If you want your IT and security administrators to get buried in trivial workloads and productivity bottlenecks, having poor network object management is a great way to accomplish that.

With needs around data privacy and application management changing rapidly, many businesses have yet to master the implementation of new security standards. The challenge becomes more complex when managing objects within a multivendor security network. Each vendor has its own management platform, which often forces network security admins to define objects multiple times, resulting in a counter-effect.

First, this can be an inefficient use of valuable resources and cause workload bottlenecks. Second, it creates naming inconsistency and introduces myriad unexpected errors, leading to security flaws and connectivity problems. This raises the question: Are businesses doing enough to ensure their network objects are synchronized in legacy and greenfield environments?

**What Is Network Object Management, and Why Should We Talk About It?**

If you want your IT and security administrators to get buried in trivial workloads and productivity bottlenecks, having poor network object management is a great way to achieve it. Inconsistent or incorrect naming of network objects can introduce a seemingly limitless number of problems for your organization, from connectivity woes to gaps in network security that you can't see. In this regard, poor network object management could actually be one of the biggest "insider threats" to an organization's overall cybersecurity efforts; if object names are incorrectly paired with a particular security policy due to inconsistent naming, everything will look fine on paper until a breach occurs, and even then it might be difficult to find the vulnerability.

This is why intelligent and proactive network object management is so crucial to a multicloud strategy. On a basic level, organizations might only need to name things such as servers, IP addresses, and groups of similar objects to which fairly simple security rules might be applied. But as an organization grows, it tends to end up with more network objects than it can count, sometimes running into the tens of thousands. Even a team of dedicated IT and security professionals wouldn't be able to monitor and update such a large number of objects, and mistakes due to avoidable human error would go through the roof. It's easy to see how things could go wrong with a manual or legacy approach to naming network objects — and they do.

**Why Network Object Management Is More Important With a Multicloud Approach**

For network security policies to work effectively, so-called "objects" on the network, such as servers or groups of IP addresses, need to be named so they can be included in the policies applicable to them. One of the biggest challenges that emerges with multicloud solutions is that businesses typically end up using network traffic-filtering solutions from multiple cloud vendors. Each solution will usually have its own vendor-specific platform, forcing network and security administrators to define the objects on their network multiple times. Not only does this waste a lot of time that could be spent elsewhere in the business, but it can lead to costly errors and security gaps.

Furthermore, this opens the door to another problem — that is, name duplication. On a small scale, this is quite easily rectified by a team that knows what to look for. But for bigger organizations, name duplication can spiral into a much larger problem. It's not uncommon for two copies of the same name to end up with two distinctly separate definitions.

For instance, let's say we have a group of database servers containing three IP addresses that we name "DB1" and the relevant security policy is applied. Then somebody takes the "DB1" name and uses it to define data servers in another network environment, this time containing only two IP addresses. In this example, the security policy rule using the name "DB1" would look fine to even a well-trained eye because the names and definitions it contained would seem identical. But we're now in a situation where one of these groups would apply to two IP addresses rather than three, and that will cause more problems the more the definition is used.

**Best Practices**

It's always good to have a set of maintenance guidelines that can help you achieve a higher standard of cyber hygiene. To help you get there, below are some general best practices that can serve as your cleanup checklist for network object management.

*   Remove duplicate objects.
*   Delete expired and unused rules and objects.
*   Break up long rule sections into readable chunks.
*   Enforce object naming conventions.
*   Delete old and unused policies.
*   Document rules, objects and policy revisions.

**The Takeaway**

Network object management might not be big or exciting, but it's fundamental to the safe and secure running of multicloud network environments. If a business achieves 100% accuracy in its approach to network object management, perhaps by leveraging automation and monitoring tools, there's very little reason it can't go on to achieve 100% network performance and efficiency.

Why Network Object Management Is Critical for Managing Multicloud Network Security

Someone interested in putting together a ransomware campaign has to consider several factors. The LockBit group touts its speed over competing families to attract potential buyers for its ransowmare-as-a-service.

Recent research has suggested that modern ransomware operations run much like legitimate businesses. Both have a management structure, different teams specializing in different aspects of the operation, and they outsource work when necessary. Many ransomware crews even have a PR team to draw attention to their latest victims and success stories. Recent research from Splunk suggests some groups are branching out into marketing, as well.

Earlier this year, the LockBit group posted a table listing encryption speeds for more than 30 ransomware families, highlighting the fact that LockBit 2.0 was the fastest. Measuring how long different ransomware takes to encrypt the files in victim environments is an interesting exercise from a technical perspective, but for LockBit, it was a marketing ploy to attract potential customers for its ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) offering, says Shannon Davis, staff security strategist on Splunk’s SURGe research team.

The barrier to entry to launch a ransomware campaign is much lower, thanks to the availability of RaaS. LockBit and other “service providers” need to attract people who want to use the tool. By listing the encryption speeds on its site, LockBit is telling customers, “We are fast, use us, we are better,” Davis says.

Davis attempted to verify LockBit’s tests and claims about being the fastest. While Davis found that LockBit was faster than other ransomware families, there were some notable differences. For example, the “latest and greatest” version, LockBit 2.0, was actually slower at encrypting files than the original LockBit 1.0. And Splunk found that PwndLocker was the second fastest – though the LockBit group had ranked it 15th out of 30.

The 10 fastest families include some very well-known names. Conti, which has been in the headlines recently, was the fourth fastest in Splunk’s tests, while LockBit placed it 19th.

There is no way to tell whether the LockBit group fudged the numbers a bit to make certain groups look worse in the analysis than they actually performed, but Davis acknowledges that there are rivalries between crews as they go “head-to-head” competing for victims. The difference in results is most likely because of differences in testing methodologies, he says.

**We Aren’t That Fast**

While the rankings themselves are interesting (and good for ransomware marketing), security teams should note just how quickly ransomware performs its job. LockBit 1.0 takes 2.33 _minutes._ Conti takes a little over a minute longer, at 3.6 minutes.

“This is faster than any network defender can handle,” says Ryan Kovar, distinguished security strategist and leader of Splunk’s SURGe research team.

    

Encryption speeds for the 15 fastest ransomware families. The full list is available on Splunk's blog.

While the slowest, Avos, takes 132 minutes – or a little over two hours – the median is about 23 minutes. That’s still much faster than many organizations can act. Enterprise defense can’t “win” during the encryption phase, so their best chance for foiling a ransomware attack is to detect the intrusion before the encryption process kicks off, Kovar says.

Mandiant’s "M-Trends 2022" report notes that ransomware families tend to spend three to five days in the victim environment collecting information before kicking off the encryption process.

“We are not going to beat \[them\] in three minutes. We need more time,” Kovar says. “We need to be acting during those three to five days.”

Back to marketing, people often underestimate the extent to which ransomware is run like a business, Kovar says. Someone analyzed and measured the encryption speeds, but more than that, someone spent the time to create a graphic and put together a post discussing its research – and Kovar notes that all of this takes many hours to do. The fact that a ransomware crew has “top-tier marketing” and is thinking in terms of “value add” shows ransomware’s maturity, Kovar says.

“APT28 doesn’t have a marketing guy,” Kovar says.

For Ransomware, Speed Matters

U.S. cybersecurity services firm expands security and identity management services with woman-owned business.

Scottsdale, Ariz., June 02, 2022 -- Cerberus Cyber Sentinel Corporation (NASDAQ: CISO), a cybersecurity consulting and managed services firm based in Scottsdale, Ariz., announced that it has completed the acquisition of Creatrix, Inc., a woman-owned cybersecurity and information technology company based in Tennessee and Maryland.

Under the terms of the agreement, Creatrix will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Cerberus Sentinel. The company was co-founded by Anna Fleeman, founder and managing director, and Sami Elhini, co-founder and president. Creatrix is recognized for its expertise in identity management as well as systems integration and software engineering, and it specializes in biometrics, vetting, credentialing, and case management.

"Creatrix is a great fit for us at Cerberus Sentinel, as we both ascribe to creating a culture of cybersecurity for our customers," said David Jemmett, CEO and founder, Cerberus Sentinel. "We welcome co-founders Anna Fleeman and Sami Elhini and their team members, who all will become Cerberus Sentinel stakeholders. This is an innovative organization that collaborates with customers to secure their operations. Their expertise pairs very well with that of our extended Cerberus Sentinel team."

“Creatrix is honored to join Cerberus Sentinel,” said Elhini. “We believe our shared vision creates great and immediate value for our customers and shareholders. Through expanded service delivery capacities and future innovation, we will be better able to address the identity and security challenges of businesses and organizations in a rapidly changing world.”

**About Cerberus Sentinel**

Cerberus Sentinel is an industry leader in managed cybersecurity and compliance (MCCP) services with its exclusive MCCP+ managed compliance and cybersecurity services plus culture program. The company is rapidly expanding by acquiring world-class cybersecurity, secured managed services, and compliance companies with top-tier talent that utilize the latest technology to create innovative solutions to protect the most demanding businesses and government organizations against continuing and emerging security threats and compliance obligations.

**Safe Harbor Statement**

This news release contains certain statements that may be deemed to be forward-looking statements under federal securities laws, and we intend that such forward-looking statements be subject to the safe-harbor created thereby. Such forward-looking statements include, among others, our belief that Creatrix is a great fit for Cerberus, as we both ascribe to creating a culture of cybersecurity for our customers; our belief that Creatrix is an innovative organization that collaborates with customers to secure their operations; our belief that Creatrix’s expertise pairs very well with that of our extended Cerberus Sentinel team; the belief that the Creatrix and Cerberus Sentinel shared vision creates great and immediate value for customers and shareholders; and the belief that through expanded service delivery capacities and future innovation, we will be better able to address the identity and security challenges of businesses and organizations in a rapidly changing world. These statements are often, but not always, made through the use of words or phrases such as "believes," "expects," "anticipates," "intends," "estimates," “predict,” "plan," “project,” “continuing,” “ongoing,” “potential,” “opportunity,” "will," "may," "look forward," "intend," "guidance," "future" or similar words or phrases. These statements reflect our current views, expectations, and beliefs concerning future events and are subject to substantial risks, uncertainties, and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those reflected by such forward-looking statements. Such factors include, among others, risks related to our ability to raise capital; our ability to increase revenue and cash flow and become profitable; our ability to recruit and retain key talent; our ability to identify and consummate acquisitions; our ability to acquire, attract, and retain clients; and other risks detailed from time to time in the reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2021. You should not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date they are made. Except as required by law, we assume no obligation and do not intend to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future developments, or otherwise.

Cerberus Sentinel Completes Acquisition of Creatrix, Inc.

79% of CISOs say continuous runtime vulnerability management is an essential capability to keep up with the expanding complexity of modern multi-cloud environments.

WALTHAM, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Software intelligence company Dynatrace (NYSE: DT) announced today the findings of an independent global survey of 1,300 chief information security officers (CISOs) in large-size organizations. The research reveals that the speed and complexity created by using multicloud environments, multiple coding languages, and open source software libraries are making vulnerability management more difficult. 75% of CISOs say that despite having a multi-layered security posture, persistent coverage gaps allow vulnerabilities into production. This highlights the growing need for observability and security to converge, paving the way toward AISecDevOps practices. This will empower organizations with a more effective way of managing vulnerabilities at runtime, and the ability to detect and block attacks in real time. The complimentary report, _Observability and security must converge to enable effective vulnerability management_, is available for download.

Findings from the research include:

*   69% of CISOs say vulnerability management has become more difficult as the need to accelerate digital transformation has increased.
*   More than three-quarters (79%) of CISOs say that automatic, continuous runtime vulnerability management is key to filling the gap in the capabilities of existing security solutions. However, just 4% of organizations have real-time visibility into runtime vulnerabilities in containerized production environments.
*   Only 25% of security teams can access a fully accurate, continuously updated report of every application and code library running in production in real time.

“These findings underscore that there are always opportunities for vulnerabilities to slip past security teams, regardless of how robust their defenses might be. Both new applications and stable legacy software are prone to vulnerabilities that are more reliably detected in production. Log4Shell was the poster child for this problem, and there will undoubtedly be other scenarios like it in the future,” said Bernd Greifeneder, Chief Technology Officer at Dynatrace. “It’s also clear that most organizations still lack real-time visibility into runtime vulnerabilities. The problem stems from the growing use of cloud-native delivery practices, which enable greater business agility, but also introduce new complexity for vulnerability management, attack detection, and blocking. The rapid pace of digital transformation means that already overstretched teams are bombarded by thousands of security alerts that make it impossible to see through the noise and focus on what matters. Teams find it impossible to respond manually to every alert, and organizations are exposed to unnecessary risk by allowing vulnerabilities to escape into production.”

Additional findings include:

*   On average, organizations receive 2,027 alerts of potential application security vulnerabilities each month.
*   Less than a third (32%) of the application security vulnerability alerts organizations receive each day require action, compared to 42% last year.
*   On average, application security teams waste 28% of their time on vulnerability management tasks that could be automated.

“Organizations realize that to manage vulnerabilities in the cloud-native era effectively, security must become a shared responsibility. The convergence of observability and security is critical to providing development, operations, and security teams with the context needed to understand how their applications are connected, where the vulnerabilities lie, and which need to be prioritized. This accelerates risk management and incident response,” continued Greifeneder. “To be truly effective, organizations should look for solutions that have AI and automation capabilities at their core, enabling AISecDevOps. These solutions empower their teams to quickly identify and prioritize vulnerabilities at runtime, block attacks in real time, and remediate software flaws before they can be exploited. This means teams can stop wasting time in war rooms or chasing false positives and potential vulnerabilities that will never make it into production. Instead, they confidently deliver better, more secure software faster.”

The report is based on a global survey of 1,300 CISOs in large-size organizations with more than 1,000 employees, conducted by Coleman Parkes and commissioned by Dynatrace in April 2022. The sample included 200 respondents in the U.S., 100 each in the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, the Nordics, the Middle East, Australia, and India, and 50 each in Singapore, Malaysia, Brazil, and Mexico.

**About Dynatrace**

Dynatrace (NYSE: DT) exists to make the world’s software work perfectly. Our unified software intelligence platform combines broad and deep observability and continuous runtime application security with the most advanced AIOps to provide answers and intelligent automation from data at an enormous scale. This enables innovators to modernize and automate cloud operations, deliver software faster and more securely, and ensure flawless digital experiences. That is why the world’s largest organizations trust the Dynatrace® platform to accelerate digital transformation.

Curious to see how you can simplify your cloud and maximize the impact of your digital teams? Let us show you. Sign up for a free 15-day Dynatrace trial.

Research Reveals 75% of CISOs Are Worried Too Many Application Vulnerabilities Leak Into Production, Despite a Multi-Layered Security Approach

Conti threat actors are betting chipset firmware is updated less frequently than other software — and winning big, analysts say.

Leaked communications from within the Conti threat group reveal the Moscow-backed cybercrime group has honed its firmware attack skills and is actively targeting Intel Management Engine (ME), a microcontroller inside many iterations of the modern Intel chipset, according to a new report.

The analysis, from Eclypsium, notes that Intel chipsets aren't being targeted by Conti because they have vulnerable code, but rather the group assumes firmware patching is spotty at best. In addition, firmware attacks can evade most security tools, the analysts added.

"This can leave some of the most powerful and privileged code on a device susceptible to attack," the report detailing the Conti firmware attacks said. "The recent Conti leaks mark a critical phase in the rapidly evolving role of firmware in modern attacks."

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Intel Chipset Firmware Actively Targeted by Conti Group

Gurucul automating threat detection, investigation and response (TDIR) with advanced analytics, comprehensive threat content, and a flexible enterprise risk engine for hybrid and multi-cloud environments.

RSAC 2022, Gartner SRM 2022, and Los Angeles, Calif. – Jun 2, 2022 – Gurucul, the leader in Next-Gen SIEM, XDR, UEBA and Identity Access Analytics, today announced availability of the Gurucul Security Analytics and Operations Platform. A cloud-native, unified and modular platform for consolidating core security operations center (SOC) solutions with the vital addition of Identity Threat Detection and Response (ITDR) provides a unified next-gen SOC platform. The Gurucul platform converges the company’s award winning Next-Gen SIEM, XDR, User and Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA), Security Operations and Automation Response (SOAR), and Identity Access Analytics (IAA) into a single pane of glass that is aligned with the evolving needs of the modern enterprise threat landscape – where identity has become the new perimeter.

Gurucul’s innovative platform is purpose-built to automate and accelerate data collection, event and alert correlation, detection triage, investigation, and response to targeted attacks. It combines threat intelligence with an enterprise-class risk engine, delivering precise contextual detections, prioritized investigation, and risk-driven response actions that drastically reduce mean-time-to-detection (MTTD) and mean-time-to-response (MTTR). Gurucul’s platform can also support the most complex deployments including on-premise, hybrid, and cloud (SaaS, private, GovCloud, and multi-cloud including multi-tenancy), addressing the needs of today’s modern enterprise and managed detection and response (MDR) providers.

With increased sophistication around phishing, social engineering, credential theft, and supply chain attacks, it is more important than ever to go beyond current solutions that are overly concerned with endpoint security and focus on securing identities attached to multiple entities and devices. Based on remote work risks, accelerated cloud migration, and state-sponsored threat actor groups, there has been an increase not only in targeted and organized attack campaigns, but also insider risks and threats.

“The combination of an expanding attack surface with limited resources and constantly changing tools and techniques drives security operations teams’ need for a comprehensive and consolidated platform approach. While the endpoint is critical, we must understand and work to secure the one constant, identity, which requires a new and innovative approach to threat detection, investigation and response programs,” said Saryu Nayar, CEO of Gurucul. “Early and rapid detection occurs with a full set of endpoint, network, application, identity, cloud, and IoT telemetry context along with advanced analytics, including behavioral-based, and an extensive set of trained machine learning models. Gurucul has spent over 10 years developing specialized analytics and threat content that comprehensively covers all these datasets to eliminate manual tasks and enables automation across every stage of the security operations lifecycle.”

As organizations are transforming their SOC to support multi-cloud deployments and zero trust programs, they are looking for an end-to-end solution to help them improve security analyst effectiveness in rapidly identifying and confirming, not just threats and alerts, but the entire attack campaign. While other SIEM or XDR solutions are just starting to scratch the surface of identity, Gurucul has been a provider of Identity Analytics solutions for over a decade with robust access analytics, broad integrations with various identity systems such as IAM, PAM, HRMS, CMDB, IDaaS etc., and risk-based access remediation and authentication. In conjunction with its UEBA capabilities, Gurucul helps customers get an understanding of current-state identity access and authorization policies, and access usage anomalies and risk exposures, to plan out a robust and secure zero trust strategy. The Gurucul platform is a critical part of any ongoing zero trust program as it will continuously monitor for anomalous user behaviors, access proliferation, and access misuse/violations, ensuring zero trust policies are not being evaded by either insider or external threat actors.

"Gurucul has detection and response capability for the entire cyber kill chain, covering a range of data telemetry across complex and distributed multi-cloud deployments as well as the enterprise," said Nilesh Dherange, CTO of Gurucul. “We’ve invested over a decade in building the most powerful suite of solutions in a single platform enabling real-time threat detection, investigation, and response for our customers with a quick ROI. The addition of identity and access based threat detection to its robust TDIR capabilities powered by advanced ML models, positions Gurucul to provide innovative solutions that address the ever-changing SOC needs.”

The Gurucul platform uniquely provides a set of core capabilities that goes beyond current Next-Gen SIEM and XDR solutions that are critical in improving security operations effectiveness, including:

*   Deployment Options – On-premise, hybrid, cloud (including SaaS, private, GovCloud, and multi-cloud).
*   Multi-Cloud Threat Detection, Investigation, and Response – Real-time data ingestion, correlation, analytics, detection, and risk driven response across multiple clouds.
*   Automated Data Pipeline – An Automated Data Interpretation Engine to ingest structured and unstructured data from any source.
*   Gurucul STUDIOTM – Advanced and fully customizable analytics that include transparent machine learning models to accommodate custom use cases.
*   Enterprise-Class Risk Engine – All-encompassing analytics-driven risk scoring to accelerate investigation with high-fidelity alerts and automated responses.
*   Threat Intel & Content – The largest library of threat models, MITRE ATT&CK coverage, and curated threat intelligence powered by Gurucul Threat Labs™.
*   Gurucul MinerTM – Contextual raw and normalized search across all data silos.
*   Risk Driven Security Control Automation – Out of the box case management, playbooks, workflows, and downstream integrations with the ability to customize.
*   Identity Threat Detection and Response – Identity-centric context across enterprise and multi-cloud environments, reduced identity and access threat plane, and automated threat detection early in the kill chain.

**Availability and Pricing**

The Gurucul platform is modular, delivering customized capabilities to match individual customer requirements. This includes full multi-tenancy, data segregation, flexible policy control and rapid scaling, especially suited for MDR providers. Customers can start with a single module and expand as needed with a simple license change, building towards a unified platform with no data replication or need to start over. Gurucul offers the following packaged software solutions including Next-Gen SIEM, Open XDR, UEBA, Identity Access Analytics that include or can be delivered with Network Traffic Analysis (NTA), Security Orchestration, Automation and Response (SOAR), and Fraud Analytics as stand-alone or add-on options. Gurucul’s Security Analytics and Operations Platform is available immediately from Gurucul and its business partners worldwide.

To learn more visit www.gurucul.com, or see a demo at the RSA Conference 2022 in San Francisco, Calif., June 6-9 at Booth #1443 or at Gartner SRM 2022 in National Harbor, MD, June 7-10 at Booth #1113.

**About Gurucul**

Gurucul is a global cyber security company that is changing the way organizations protect their most valuable assets, data and information from insider and external threats both on-premises and in the cloud. Gurucul’s real-time Cloud-native Next-gen Security Operations Platform provides customers with Open XDR, Next Generation SIEM, UEBA, and Identity Analytics. It combines machine learning behavior profiling with predictive risk-scoring algorithms to predict, prevent, and detect breaches. Gurucul technology is used by Global 1000 companies and government agencies to fight cybercrimes, IP theft, insider threat and account compromise as well as for log aggregation, compliance and risk-based security orchestration and automation for real-time extended detection and response. The company is based in Los Angeles. To learn more, visit https://gurucul.com/ and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

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Gurucul Launches Cloud-Native SOC Platform Pushing the Boundaries of Next-Gen SIEM and XDR with Identity Threat Detection and Response

A pair of phishing campaigns against users of WhatsApp and Telegram's Telegraph expose them to extortion, credential harvesting, and even account takeover.

Within just a few days of each other, researchers sounded the alarm about phishing campaigns against two popular, global messaging platforms, Telegraph and WhatsApp.

Lat week, Rahul Sasi, founder and CEO of CloudSEK, posted a warning on LinkedIn that WhatsApp accounts were being targeted by phishing attacks trying to trick users into placing a call to the number "\*\*67\*< 10 digit number > or \*405\* <10 digit number >". Just a few minutes later, the device would log out of WhatsApp and the attacker would have full control of the account, Sasi added.

Turns out, dialing those digits forwards a victim's calls to a number controlled by the threat actors.

"Now in the backend, the attacker triggers the WhatsApp registration process for your number and chooses the option to send OTP via phone call," Sasi wrote. "Since your phone is engaged — the OTP will go to the attacker's phone, and it's game over for you."

**Telegraph Phishing Attacks**

Likewise, recent phishing attacks on users of Telegram's privacy-focused blogging platform, Telegraph, have spiked recently. Cyberattackers are looking to harvest Microsoft 365 credentials and run cryptocurrency scams, according to analysis from Inky.

Telegraph allows users to set up webpages without registration, and Telegram deletes sent messages after they are read, helping attackers to carry out their scams anonymously. As such, the researchers said Telegram is quickly replacing the underground web as the platform of choice for cybercriminals.

"Although many such sites are available, Telegraph is more attractive than most because of its unusually libertarian heritage; its founders openly propound a 'live and let die' philosophy, catnip to phishers," Inky researcher Roger Kay wrote about the Telegraph phishing scam findings.

Phishers Having a Field Day on WhatsApp, Telegraph

RSA pivots to exclusive focus. Identity is once again the ‘beating heart’ of RSA.

BEDFORD, MA – June 1, 2022 – RSA, a global leader in identity and access management (IAM) solutions for the planet’s most security-sensitive organizations, approaches the RSA Conference in San Francisco as an organization well into a dynamic transformation, with significant announcements to make.

First among them is the company’s decision to simplify and streamline its focus and brand architecture. RSA pioneered multi-factor authentication and RSA SecurID is the most widely deployed MFA offering trusted by security-first organizations across the globe. While identity has always been central to RSA’s mission, the company has also been involved in adjacent cyber modalities. No longer: going forward those organizations focusing on integrated risk management, threat detection and response, and omnichannel fraud prevention will grow as independent companies with their own brands.

RSA’s leadership has made the decision to return to its roots and focus the RSA brand on identity. The rationale behind this shift is straightforward. RSA believes identity is the most consequential threat vector in cybersecurity and RSA is best positioned to help customers with this challenge. In addition, the RSA brand will remain affiliated with RSA Conference: the world’s preeminent conference and community for cybersecurity professionals and now an independent business.

RSA also announced the availability of an innovative new SaaS solution suite named ID Plus, a complete and flexible IAM platform offering customers the choice of cloud, on-prem and hybrid deployments. With this announcement, RSA has simplified its IAM offerings to just two brands: ID Plus and SecurID.

“We’ve accelerated a shift into being an identity-first company serving security-first customers,” said Rohit Ghai, CEO of RSA. “We’re transforming into a much more customer experience-driven organization. And we’ve leaned heavily into innovation,” continued Ghai. “We’re making tectonic-level enhancements throughout the company, and with our commitment to hyperfocus on identity we can meet our customers wherever they are on their journey to zero trust.”

RSA’s announcement will dramatically improve customer experience by greatly simplifying both the purchase and adoption of the ID Plus portfolio. The company has introduced 3 new subscription-based pricing plans with a powerful array of options that can be flexibly deployed in the cloud, on-prem or hybrid. Customers can easily adjust their deployments as their needs change. Each plan can lower a customer’s upfront costs in a meaningful way and provide customers with greater budgeting predictability. Simple and effective.

Also, at the RSA Conference, the company is introducing a truly game-changing new cloud product within the ID Plus portfolio: the DS100, a hardware authenticator specifically designed to serve RSA’s customers who have embraced a zero trust posture.

The DS100 is the first ever and only passwordless, multi-functional security solution that can dramatically enhance user experience while lowering total cost of ownership. It is the first cloud-enabled authenticator that marries the cryptographic advantages of FIDO protocols with the security benefits of a one-time password solution, a category where RSA has long been the gold standard. Unlike any other authenticator, the DS100 works plugged in or unplugged, making it the perfect, flexible authentication solution.

The DS100 is only the first of 6 or more new cloud based-solutions the company will introduce in the balance of 2022.

“Our product team is well-beyond simply ‘excited’ about the new ID Plus portfolio and the DS100,” said Jim Taylor, RSA’s Chief Product Officer and the company’s most-likely-to-geek-out-about-new-stuff person. “Everything we do is in service to the customer experience and to innovating exponentially, as RSA has done since its inception. These 2 new solutions are additional proofs of this dual emphasis.”

The company points to its new ownership as a powerful catalyst of the transformation taking place throughout RSA. In 2020, a group led by STG (Symphony Technology Group) purchased RSA. Clearlake Capital later joined the consortium to invest in the next phase of the company’s transformation.

“RSA has consistently delivered shareholder value by being a Rule of 40+ company. And the advantages inherent in RSA now being independent cannot be overstated,” said CEO Ghai. “We’re part of an organization that’s bullish about and focused on identity and cybersecurity. And we’re surrounded by a community of investors and advisors who feel the same. Truly a Virtuous Circle.”

RSA was founded by 3 pioneering MIT mathematicians who invented the RSA cryptosystem, laying the foundation for all secure data communications. Today RSA is a global leader laser-focused on identity and access management, reflecting the company’s belief that assuring digital identities throughout their lifecycle is of preeminent importance in cybersecurity. RSA focuses on serving the planet’s most security-sensitive organizations, with specialties in federal government, financial services, healthcare, energy and technology services. www.rsa.com

New Cloud Pricing and Products Proof of RSA’s Transformation

Microsoft Philanthropies is expanding its cybersecurity skills for jobs campaign to 23 countries and partnering with Women in CyberSecurity (WiCyS) to build a cybersecurity workforce that is not just larger but also more diverse.

COOKEVILLE, TENN. (PRWEB) JUNE 02, 2022

As cyberthreats continue to expand and progress worldwide, the need for qualified cybersecurity professionals is increasing with experts predicting there will be 3.5 million cybersecurity jobs open by 2025, a 350% increase over eight years. Microsoft Philanthropies is expanding its cybersecurity skills for jobs campaign to 23 countries and partnering with Women in CyberSecurity (WiCyS) to build a cybersecurity workforce that is not just larger but also more diverse.

The expansion will include: Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Romania, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.

The countries were chosen because of an elevated cyberthreat risk, gap in the workforce and lack of diversity. One of the traditionally excluded populations Microsoft wants to provide opportunities for are women, who are significantly underrepresented. In the countries where Microsoft expanded its cybersecurity skilling campaign, only 17% of the cybersecurity workforce are female. Microsoft is working to understand the skills gap, offering free training, helping train more teachers, and providing more support to diverse and underserved job seekers, which is where WiCyS will help.

WiCyS is working to expand its student chapters in the 23 countries by promoting the retention and advancement of women in cybersecurity. WiCyS has over 5,700 members worldwide, including several in those countries Microsoft is trying to engage. WiCyS also has over 160 student chapters, largely in the U.S.

WiCyS student chapters receive funding, access to resources and conferences as well as networking opportunities for both students and faculty advisors. The group of women, men, allies, and advocates meets monthly to participate in CTFs, hackathons, engage in cyber trivia, and learn new technical skillsets. Other events include hosting resume workshops, mock interviews, career development panels, speed networking events and more.

“Thanks to this collaboration, WiCyS seeks to expand our global cyber sisterhood far and wide,” said Lynn Dohm, WiCyS executive director. “While WiCyS works to ensure equity in the gender imbalanced cybersecurity workforce, the student chapter initiative creates a community on campuses so that women are retained in their field of study, grow their network, and have a reliable gateway for future advancement opportunities.”

For more information on the Microsoft Philanthropies Global Student Chapter Initiative, visit http://www.wicys.org/initiatives/wicys-global-student-chapter-initiative-made-possible-by-microsoft-philanthropies/

**About WiCyS:**  
Women in CyberSecurity (WiCyS) is a nonprofit organization with international reach dedicated to the recruitment, retention and advancement of women in cybersecurity. Founded by Dr. Ambareen Siraj from Tennessee Tech University through a National Science Foundation grant in 2013, WiCyS offers opportunities, trainings, events, and resources for its members. Strategic partners include Tier 1: Amazon Web Services, Bloomberg, Carnegie Mellon University – Software Engineering Institute, Cisco, Fortinet, Google, Intel, Lockheed Martin, Meta, Microsoft, Optum, Sandia National Laboratories, SentinelOne. Tier 2: Abbvie, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Linkedin, McKesson, Navy Federal Credit Union, Nike, Wayfair, Workday. To partner, visit https://www.wicys.org/support/strategic-partnerships/.

Microsoft Philanthropies Collaborates With WiCyS to Help Close the Cybersecurity Skills Gap

The threat actor behind the notorious Dridex campaign has switched from using its exclusive credential-harvesting malware to a ransomware-as-a-service model, to make attribution harder.

Sanctions that the US government imposed on Russia-based crimeware gang Evil Corp in 2019 appear to have forced the threat actor to change tactics to remain in the cybercrime business.

New research into the group's activity by Mandiant shows that after the sanctions were put in place — after the group caused more than $100 million in losses to banks and other financial institutions by stealing sensitive information — Evil Corp switched to using ransomware in an apparent effort to obscure attribution. 

Moving on from using Dridex, its own exclusive (and easily fingerprinted) malware, Evil Corp actors have been observed deploying ransomware families used by multiple threat groups, such as Hades, WastedLocker, PhoenixLocker, and most recently LockBit, a ransomware-as-a-service option.

US regulations prohibit organizations — including ransomware victims and negotiators — from conducting any kind of financial transactions with organizations and entities on the US Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctions list.

"\[US\] sanctions have had a direct impact on threat actor operations, particularly as at least some companies involved in ransomware remediation activities, such as negotiation, refuse to facilitate payments to known sanctioned entities," Mandiant says in its report. "This can ultimately reduce threat actors' ability to be paid by victims, which is the primary driver of ransomware operations."

That means US ransomware victims need to pay closer attention to whom they are dealing with, says Jeremy Kennelly, senior manager of financial crime analysis at Mandiant Threat Intelligence.

"When dealing with a ransomware intrusion, the particular malware being deployed, or the branding on ransom notes, or shaming websites may be insufficient to determine whether the beneficiary of payments has affiliations with Evil Corp, a sanctioned entity," he says.

**Sanctions Crunch**

OFAC sanctioned Evil Corp and two members associated with the group for stealing more than $100 million from financial institutions in 40 countries using credentials harvested with the Dridex malware tool.

Around the time the sanctions were imposed, Evil Corp had begun renting out Dridex for use by affiliate gangs. It also had begun making its own foray into the ransomware space, initially with BitPaymer ransomware and later with DopplePaymer and WastedLocker in 2019. 

In 2020 Evil Corp. targeted more than two-dozen US organizations with ransomware, including several Fortune 500 companies in a massive WastedLocker campaign. Months after the sanctions went into effect, the threat actor stopped using WastedLocker and soon after switched to a variety of other tools, such as Hades and most recently LockBit — a ransomware-as-a service tool that gives the threat actor an opportunity to blend in with other actors.

**UNC2165: Another Evolution of Evil Corp.**

Mandiant says since 2019 it has investigated multiple LockBit ransomware intrusions carried out by a group that the vendor is currently tracking as UNC2165. According to Mandiant, UNC2165 has a lot of overlap with Evil Corp and is most likely an actor closely affiliated with it. For instance, in all the intrusions that Mandiant investigated, UNC2165 obtained access to the victim network via UNC1543, a financially motivated threat group that distributes FakeUpdates, a multistage JavaScript dropper for distributing malware. FakeUpdates was also the infection chain for deploying Dridex that later resulted in BitPaymer and DopplePaymer ransomware infections.

Similarly, the Hades ransomware family that Mandiant observed UNC2165 deploying had multiple code similarities to other ransomware tools tied to Evil Corp. Several of the command-and-control servers that UNC2165 has been observed using have also been linked to Evil Corp infrastructure, Mandiant says.

"The operational relationship between UNC2165 and the broader Evil Corp group is not fully understood," Kennelly says. "Mandiant has observed UNC2165 deploying Hades ransomware and operating Hades-related infrastructure. Furthermore, multiple public reports related to the deployment of other ransomware families commonly attributed to Evil Corp have involved use of infrastructure Mandiant attributes to UNC2165."

Kennelly says it's unclear what impact Mandiant's report tying an Evil Corp-related actor to LockBit will have in the ransomware space. 

"The impact this disclosure will have on ransomware negotiators is difficult to predict," he says. "LockBit may quickly move to distance themselves from affiliates with ties to Evil Corp, or deny the allegations wholesale," he says.

Furthermore, UNC2165 has shifted their operations multiple times over the past years, and this may ultimately lead to them to again adopt an updated toolkit if ransomware negotiators halt work on LockBit cases, he notes.

Source

DARKReading