Partnership Builds Data-Centric Approach to Stop Advanced Malware 

WASHINGTON,  Sept. 18, 2013 – Enterprise Information Protection (EIP) leader Verdasys andFireEye, Inc., the leader in stopping today’s new breed of cyber attacks, have announced an integrated security solution combining FireEye’s network with Verdasys’ endpoint defenses through the Verdasys Digital Guardian Connector for FireEye. This newly integrated solution is designed to enable security organizations to quickly investigate, confirm and stop advanced malware threats beyond the network to endpoints, such as physical and virtual laptops, desktops and servers.   Available immediately, the joint Verdasys-FireEye solution leverages FireEye’s Multi-Vector Virtual Execution (MVX) engine and Verdasys’ Digital Guardian platform to protect intellectual property and other sensitive data against insider threat and malware attacks.

Utilizing Indicators of Compromise (IOCs) and other threat intelligence received from FireEye’s MVX engine, Digital Guardian correlates that intelligence and creates rules for endpoint agents to search out any potentially compromised machines.  Both solutions are engineered to quickly contain and block further infections in real-time across the network and endpoint.  Digital Guardian also submits suspicious artifacts collected on host systems for analysis in the FireEye Malware Analysis System (MAS), with results of the analysis utilized by both solutions for containment and prevention of new infections.

According to Dan Geer, security expert and CISO of In-Q-Tel, the strategic investment arm of the Intelligence Community, “Detection and correlation of threats collected from as many locations as possible across the enterprise offers the best defense against advanced malware. Digital Guardian’s integration with FireEye’s solutions is designed not only to enable security teams to detect, analyze and understand when and how they are being attacked, but also offers the most advanced set of prevention and containment controls to stop those attacks.”

Manish Gupta, senior vice president of products at FireEye, added, “By integrating our respective solutions, our customers enhance their investment in FireEye with Digital Guardian’s understanding of sensitive data and deep visibility and control on the endpoint.  The result is a streamlined workflow engineered to stop advanced malware and prevent loss of sensitive data both on and off the corporate network.”

The integrated Verdasys and FireEye solution is designed to enable security teams to:

• Reduce investigation and containment time by verifying whether threats discovered on the network by FireEye have infected systems and if they have been contained on the endpoint
• Contain malware on infected hosts and prevent new infections by Digital Guardian rules based on IOCs received from FireEye
• Decrease time to containment by submitting threats discovered on the endpoint by Digital Guardian agents for detonation and validation in the FireEye MVX engine
• Protect sensitive data from being exfiltrated during an attack with Digital Guardianendpoint data protection control rules defined by FireEye IOC characteristics.

According to Jim Ricotta, Verdasys CEO, “Enterprises looking to protect intellectual property and other sensitive data are finding that Digital Guardian and FireEye are fundamental components of their multi-layered defense due to their ability to accurately identify and block previously unknown attacks in real time.  Now, these organizations can detect infections even when devices are outside the corporate network or when they are brought back to the network, so they can secure all personal and company-owned devices across their entire computing environment.”

About Verdasys
Verdasys (www.verdasys.com) provides Enterprise Information Protection solutions and managed services to secure sensitive data and assure the integrity of business processes, enabling midsize and global businesses to successfully compete in collaborative and mobile environments. Digital Guardian, a Leader in Gartner’s 2012 Magic Quadrant for Content-Aware Data Loss Prevention, is a proven technology platform that provides complete, policy-based data lifecycle monitoring, classification, forensics and control on endpoints and servers, virtual machines and enterprise applications, networks, mobile devices and cloud environments. Digital Guardian protects IP and regulated data from compromise by insiders, contractors, partners and targeted cyber attacks. Since 2003, millions of Digital Guardian agents have been deployed to protect critical data for global leaders in financial services, insurance, technology, manufacturing and healthcare industries.

 

Social media can be a great help in getting to know your customers — unless your customers are using it to hide from you.

We all want to have that local spot where we simply walk in and the clerk behind the counter gives a quick nod of acknowledgment and produces our order without another word. The comfort and excitement that comes from an interaction that is yours alone is fundamentally what drives brand loyalty.

You’d think that, with the advent of social media, these personalized experiences would be relatively easy to create. Social media promised to help marketers evolve from talking at consumers to engaging in a two-way conversation. It was this conversation that would allow companies to personalize their approach based on a customer’s preferences and needs.

As with everything, advancement has come at a cost. While new channels and platforms offer enormous opportunities for businesses, they have also created a more complicated ecosystem. One individual often appears to be many different people across various media platforms. Imagine if you walked into your local store, but wore a new disguise each day of the week. Your experience may be positive, but impersonal: The store clerk would have no way of knowing that each day the person they were serving was you. Gone are the nods of acknowledgement and the personalized order waiting at the front of the line.

To make an already-difficult situation even more challenging, imagine that each morning, clerks from all the other local businesses are soliciting your patronage, encouraging you to try their goods. When the tailored experience and the recognition went away from your local haunt, you’d likely take these clerks up on their offers.

While amusing and strange to imagine, this is the scenario that’s playing out online and in stores everyday. There is more competition, more noise and more ways to reach a consumer than ever before. All the while, a consumer’s identity, which offers the potential for personalization and a tailored experience, is harder to recognize.

So what can you do?

•    Recognize that social media is a tool like any other, complete with some serious limitations. Social media allows companies to gather customer feedback, build general brand awareness and affinity, introduce new products, and stay top-of-mind with their customers. That doesn’t mean that social media alone is going to solve the customer loyalty puzzle.
•    Invest in customer relationship management software. As technology becomes easier to develop and subsequently more affordable, there are more offerings in the CRM space than ever before. You don’t necessarily need to spend millions of dollars and years of time to build a system that suits your needs. Instead, think about how your CRM can help you manage a multi-channel world. Try reconciling your purchase data with the email information you have, and then connect that with online interaction data. The more you know about your customers, the better you can engage with them.
•    Don’t just collect data. Use it. As the saying goes, with great power comes great responsibility. Customers who provide more information about themselves have an increased expectation for a more tailored and personalized experience. Whether you’re communicating through email, direct mail, or in stores, make sure you’re using the information you have to make customers feel recognized and appreciated.
•    Recognize that your customers are more valuable than the money they spend. In a world where we’re now all connected, a customer’s value has expanded far beyond the money that moves from their wallet to you. Whether through social advocacy, reviews or word-of-mouth recommendations, consumers are pivotal when it comes to influencing their peers’ purchase decisions. The new reality is that your best customers are not necessarily the ones spending the most money. Find ways to identify your most influential and loyal customers, and then cultivate deeper and more rewarding relationships with them.

A world filled with disguised shoppers would be a scary and intimidating place for marketers. Luckily, there are ways to recognize those who are most loyal. So while getting personal with your customers may seem harder than it was 60 years ago, customer data, when used effectively, has the potential to generate deeper and more profound brand loyalty than you could’ve imagined.

 

Enables immediate containment of newly detected malware on the endpoint

WASHINGTON D.C., Sept. 17, 2013 – Verdasys today announced the HP ArcSight Action Connector for Digital Guardian, enabling Digital Guardian controls on host systems from the HP ArcSight console to validate, contain and prevent malware threats uncovered by the HP ArcSight (Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) platform.  The new Action Connector recently received HP ArcSight Action Connector Certification and will be demonstrated this week at HP’s annual enterprise security conference, HP Protect, being held in Washington, D.C. Sept. 16-19.

The Digital Guardian Action Connector for HP ArcSight expands on existing integration between the HP ArcSight platform and Digital Guardian by allowing HP ArcSight to initiate a range of endpoint controls through Digital Guardian to contain malware and lock down sensitive data on infected machines, as well as prevent further malware infections.  Through the Action Connector, Digital Guardian accepts Indicators of Compromise (IOCs) from HP ArcSight, using them to automatically create endpoint rules to validate and contain existing infections and prevent further infections in real time.

“Many of our customers use HP ArcSight to correlate disparate events in their environments to uncover threats. Now with the HP ArcSight Action Connector for Digital Guardian, our customers are able to react to the threats HP ArcSight has discovered using a comprehensive set of endpoint controls that stop malware and secure intellectual property,” said Verdasys CEO Jim Ricotta.

As a showcase to this new functionality, HP ArcSight customers using the FireEye Malware Detection System can now send IOCs to Digital Guardian directly from the HP ArcSight console to investigate and act upon threats uncovered in FireEye. With this capability, customers that aggregate security events in HP ArcSight can investigate the extent of an incident uncovered in FireEye and track its containment by Digital Guardian.  Additionally, they can recognize advanced threats by correlating FireEye events from the network with Digital Guardian events from the endpoint using the HP ArcSight “single pane of glass” management console.  The HP ArcSight Action Connector for Digital Guardian streamlines investigations and reduces time to containment by communicating new IOCs uncovered from correlation rules or by a security analyst to Digital Guardian for automatic creation of prevention, detection and containment rules.

Digital Guardian is a scalable platform for protecting intellectual property and other sensitive data against insider and malware threats on endpoints, utilizing agents to classify data and provide deep visibility and control over user and advanced malware activities on the endpoint. Unlike anti-virus solutions — which use a signature-based approach and can only recognize known malware threats —  Digital Guardian is able to recognize and contain previously unknown malware based on behavior at the endpoint as it unfolds in real-time.

The new Action Connector builds on Verdasys’ existing HP ArcSight Common Event Format (CEF) certification. Digital Guardian provides a rich event stream in CEF format to HP ArcSight from host systems, including physical and virtual laptops, desktops and servers, which make visible user and malware activities, such as sensitive data access and system activity on endpoint computers.

The Digital Guardian Action Connector for HP ArcSight is available at: https://www.verdasys.com/resources/

 

About Verdasys

Verdasys (www.verdasys.com) provides Enterprise Information Protection solutions and managed services to secure sensitive data and assure the integrity of business processes, enabling midsize and global businesses to successfully compete in collaborative and mobile environments. Digital Guardian, a Leader in Gartner’s 2012 Magic Quadrant for Content-Aware Data Loss Prevention, is a proven technology platform that provides complete, policy-based data lifecycle monitoring, classification, forensics and control on endpoints and servers, virtual machines and enterprise applications, networks, mobile devices and cloud environments. Digital Guardian protects IP and regulated data from compromise by insiders, contractors, partners and targeted cyber attacks. Since 2003, millions of Digital Guardian agents have been deployed to protect critical data for global leaders in financial services, insurance, technology, manufacturing and healthcare industries.

 

Security Industry Visionary and Best-Selling Author to Drive CounterTack’s Technology Strategy and Innovation

WALTHAM, Mass. (September 16, 2013) – CounterTack, the only endpoint security organization delivering real-time, cyber threat detection and forensics to the enterprise, today announced it has named Michael A. Davis as chief technology officer. With extensive cyber security industry experience at organizations including McAfee and with his credentials as an author and noted security evangelist, Davis’ arrival supports the company’s continued global growth and momentum to bring real-time advanced threat detection and forensics to the enterprise.

With more than a decade of technology leadership experience, Davis will be responsible for driving CounterTack’s continued technology advancement and vision to push the defenders ahead of the attackers for customers.

Prior to joining CounterTack, Davis served as president and chief security officer of External IT, a national managed IT services and IT cloud services provider that focuses on unifying the business IT experience. Previously, he founded and led IT security consulting firm Savid Technologies, which was recognized as one of the nation’s fastest growing companies by Inc.magazine. Prior to Savid Technologies, Davis served as senior manager of global threats at McAfee, where he led a team of researchers investigating confidential and cutting-edge security analysis. Previously, he served in a leadership position at 3com and managed two Internet service providers. Organizations that have relied on Davis’ expert council include AT&T, Sears, Exelon and the U.S. Department of Defense.

“CounterTack is truly the only organization that can deliver continuous attack monitoring capabilities with automated threat analysis on every endpoint – providing true visibility into complete attacks,” said Davis. “We all know traditional IT security technologies can’t protect enterprises against the current threats. It’s an incredibly exciting time to join the company leading the information security revolution, and I look forward to leveraging my years of security leadership experience to support CounterTack’s ongoing research and development, with a strong emphasis on innovation.”

Recognized by BusinessWeek as one of America’s best young entrepreneurs as a “Top 25 under 25,” Davis is the author of security best-seller Hacking Exposed: Malware and Rootkits, in which he explores how malware works and how to defend against sophisticated cyber-attacks. He is also a contributing author to Hacking Exposed, the top-selling resource on hacker methodology, and serves as a senior contributing author forInformationWeek magazine. Davis frequents the security lecture circuit and has regularly presented at Black Hat, Interop, SuperStrategies and InfoSecWorld.

“Michael Davis has earned a reputation as one of the nation’s leading authorities on information security and brings to CounterTack the proven ability to architect and lead highly successful global security research teams,” said Neal Creighton, CEO, CounterTack. “His proven expertise and technology leadership will be a valuable asset to CounterTack as we continue to revolutionize the security industry by bringing unprecedented endpoint visibility and real-time attack detection to the enterprise.”

 

WALTHAM, MA – September 10, 2013 – Exoprise, a provider of cloud based monitoring and enablement solutions for Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications, today announced a value-added reseller agreement with Quality Technology Solutions (QTS), a leading Microsoft channel partner in the New York Metro region.  With the agreement, QTS will offer Exoprise’s complementary offerings for Microsoft Office 365, enabling customers to move their office apps to the cloud with the same visibility and control they had with their on-premise deployments. QTS will also support the Exoprise offering with its own value-added cloud migration and deployment service bundles.

 

QTS was named the Microsoft New York Metro Area partner of the year in 2012 and 2013.  It has a long relationship with Microsoft and deploys many of its technologies in fixed cost, fixed scope packaged service bundles, or “QuikStarts™,” to make it easy for customers to engage with QTS and deploy the technologies that best match their needs and goals. These bundles also include strong knowledge transfer and teamwork.

 

The Exoprise solution will be featured next week at QTS’s sixth annual QuikEnvision™ Technology Conferencebeing held at the Microsoft New York City offices on September 18th. The event hosts CIOs and IT decision makers from around the region to discuss how technologies from Microsoft and other QTS software, hardware and services partners can help organizations address their key business issues and get the most value out of their IT investments and resources.

 

With Exoprise, QTS expands its offerings around Microsoft Office 365.  Unlike on-premise deployments, where IT teams can monitor performance via direct access to the servers running their Office applications, visibility to Office 365 performance is limited to the Microsoft Office 365 Service Status Dashboard. While this dashboard provides current status of Office 365 itself, it cannot provide real-time end-to-end performance data nor can it provide information on the health and availability of the various networks – the customer’s, the ISP’s, the regional backbone, etc. connecting the users to the service.

 

Exoprise CloudReady Monitor for Office 365 addresses this gap by providing IT groups and service providers with end-to-end visibility into the availability and performance of their mission critical Office 365 applications, with real-time statistics, alerts and trend reports for the entire service delivery chain, from behind the customer firewall to the Microsoft datacenter and back.  In addition, it leverages the power of crowd sourcing to pool performance data from all users, providing valuable baseline metrics to compare performance, quickly pinpoint problems and speed resolution.

 

“As our clients look to move their mission-critical office applications to the cloud, they expect the same visibility and control they had with their on-premise deployments,” said Christine D. Bongard, vice president and COO at QTS. “Exoprise provides users and solution providers with the end to end performance management they want and expect.  That not only helps them move to the cloud with confidence, but it also improves user service levels and shortens time to resolution if there are issues.”

 

In addition to its CloudReady Monitor offering, Exoprise will also provide QTS with high-impact sales, assessment and enablement tools to help its customers evaluate the business case for the move to Office 365 and do migration planning and cloud audits.

 

“QTS has a proven track record with the Microsoft product set and helping its clients evaluate the best path to the cloud,” said Warren Mead, vice president of channel and sales for Exoprise. “The combination of our CloudReady Monitoring offering for Office 365 with their fixed scope service bundles will help users make the move to the cloud with confidence and deliver fast time to benefit in the form of higher service levels, increased user satisfaction and faster time to resolution.”

 

About QTS

QTS delivers highly reliable, Worry-Free™ computer networks and software solutions, on- premise and in the Cloud, helping customers leverage technology to drive business value since 1992. Our senior-level staff helps customers deploy technology faster, leveraging best practices, reducing risk and transferring knowledge, while providing exceptional service and support for successful outcomes.   QTS maintains strong partnerships with Microsoft, Citrix, NetApp, VMware, HP, Cisco, Symantec and others, which we leverage to build 21st Century Networks and software solutions. Clients have ranged from small firms to Fortune 500 companies in many industries. QTS is located at 1639 Route 10, Suite 103, Parsippany, NJ 07054, and can be reached at 973-984-7600. Additional information on QTS can be found online at http://www.QTSnet.com.

 

WALTHAM, MA–(Marketwired – Sep 6, 2013) – CounterTack, the only endpoint security organization delivering real-time, cyber threat detection and forensics to the enterprise, today announced it will sponsor the ‘Take Back The Endpoint’ Attacker/Defender speed challenge at Hacker Halted in Atlanta, Ga. September 19 to 21, 2013. This timed challenge will provide security and forensic professionals, including those receiving or maintaining their CEH, CEFI or ECSA certifications, with a platform to test their skills.

 

The contest provides participant teams (of up to three members) the opportunity to challenge their skills and speed, while testing the boundaries of CounterTack’s technology as both attackers and analysts. CounterTack Scout helps organizations tactically monitor product endpoints, while Sentinel can be deployed enterprise-wide in the largest, most sophisticated environments for unprecedented visibility into advanced threats.

 

CounterTack Scout is the world’s first commercially available security solution utilizing Deep System Inspection technology, which provides unique visibility into attack behavior. CounterTack Scout is the world’s first commercially available security solution utilizing Deep System Inspection technology, which provides unique visibility into attack behavior.

 

As “attackers,” participant teams will perform a full-scope reconnaissance, enumeration, exploitation, “pump and dump” attack against the target network. Target network contents are broken up into a task list of various data types that are stored throughout a myriad of servers and workstations. As “defenders,” the team will perform a post-mortem analysis of the attack data sets using an analysis workstation with packet capture (PCAP), logs, and the CounterTack Scout 4.0 user interface. The analysis cell will work to identify the attribute tools, techniques, protocols and lost data. Participants will receive points for how quickly and effectively they are able to complete the challenge. Register here:http://www.countertack.com/hacker_halted2013_challenge_registration.

 

In addition to the challenge, CounterTack Chief Researcher Sean Bodmer will present a session entitled “Technology Deathmatch – Ever So Sweet, the Arms Race Is On” on September 21, 2013 at 9:30 a.m. EDT.

 

As a gray hat researcher, Bodmer has a unique perspective on the state of the cyber security industry and today’s most advanced threats. In this session, Bodmer will provide a window into the security challenges that are motivating those on both sides of the security arms race – security professionals and cyber criminals. This presentation is intended to help security professionals better understand the dangers they face and the countermeasures they must take to protect their intellectual property.

 

“The threat landscape is constantly evolving, and in order to stay one step ahead of attackers, today’s security professional must learn to think like a hacker,” said Bodmer. “Understanding both sides of the arms race will enable security professionals to better protect their networks and reduce attacker dwell time when advanced attacks inevitably circumvent even the most robust defenses currently available.”

Bodmer will also teach a three-day training course, which will highlight the latest tactics and best practices for threat intelligence and analysis.

 

About CounterTack
CounterTack is revolutionizing security by bringing real-time attack detection and forensics to the endpoint, rendering traditional endpoint security obsolete with Sentinel. The counterintelligence derived shortens the gap between detection and remediation for enterprise organizations.

By actively engaging attackers, CounterTack helps organizations dramatically reduce the dwell time of advanced threats and the damage attackers can cause, gaining valuable intelligence on methodologies and affected business assets.

 

Through blazing-fast detection, real-time attack capture and immediate analysis, CounterTack provides unparalleled visibility into malicious behavior, enabling organizations to make smarter decisions on countering known and unknown threats to protect their business.

 

To learn more, visit www.CounterTack.com.