volume, there is an increasing number of cases in which attackers succeed in compromising the environments they target. This, in turn, fuels a rapidly growing demand for IR technologies and services. Since in most cases

Facebook on Friday said it's extending end-to-end encryption (E2EE) for voice and video calls in Messenger, along with testing a new opt-in setting that will turn on end-to-end encryption for Instagram DMs. "The content of your messages and calls in an end-to-end encrypted conversation is protected from the moment it leaves your device to the moment it reaches the receiver's device," Messenger's Ruth Kricheli  said  in a post. "This means that nobody else, including Facebook, can see or listen to what's sent or said. Keep in mind, you can report an end-to-end encrypted message to us if something's wrong." The social media behemoth said E2EE is becoming the industry standard for improved privacy and security. It's worth noting that the company's flagship messaging service gained support for E2EE in text chats in 2016, when it added a " secret conversation " option to its app, while communications on its sister platform What

As cyber threats keep on increasing in volume and sophistication, more and more organizations acknowledge that outsourcing their security operations to a 3rd-party service provider is a practice that makes the most sense. To address this demand, managed security services providers (MSSPs) and managed service providers (MSPs) continuously search for the right products that would empower their teams to deliver high-quality and scalable services. Cynet 360 Autonomous Breach Protection platform offers a multitenant security solution for MSSP/MSP, providing automated, all-in-one products that include a robust SOAR layer, on top of attack prevention and detection. (Learn more about  Cynet's partner program for MSPs and MSSPs  here). Service providers typically have a skilled security team at their disposal. The challenge is how to leverage this skill to serve as many customers as possible without compromising on the quality of the service. That makes each minute of each team member a

As cyber incidents increase in scope and impact, more and more organizations come to realize that outsourcing their defenses is the best practice—significantly increasing the Managed Security Service Provider (MSSP) market opportunities. Until recently, IT integrators, VARs, and MSPs haven't participated in the growing and profitable MSSP market as it entailed massive investments in building an in-house skilled security team. However, this is beginning to change as a result of certain security vendors, like Cynet, that provide a purpose-built partner offering that enables IT integrators, VARs, and MSPs to provide managed security service with zero investment in hardware or personnel. Their offering includes a 24/7 SOC that trains and supports the partner's existing team and a security platform that consolidates and automates breach protection (including endpoint, user, and network security), making it simple to operate by any IT professional. To learn more about th

Advanced Persistent Threats groups were once considered a problem that concerns Fortune 100 companies only. However, the threat landscape of the recent years tells otherwise—in fact, every organization, regardless of vertical and size is at risk, whether as a direct target, supply chain or collateral damage. The vast majority of security decision-makers acknowledge they need to address the APT risk with additional security solutions but struggle with mapping APT attack vectors to a clear-cut set of security product capabilities, which impairs their ability to choose the products that would best protect them. Cynet is now addressing this need with the definitive RFP templates for EDR/EPP and APT Protection , an expert-made security requirement list, that enables stakeholders to accelerate and optimize the evaluation process of the products they evaluate. These RFP templates aim to capture the widest common denominator in terms of security needs and deliver the essential that are