While ransomware seems stalled, business email compromise (BEC) attacks continue to make profits from the ProxyShell and Log4j vulnerabilities, nearly doubling in the latest quarter.

While published trends in ransomware attacks have been contradictory — with some firms tracking more incidents and other fewer — business email compromise (BEC) attacks continue to have proven success against organizations.

BEC cases, as a share of all incident-response cases, more than doubled in the second quarter of the year, to 34% from 17% in the first quarter of 2022. That's according to Arctic Wolf's "1H 2022 Incident Response Insights" report, published on Sept. 29, which found that specific industries — including financial, insurance, business services, and law firms, as well as government agencies — experienced more than double their previous number of cases, the company said.

Overall, the number of BEC attacks encountered per email box has grown by 84% in the first half of 2022, according to data from cybersecurity firm Abnormal Security.  

Meanwhile, so far this year, threat reports released by organizations have revealed contradictory trends for ransomware. Arctic Wolf and the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC) have seen drops in the number of successful ransomware attacks, while business customers seem to be encountering ransomware less often, according to security firm Trellix. At the same time, network security firm WatchGuard had a contrary take, noting that its detection of ransomware attacks skyrocketed 80% in the first quarter of 2022, compared with all of last year.

**The Gleam of BEC Outshines Ransomware**

The surging state of BEC landscape is unsurprising, says Daniel Thanos, vice president of Arctic Wolf Labs, because BEC attacks offer cybercriminals advantages over ransomware. Specifically, BEC gains do not rely on the value of cryptocurrency, and attacks are often more successful at escaping notice while in progress.

"Our research shows that threat actors are unfortunately very opportunistic," he says.  

For that reason, BEC — which uses social engineering and internal systems to steal funds from businesses — continues to be a stronger source of revenue for cybercriminals. In 2021, BEC attacks accounted for 35%, or $2.4 billion, of the $6.9 billion in potential losses tracked by the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), while ransomware remained a small fraction (0.7%) of the total. 

In terms of revenue from individual attacks on businesses, the Arctic Wolf analysis noted that the median ransom for the first quarter was about $450,000, but the research team did not provide the average loss for victims of BEC attacks.

**Shifting Financially Motivated Cyber Tactics**

Abnormal Security found in its threat report earlier this year that that the vast majority of all cybercrime incidents (81%) involved external vulnerabilities in a few highly targeted products — namely, Microsoft's Exchange server and VMware's Horizon virtual-desktop software — as well as poorly configured remote services, such as Microsoft's Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP).

Unpatched versions of Microsoft Exchange in particular are vulnerable to the ProxyShell exploit (and now the ProxyNotShell bugs), which uses three vulnerabilities to give attackers administrative access to an Exchange system. While Microsoft patched the issues more than a year ago, the company did not publicize the vulnerabilities until a few months later.

VMware Horizon is a popular virtual desktop and app product vulnerable to the Log4Shell attack that exploited the infamous Log4j 2.0 vulnerabilities.

Both avenues are fueling BEC campaigns specifically, researchers have noted. 

In addition, many cyber gangs are using data or credentials stolen from businesses during ransomware attacks to fuel BEC campaigns.

"As organizations and employees become more aware of one tactic, threat actors will adjust their strategies in an effort to stay one step ahead of email security platforms and security awareness training," Abnormal Security said earlier this year. "The changes noted in this research are just some of the indicators that those shifts are already occurring, and organizations should expect to see more in the future."

    

81% of incidents involved an external vulnerability or weakness. Source: Arctic Wolf

Social engineering is popular, too, as ever. While external attacks on vulnerabilities and misconfigurations are the most prevalent way that attackers gain access to systems, human users and their credentials continue to be a popular target in BEC attacks, says Arctic Wolf's Thanos.

"BEC cases are often the result of social engineering, compared to ransomware cases, which are often caused by exploitation of unpatched vulnerabilities or remote access tools," he says. "In our experience, threat actors are more likely to attack a company via remote exploit than dupe a human.  

**How to Avoid BEC Compromise**

To avoid being a victim, basic security measures can go a long way, Arctic Wolf found. In fact, many companies falling prey to BEC attacks did not have security controls that potentially could have prevented damage, the company stated in its analysis. 

For instance, the research found that 80% of those companies suffering a BEC incident had no multifactor authentication in place. In addition, other controls, such as network segmentation and security awareness training, could help prevent BEC attacks from being costly, even after the attacker successfully compromises an external system.

"Companies should strengthen their employee defenses through security training," Thanos says, "but they also need to address the vulnerabilities that threat actors focus on."

Cybercriminals See Allure in BEC Attacks Over Ransomware

Malicious Comm100 files have been found scattered throughout North America, and across sectors including tech, healthcare, manufacturing, telecom, insurance, and others.

A new supply chain attack uses a Trojanized version of the Comm 100 Live Chat Application to compromise networks, and until Sept. 29, it was actively available for download from Comm 100's official website. 

The Comm100 Live Chat application enables organizations to communicate with real-time chat and boasts more than 15,000 customers across 51 countries. 

Researchers with CrowdStrike reported the malicious Comm100 installer was available for download on the company's website and was signed on Sept. 26. 

Following the CrowdStrike disclosure, Comm100 has released an updated installer (10.0.9) on Thursday and is performing a deep analysis to learn more about the attack, the researchers said.  

Despite the relatively short lifespan of the supply chain attack, the malware was able to infect several organizations, with some infections still active.

"The trojanized file was identified at organizations in the industrial, healthcare, technology, manufacturing, insurance and telecommunications sectors in North America and Europe," the report on the supply chain attack said. 

The CrowdStrike team members added they are moderately confident the threat actors are from China, based on several factors, including the use of the Chinese language in notes in the code. 

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Trojanized, Signed Comm100 Chat Installer Anchors Supply Chain Attack

The "ProxyNotShell" security vulnerabilities can be chained for remote code execution and total takeover of corporate email platforms.

Microsoft is fast-tracking patches for two Exchange Server zero-day vulnerabilities reported overnight, but in the meantime, businesses should be on the lookout for attacks. The computing giant said in a Friday update that it's already seeing "limited targeted attacks" chaining the bugs together for initial access and takeover of the email system.

The flaws specifically affect on-premises versions of Microsoft Exchange Server 2013, 2016, and 2019 that face the Internet, according to Microsoft. However, it's worth noting that security researcher Kevin Beaumont says that Microsoft Exchange Online Customers running Exchange hybrid servers with Outlook Web Access (OWA) are also at risk, despite the official advisory stating that Online instances aren't impacted. The team at Rapid7 echoed that assessment.

The bugs are tracked as follows:

*   CVE-2022-41040 (CVSS 8.8), a server-side request forgery (SSRF) vulnerability giving access to any mailbox in Exchange;
*   CVE-2022-41082 (CVSS 6.3), which allows authenticated remote code execution (RCE) when PowerShell is accessible to the attacker.

Importantly, authenticated access to the Exchange Server is necessary for exploitation, Microsoft's alert pointed out. Beaumont added, "Please note exploitation needs valid non-admin credentials for any email user."

**Patches & Mitigations for CVE-2022-41040, CVE-2022-41082**

So far, there's no patch available, but Microsoft has triaged the bugs and is fast-tracking a fix.

"We are working on an accelerated timeline to release a fix," according to Microsoft's Friday advisory. "Until then, we're providing the mitigations and detections guidance."

The mitigations include adding a blocking rule in "IIS Manager -> Default Web Site -> Autodiscover -> URL Rewrite -> Actions" to block the known attack patterns; and the company included URL rewrite instructions in the advisory, which it said it "confirmed are successful in breaking current attack chains."

Also, the alert noted that "since authenticated attackers who can access PowerShell Remoting on vulnerable Exchange systems will be able to trigger RCE using CVE-2022-41082, blocking the ports used for Remote PowerShell can limit the attacks."

**Blindsiding-Bug Disclosure**

The flaws were disclosed in a blog post from Vietnamese security company GTSC, which noted that it submitted bug reports to Trend Micro's Zero Day Initiative last month. While typically this would have resulted in a responsible vulnerability disclosure process in which Microsoft would have 120 days to patch before the findings were made public, GTSC decided to publish after seeing in-the-wild attacks, it said.

"After careful testing, we confirmed that those systems were being attacked using this 0-day vulnerability," GTSC researchers noted in its Thursday blog post. "To help the community temporarily stop the attack before an official patch from Microsoft is available, we publish this article aiming to those organizations who are using Microsoft Exchange email system."

It also offered detail analysis of the bug chain, which is similar under the hood to the ProxyShell group of Exchange Server vulnerabilities. This prompted Beaumont (@gossithedog) to dub the chain "ProxyNotShell," complete with its own logo.

He said in his analysis on Friday that while many attributes of the bugs are exactly like ProxyShell, the ProxyShell patches don't fix the issue. He also noted that in terms of attack surface, "near a quarter of a million vulnerable Exchange servers face the internet, give or take."

He characterized the situation as "pretty risky" in a Twitter feed, noting that exploitation seems to have been going on for at least a month, and that now that the flaws are public, things could "go south pretty quickly." He also called into question Microsoft's mitigation guidance.

"My guidance would be to stop representing OWA to the internet until there is a patch, unless you want to go down the mitigation route ... but that has been known about for a year, and, eh — there's other ways to exploit Exchange for RCE without PowerShell," Beaumont tweeted. "For example, if you have SSRF (CVE-2022-41040) you are god in Exchange, and can access any mailbox via EWS — see the prior activity. So, I'm not sure that mitigation will hold."

Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for comment by Dark Reading.

Microsoft Confirms Pair of Blindsiding Exchange Zero-Days, No Patch Yet

The SolarMarker group is exploiting a vulnerable WordPress-run website to encourage victims to download fake Chrome browser updates, part of a new tactic in its watering-hole attacks.

Researchers have discovered the cyberattack group behind the SolarMarker malware targeting a global tax consulting organization with a presence in the US, Canada, the UK, and Europe, which is using fake Chrome browser updates as part of watering hole attacks.  

It's a new approach for the group, replacing its previous method of search engine optimization (SEO) poisoning, also known as spamdexing.

SolarMarker is multistage malware which can exfiltrate autofill data, saved passwords, and saved credit card information from victims' Web browsers.

**Preparation for a Wider Attack?**

According to an advisory published by eSentire's Threat Response Unit (TRU) on Friday, the threat group was seen exploiting weaknesses in a medical equipment manufacturer's website, which was built with the popular open source content management system WordPress.

The victim was an employee of a tax consulting organization and searched for the manufacturer by name on Google.

"This tricked the employee into downloading and executing SolarMarker, which was disguised as a Chrome update," the advisory noted.

"The fake browser update overlay design is based on what browser the victim is utilizing while visiting the infected website," the advisory added. "Besides Chrome, the user might also receive the fake Firefox or Edge update PHP page."

It is unclear whether the SolarMarker group is testing new tactics or preparing for a wider campaign, given that the TRU team has only observed a single infection of this vector type — previous SolarMarker attacks used SEO poisoning to hit people who searched online for free templates of popular business documents and business forms.

**Monitor Endpoints, Raise Employee Awareness**

The TRU advisory outlines four key steps organizations can take to reduce the impact of these kinds of attacks, including raising employee awareness regarding browser updates that occur automatically, and avoiding downloading files from unknown sites.

"Threat actors research the kind of documents businesses look for and try to get in front of them with SEO," the advisory stated. "Only use trusted sources when downloading content from the internet, and avoid free and bundled software."

The advisory also recommended more vigilant endpoint monitoring, which TRU adds will require more frequent rule updates to detect the latest campaigns, as well as enhanced threat-landscape monitoring to bolster the organization's overall defense posture.

**SolarMarker Campaigns Back After Dormant Period**

The .NET malware was first discovered in 2020 and is typically spread via a PowerShell installer, with information-gathering capabilities and a backdoor.

In October 2021, Sophos Labs observed a number of active SolarMarker campaigns that followed a common pattern: using SEO techniques, the cybercriminals managed to place links to websites with Trojanized content in the search results of several search engines.

A previous SolarMarker campaign reported by Menlo Security in October 2021 used more than 2,000 unique search terms, luring users to sites that then dropped malicious PDFs rigged with backdoors.

SolarMarker Attack Leverages Weak WordPress Sites, Fake Chrome Browser Updates

Reports to the National Vulnerability Database jumped in 2022, but we should pay just as much attention to the flaws that are not being reported to NVD, including those affecting the software supply chain.

"You can't improve what you don't measure" is an oft-cited bit of wisdom frequently attributed to the famous management consultant Peter Drucker.

It's hard to dismiss the core truth of the saying, even if — for the record — he didn't say it, according to the Drucker Institute. After all, metrics from quarterly sales to individual KPIs are the basis for compensation, promotions, and more in 21st century organizations. There is also abundant evidence — from B.F. Skinner, for one — that humans quickly tailor their behaviors to how they're measured and incentivized.

The question that goes unasked is whether the right things are being measured, or whether the measurements in question are complete enough that they don't distort the perceptions (and decisions) of those doing the measuring. Those kinds of inconvenient questions informed research sponsored by ReversingLabs, the firm I co-founded, that analyzed six months of reports to the National Vulnerability Database (NVD) maintained by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

**2022: A Banner Year for CVEs**

Our analysis found that vulnerability reports of new Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs) to the NVD are accelerating, with 2022 on track to be the biggest year ever for new vulnerability reports. If the current trend holds, there will be more than 24,500 reports by year's end. That would mark a 22% increase over 2021, which was also a record-breaking year.

Those numbers seem to suggest that software security is deteriorating and that more forceful interventions by the public and private sector are needed to shore up software security. But there's a lot that's missed in that quick take. In its two decades of existence, the NVD has seen inconsistent growth in the number of reported vulnerabilities and exposures. Before 2005, the annual number of vulnerabilities assigned a CVE identifier never exceeded 2,500. For more than a decade after that, disclosed issues fluctuated between 4,000 and 8,000 reports per year.

The number of new CVEs in those years reflected the limited capacity of the CVE team at the nonprofit corporation MITRE, which was charged with taking in and documenting new CVE reports. We know that, because once MITRE began inviting more organizations to report vulnerabilities as CVE Number Authorities (CNAs) in 2016, the number of vulnerabilities surged. It doubled in 2017, and each year since has surpassed the previous year's record of reported CVEs.

The message: Considering a metric like the number of new CVEs is a mostly meaningless exercise if you're trying to assess the overall state of software security. More contributing firms will result in more CVEs. Fewer contributing firms will produce a drop in CVEs. The overall trend line is meaningless — at least so long as participation in the CVE program and submissions to the NVD by software vendors are voluntary.

**Software Supply Chain Security: Unmeasured and Unimproved**

As to the question of whether the right things are being measured? Here again, the current configuration of the NVD is misleading and heavily skewed toward the "usual suspects." Linux distributions Fedora and Debian accounted for 1,123 and 958 vulnerabilities, respectively, in the first half of 2022 and rank first and third on the list of software firms affected by reported issues, our research revealed. Google, Microsoft, Oracle, and Apple accounted for more than 500 vulnerabilities each.

The NVD has far less to say about flaws in popular open source platforms that are getting attention from sophisticated cyber actors. For example, our research shows that attacks on the popular software package repositories NPM and Python Package Index (PyPI) spiked 289% in the past few years, to 1,010 in 2021 from 259 in 2018. But only 56 CVEs referencing PyPI are in the NVD. PyPi's owner, the Python Software Foundation, is not a CNA. Other popular development and CI/CD platforms like CodeCov, CircleCI, and Bamboo are likewise not CNAs.

**Uncomfortable Question: Can We Trust Code?**

What does this disconnect mean for the future of public resources like the NVD? Change, for one thing. Recent events — such as the hijacking of the popular ua-parser-js project by a cryptominer — show that even seemingly secure projects can be compromised.

The lesson from incidents like this is that software security teams need to expand their focus beyond vulnerability scanning and even source code analysis to look at what code is doing. As long as we ignore this core question — can we trust code? — we are not addressing software supply chain security.

NIST and the federal government are also slowly pushing forward to implement the White House's year-old executive order on improving the nation's cybersecurity, which requires all federal government contractors and software providers to create a software bill of materials (SBOM) that can be reviewed. Recently released practice guidelines from the NSA, CISA, and ODNI further spell out steps organizations can take to secure software supply chains.

To keep pace with these larger changes, however, the NVD also needs to evolve. At the very least, its scope should expand to consistently include software supply chain exposures. Only then will the NVD move closer to representing the full breadth of threats facing modern organizations.

With the Software Supply Chain, You Can't Secure What You Don't Measure

Onyxia, an AI-powered cybersecurity strategy and performance platform providing a centralized way for security teams to monitor and manage cybersecurity efforts in real time, has raised $5 million in seed fundraising led by World Trade Ventures with participation by Silvertech Ventures and angel investors.

**NEW YORK (PRWEB), Sept. 29, 2022 —** Onyxia, an AI-powered cybersecurity strategy and performance platform providing a centralized way for security teams to monitor and manage cybersecurity efforts in real time, has raised $5 million in seed fundraising led by World Trade Ventures (WTV) with participation by Silvertech Ventures and angel investors. Onyxia is setting a new standard in cybersecurity by enabling enterprises and managed security service providers (MSSPs) to consistently have real-time insight into their internal systemic and macro cybersecurity postures, proactively highlighting strategies to close imminent security gaps and threats. The funding will be used to accelerate automation development, expand staff, and enhance platform design.

From data destruction to monetary theft, cybercrimes today take many different shapes and sizes. Globally, organizations suffered a ransomware attack every 11 seconds in 2021. New attacks on consumers and businesses are expected to occur every two seconds by 2031 and cybercrime is predicted to hit $10.5 trillion by 2025.

“CISOs work in an environment where threats and security solutions change rapidly. Too often, legacy cybersecurity software fails to keep up with an evolving landscape despite security teams spending $150 billion annually (Gartner) on consulting and manual processes,” said Charlie Federman, Partner at SilverTech Ventures. “Onyxia is addressing a blind spot in the market. Its dynamic solution is what every CISO needs in order to maintain an accurate picture of their cybersecurity landscape and make insight-driven decisions.”

Leveraging AI, Onyxia’s platform keeps pace with the ever-changing security landscape while personalizing the platform and remediation recommendations for each company. And with actionable insights, Onyxia empowers security professionals to define their security environment and highlight the best solutions and strategies to close vulnerable gaps before they emerge.

“​​Traditional cybersecurity systems are reactive, burdening CISOs with manual work. As a result, many vulnerabilities are ignored while pervasive cyber threats are becoming more complex,” says Sivan Tehila, CEO of Onyxia. “We built Onyxia to be a proactive solution to cybersecurity threats, aimed at keeping CISOs ahead of the curve by providing them with tailored insights based on real-time data, so companies properly prioritize and are best prepared.”

Onyxia was founded by Sivan Tehila, who served as CISO of the Research and Analysis Division and Head of Information Security for the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) prior to founding the company.

**About Onyxia:**  
Onyxia is an AI-powered cybersecurity strategy, management, and performance SaaS platform enabling enterprise security professionals to understand their Cybersecurity posture in real-time. By leveraging automation and scalability, Onyxia enables CISOs to gain a holistic view of their entire cybersecurity environment while highlighting the best solutions and strategies to close security gaps. For more information, visit https://onyxia.io/.

**About Silvertech Ventures:**  
Silvertech Ventures is a venture capital firm focused on helping entrepreneurs grow their companies by respecting the role of the CEO, helping with our network and experience, and most importantly, by being there when needed. Other security investments by Silvertech Ventures include Semperis, Reveal Security, and Firedome. Visit https://silvertechventures.com/ for more information.

Onyxia Raises $5M to Help Companies Proactively Manage Cybersecurity Risks Using AI

Multiple providers say  'cloud data sprawl' makes managing cloud data risk a priority initiative within the next 12 months.

SAN MATEO, Calif. and TEL AVIV, Israel , Sept. 28, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Cyera, cloud data security company, released the results of a survey of 200 cybersecurity professionals today that found 33% of organizations want to minimize cloud data risk and 48% want to improve governance or policy management of cloud data access.

Cyera's survey polled nearly 200 cybersecurity professionals on their security focus areas for the next 12 months and found that:

*   43% prioritize data protection in their public cloud infrastructure as a top priority.
*   31% rank discovering and classifying cloud data a priority.
*   35% utilize at least two public cloud providers from a list that included Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, Alibaba, IBM and Oracle; 17% of respondents rely on three or more.

"The survey data affirms that security teams are struggling to keep pace with data proliferation across their cloud environments," said Yotam Segev, Cyera co-founder and CEO. "The cloud provides obvious business advantages, but the sheer volume of data moving to the cloud, lack of visibility and the use of multiple cloud service providers all increase the threat surface exponentially."

Migrating to the cloud can cut operating costs by nearly 40%. It also boosts development agility, reduces time spent maintaining traditional IT infrastructure, and offers flexibility and scalability benefits over traditional on-premises infrastructure. But cloud providers only offer limited visibility into what data customers have, how sensitive it is, and how to improve the security and risk posture of that data across their cloud estate. This results in greater cyber-resilience and compliance risks stemming from exposed sensitive data, overly permissive access, and free movement of data between environments and individuals.

Common examples include sensitive data in non-production environments, customer and employee personally-identifiable information that is accessible to users that have no business justification to access them, and poor backup management. In the latter case, a business may believe that they no longer have a reason to manage data from a given application and decommission the cloud data stores associated with it.

Recently, Cyera found ghost data in over 30% of cloud data stores. These are typically found in non-production environments that are not secured with the same rigor as a production environment, where sensitive data they contain is more susceptible to inadvertent disclosure or exfiltration. They also represent a potential GDPR (EU General Data Protection Regulation) violation, because maintaining personal data when there is no longer a business purpose to maintain it violates the statute.

"Cloud data security requires a new approach to addressing the secular growth in data volumes, cloud migration, and risks posed by data regulation and cyber attackers," said Phillipe Botteri, partner at Accel. "CISOs and security teams are in need of rapidly-deployable, comprehensive and innovative solutions."

Cyera is purpose-built to deliver protection for cloud data and provide complete, detailed context on data, access and identities. Intelligent and context-rich, the platform creates a bridge between business imperatives and security controls. With Cyera, security teams can reduce access risk, contain data sprawl and ensure encryption from a unified view that provides continuous visibility without impacting security or performance. Cyera empowers customers to realize the speed and scale that the cloud promises, allowing their teams to innovate and build value with security as an enabler.

**About Cyera**

Cyera is the cloud data security company that gives businesses context and control over their cloud data. The company's mission is to empower security teams to enable innovation, securely. As the industry's most advanced cloud data protection platform, Cyera instantly provides companies a strong baseline for all security, risk management, and compliance efforts and ensures the entire organization operates with the same policies and guardrails. Backed by leading investors including Sequoia, Accel, and Cyberstarts, Cyera is defining the way companies do cloud data security. To learn more, visit www.cyera.io.

Cyera Survey Finds One in Three Respondents Want to Minimize Cloud Data Risk

This new function offers secure access to corporate applications and external SaaS through a virtual browser.

TOKYO (PRWEB) SEPTEMBER 28, 2022 Internet Initiative Japan Inc. (TSE Prime: 3774), one of Japan's leading Internet access and comprehensive network solutions providers, announced to add a new remote browser isolation function, "Browser Isolation" to the zero-trust network access (ZTNA) (\*) service, "Safous", which is mainly available for users in the U.S and Asia and will be available starting today.

The Safous platform is a zero-trust remote access service that provides application-level control over corporate applications and external software as a service (SaaS) access from a remote environment. This optional Browser Isolation function is Safous' proprietary, sandbox-based virtual browser that allows users to access applications and SaaS virtually, eliminating browser-based threats and providing more secure access.

"Kasm Technologies is honored to provide Kasm Workspaces remote browser isolation, our web-native secure remote access and DevOps-enabled container streaming technology, to Safous’ Browser Isolation function. Browser Isolation is an industry-leading, cost-effective, and secure browser-based remote access solution,” stated Justin Travis, Co-founder and CEO of Kasm Technologies.

ZTNA is a zero-trust solution that provides seamless and secure remote access to internal applications. Instead of authenticating at the boundaries of the enterprise network, authentication is performed through a trusted broker system each time an application is accessed.

More companies have started using SaaS in recent years, including powerhouses like Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace, due to the popularization of hybrid work. Unfortunately, these cloud-based systems are critical targets for attackers. In several reported cases, company networks are infected with malware and ransomware through a remote environment, causing a data breach and the suspension of business operations.

Because the browser and network on the terminal side are not secure in remote environments – and are potentially infected with malware already – the need to access internal data from remote environments securely has become a more urgent issue for companies. To solve this problem, Browser Isolation protects the terminal from browser-based threats and securely controls file manipulation when users access SaaS or corporate applications from a remote environment.

One of the benefits of utilizing virtual browsers is that they defend corporate networks from risky websites. Browser Isolation provides a virtual browser that allows users to access business applications and external SaaS applications securely – even if their PCs are vulnerable. This function also prohibits users from downloading and executing malicious files that come from email, eliminating the threat of intrusion through the internet. Website content is streamed to user browsers, allowing them to access any web application safely.

Companies also benefit from enhanced protection of sensitive data with the Browser Isolation function. Browser Isolation allows individual users to control file uploads and downloads centrally, and sensitive data is accessed through the virtual browser to prevent data breaches. Additionally, downloaded data and access history are deleted at the end of each session to ensure security.

With the release of Browser Isolation, Safous is introducing a new “Advanced'' pricing tier. This tier includes everything the “Standard” and “Standard Plus” packages offers, including multi-factor authentication, external account linkage, flexible policy settings, and more – plus, Safous’ new, advanced Browser Isolation function. For more information about pricing and the features included in each tier, please visit https://www.safous.com/pricing.

**About IIJ**  
Founded in 1992, IIJ is one of Japan's leading Internet-access and comprehensive network solutions providers. IIJ and its group companies provide total network solutions that mainly cater to high-end corporate customers. IIJ's services include high-quality Internet connectivity services, system integration, cloud computing services, security services and mobile services. Moreover, IIJ has built one of the largest Internet backbone networks in Japan that is connected to the United States, the United Kingdom and Asia. IIJ was listed on the Prime Market of the Tokyo Stock Exchange in 2022. For more information about IIJ, visit the official website: https://www.iij.ad.jp/en/.

The statements within this release contain forward-looking statements about our future plans that involve risk and uncertainty. These statements may differ materially from actual future events or results.

Safous Adds Browser Isolation to Its Zero-Trust Network Access Service

Security service provider selects cybersecurity training platform to safeguard enterprises in LATAM.

SANTA CLARA, Calif., September 27, 2022 -- CybeReady, provider of the world’s fastest security training platform, today announced the partnership with corporate security service provider ICE-LA (Israel Cybersecurity Enterprise Latin America) with the goal to implement its Autonomous Cybersecurity Training Platform throughout Latin America.

“Cybercrime increased in volume during the pandemic and has not abated,” noted KPMG report, A Triple Threat Across the Americas. “Companies surveyed report rises in frequency of various kinds of attacks, with phishing (cited by 44%), scamming (33%), malware (22%), and ransomware (20%), growing challenges for many. Overall, 79 percent of respondents saw growth in at least one of the types of attacks covered in the survey.”

Israel Cybersecurity Enterprise (ICE) Latin America is a high-level strategic consultancy that works with organizations to proactively build their cyber resilience and better respond to cyber-attacks within their networks. The company provides services, training, and local support throughout Latin America, leveraging a team of seasoned professionals with extensive cybersecurity experience in the field.

“In addition to sophisticated cybersecurity defenses, incident response, and cyber crisis management services, automated training processes are now a necessary part of any organization’s proactive defenses against a successful attack,” said Nathan Levy, CEO, of Israel Cybersecurity Enterprise. “As cyber-threats in Latin America mirror attacks occurring around the world, we are pleased to partner with CybeReady in our efforts to prepare business customers against these highly disruptive and costly situations.”

“Our partnership with ICE allows security officers across LATAM to easily implement a security awareness program that drives change and builds a security-minded culture quickly and effectively,” said Eitan Fogel, CybeReady’s CEO “We look forward to growing our business in these new regions and bringing our fully-automated platform to more enterprises – reducing the overall cyber risk from human-related factors.”

CybeReady’s fully-managed security training platform helps partners like ICE to guarantee the industry’s fastest risk mitigation – multiplying business customer security and safety. The platform operates 365 days a year, creating a continuous security culture and elevating the security awareness practice to that of other security solutions that operate year-round. With security teams often overloaded today with a nearly insurmountable number of tasks, CybeReady eases the training burden by providing everything needed to expedite training out-of-the box.

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Israel Cybersecurity Enterprise (ICE) Teams with CybeReady to Deliver World-Class Security Training

Expedited software patching and updating recognized as one of the most important processes to protect against system compromise from cyberattacks.

South Bend, IN (September 27, 2022) – Aunalytics, a leading data management and analytics company delivering managed IT and data platform services for mid-sized and enterprise businesses, today initiated its Security Patching Platform, Co-managed Patching as a Service to complement the company’s Advanced Security solution suite. Windows OS and supported 3rd party patch management allow for tighter security in the defense against cyberattacks and the new offering ensures active remediation.

According to a 2022 Data Breach Investigations Report by Verizon, around 70 percent of successful cyberattacks exploited known vulnerabilities with available patches, making it important to update operating systems and applications regularly to prevent such attacks. Now, Aunalytics’ new technology as a service includes the tools, structure, strategy and intelligence for managing patch deployment and is a complete solution with best practices, templates, libraries, and built-in alert thresholds.

Lack of security patching leads to vulnerabilities within an organization’s information systems, internal controls, or system processes, which can then be exploited by cybercriminals. Using a collection of tools, cyber attackers use the vulnerability to gain unauthorized access to corporate systems and data. Identifying and resolving vulnerabilities is very important since a successful exploit can lead to a full-scale system breach.

Workstation and server application patching ensures that organizations have baseline protection against the latest security vulnerabilities, preventing such attacks before they occur. However, patching can be difficult to manage and update in real-time as software fixes are published on an ongoing basis. Setting up and coordinating manual patching across an organization can be extremely cumbersome, taking days to organize, schedule, and execute across an entire company.

McKinsey cites good patch management as a top proactive maintenance measure that can help organizations prevent cyberattacks. However, knowing the priority level for patch installment can be confusing and lead to poor patch management as a result. Enlisting the help of a partner to employ security patching best-practices can add true value to many organizations. Aunalytics patch detection, download, and installment methods are developed considering each client's security and uptime requirements and prioritized in order of threat potential. Aunalytics’ experienced security patching team proactively monitors for updates, eliminating worry for end users and server administrators.

As part of the new service, users gain access to comprehensive security solutions with customized alerting and vulnerability prioritization, leveraging proprietary solutions and processes. The platform facilitates collaboration between IT and security teams and includes the following capabilities:

• Inventory and performance management and proactive alerting  
• Patch deployment control strategy, prioritization, planning  
• Patch vetting and blacklisting intelligence  
• Windows Operating System patch management  
• Supported 3rd Party Patch Management  
• Anti-Malware  
• DNS-based Malware Protection  
• Device Encryption Management  
• Innovative management tool library

“Security patch exploits can have extremely damaging effects on an organization, decreasing revenues or causing reputational damage, making it imperative to have security patching in place,” said Chris Nicholson, Vice President of Managed IT Services. “Aunalytics’ Security Patching Platform services allow for the rapid resolution of these concerns to maintain the highest levels of cyber-resiliency.”

**About Aunalytics**  
Aunalytics is a leading data management and analytics company delivering Insights-as-a-Service for mid-sized businesses and enterprises. Selected for the prestigious Inc. 5000 list for two consecutive years as one of the nation’s fastest growing companies, Aunalytics offers managed IT services and managed analytics services, private cloud services, and a private cloud-native data platform for data management and analytics. The platform is built for universal data access, advanced analytics and AI -- unifying distributed data silos into a single source of truth for highly accurate, actionable business information. Its DaybreakTM industry intelligent data mart combined with the power of the Aunalytics data platform provides industry-specific data models with built-in queries and AI for accurate mission-critical insights. To solve the talent gap that so many mid-sized businesses and enterprises located in secondary markets face, through its side-by-side digital transformation model, Aunalytics provides the technical talent needed for data management and analytics success in addition to its innovative technologies and tools. To learn more contact us at +1 855-799-DATA or visit Aunalytics at http://www.aunalytics.com or on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Source

DARKReading