The Marsh McLennan Cyber Risk Analytics Center conducted independent analysis of BitSight's Security Rating and risk vectors and cybersecurity incident data.

BOSTON, Oct. 25, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — BitSight, the Standard in Security Ratings, has released results from an independent study which found fourteen BitSight analytics, including the BitSight Security Rating, and thirteen BitSight risk vectors, to be correlated with cybersecurity incidents. The study concluded that cybersecurity performance deficiencies in the identified areas increases an organization's risk of experiencing a cybersecurity incident, while strong performance implies a lower risk of an incident occurring.

The study was conducted by the Marsh McLennan Cyber Risk Analytics Center, which brings together the cyber risk data and analytics expertise of Marsh McLennan's businesses, Marsh, Guy Carpenter, Mercer and Oliver Wyman. Marsh McLennan independently determined the methodology and analyzed BitSight's security performance data on 365,000 organizations and Marsh McLennan's proprietary cybersecurity incidents and claims information.

"After comparing the security performance data of thousands of organizations that experienced cybersecurity incidents against those that did not, we identified a statistically significant correlation between BitSight Security Ratings as well as certain BitSight risk vectors and the likelihood of a cybersecurity incident," said Scott Stransky, managing director and head of the Marsh McLennan Cyber Risk Analytics Center.

The marketplace has historically struggled to establish a data-driven relationship between poor cybersecurity performance and the increased likelihood of cybersecurity incidents. Demonstrating how quantitative performance measurements created by BitSight correlate to the likelihood of a cybersecurity incident show that BitSight's cybersecurity analytics can assist security, business, and insurance leaders in making more informed and data-backed decisions.

"The findings from this critical study confirm the value of BitSight's Security Ratings and analytics," said Stephen Harvey, chief executive officer, BitSight. "Our goal has always been to provide leaders with insightful data to help drive smarter decisions around cybersecurity. We anticipate this research will be used to augment the market's cybersecurity decision making, and now those in the marketplace can be more confident that our data effectively assesses the cyber risk of organizations and provides actionable insights when creating or managing a cybersecurity program."

The fourteen analytics with measured correlation cover a diverse set of security concerns including – Endpoint Management and Malware Detection, Vulnerability Management, Secure Communications, and User Training and Awareness. One critical finding from the report concerns the importance of an organization's patching initiatives. Many organizations struggle to effectively deploy patches when a new vulnerability is identified. BitSight measures how many systems within an organization's network are affected by important vulnerabilities, and how quickly the organization remediates them. Marsh McLennan found that an organization's patching cadence, as measured by BitSight, was correlated to the likelihood of experiencing a cybersecurity incident.

For more information on the report and to download the findings, visit:  
https://www.bitsight.com/resources/the-marsh-mclennan-cyber-risk-analytics-center-study-finds-statistically-significant-correlation-between-bitsight-analytics-and-cybersecurity-incidents

**About BitSight**

BitSight creates trust in the digital economy and transforms how organizations manage cyber risk. The BitSight Security Ratings Platform applies sophisticated algorithms, producing daily security ratings that range from 250 to 900, to help organizations manage their own security performance; mitigate third party risk; underwrite cyber insurance policies; conduct financial diligence; and assess aggregate risk. With the largest ecosystem of users and information, BitSight is the Standard in Security Ratings. For more information, please visit www.bitsight.com, read our blog or follow @BitSighton Twitter.

Study Finds Significant Correlation Between BitSight Analytics and Cybersecurity Incidents

Identity fraud has increased at 84% of dealerships, with 60% losing three or more vehicles in the last year.

FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif., Oct. 25, 2022 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — Identity fraud has increased dramatically in auto dealerships since the pandemic, with 60% of auto dealerships reporting the loss of three or more vehicles to it in the past year, according to the new report, "Is Identity Fraud Jeopardizing Digital Retailing Profitability," from automotive fintech innovator eLEND Solutions. The report, based on a survey of over 700 auto dealerships across the U.S., reveals that while dealerships cite identity fraud as their top fraud challenge/concern, and almost unanimously agree that its increase is because of the increased digitization of the deal, 66% lack adequate identity fraud protections.

"The pandemic changed a lot of things in the auto industry - and that is particularly true when it comes to fraud which, as this report underscores, is causing more and more losses for dealers - an estimated $619 million\[1\] for franchise dealers alone," said Pete MacInnis, CEO, and Founder of eLEND Solutions. "Economic conditions and, especially, increasing digitization of the car buying process are driving more fraud but, unfortunately, this report reveals that most dealerships have not implemented ID verification technologies that can prevent it."

According to the report, 84% of dealerships have directly experienced identity fraud at their dealership since the pandemic, with a third seeing an over 20% increase in identity fraud-related activities since the pandemic started. And, in just the past year, 79% directly experienced an identity fraud-related vehicle loss at their dealership.

When asked to explain the increase in identity fraud, 95% relate it directly to the increase in the digitization of the deal and remote buying experiences, with 86% predicting that as more of the transaction moves online, identity fraud will increase and become harder to prevent. The report also reveals that losses are not limited to identity fraud, with the vast majority of dealerships reporting an increase in loan application fraud in the past year. Seventy-seven percent saw a 10- 20% increase or more, with over one-third reporting that one in every 100 applications at their dealership was fraudulent.

The report also investigates what dealerships have been doing to prevent fraud: "photocopying the driver's license / ID" (64%) is number one, with the "Red Flags Rule" (56%) at number two. Only 33% reported using critical document authentication as part of their process, a significant disconnect.

"Without actually validating/authenticating ID documents and buyer identities, dealerships remain particularly vulnerable," said MacInnis. "As more of the transaction becomes digital, embracing ID verification technologies that include forensic authentication of the driver's license document, in conjunction with matching data extracted from the document against hundreds of databases, can easily help dealers minimize fraud risks before it becomes an expensive problem."

Dealers were also asked about the timing of their credit pulls, a practice that rapidly evolved once the pandemic prompted more of the process to move online. As compared to 2018, when only 8% of dealers said they pulled credit before the test drive, today 40% report doing so, with only 20% today waiting until right before the F&I handoff, versus 39% in 2018.

"This shift in credit pull timing is a dramatic and positive change in the way auto dealerships do business and, with the right technology in place, has positive implications for preventing fraud if dealerships take the opportunity to validate customer identity upfront with the simple swipe of a driver's license - but only if document authentication is part of that process," concluded MacInnis.

**Key Data Takeaways**

*   84%, say there has been a noticeable increase in identity fraud since the pandemic.
*   79% of dealers experienced an identity fraud-related vehicle loss at their dealership in the past year.
*   Seventy-nine percent say that identity fraud has increased in their dealerships by over 10%, and nearly one-third say it has increased  
    between 21% and 30%, or more. 
*   60% reported a loss of three to five vehicles, or more, in the last twelve months.
*   89% of dealerships report an increase in loan application fraud in the past year.
*   34% report that one in every 100 applications at their dealership was fraudulent.
*   95% track identity fraud to the expansion of remote buying experiences and the digitization of the deal.
*   86% agree that as more of the transaction moves online, identity fraud will continue to grow and become even more challenging to prevent.
*   67% do not include driver's license document authentication to protect themselves from identity fraud.
*   40% report pulling credit before the test drive, vs 8% in 2018.
*   93% say that if a driver's license scan could be converted into a consumer consented pre-qualification it would be a meaningful benefit.

About eLEND Solutions: eLEND Solutions(TM) (DealerCentric rebranded) is an automotive FinTech company focused on deal generation solutions - that power transactional digital buying experiences for the retail automotive industry. The platform specializes in digital credit, identity, and finance solutions for remote and in-store shoppers, designed to accelerate conversions of digital end-to-end purchase experiences concluding with fundable, transactable deal structures.

For more information, please visit http://www.elendsolutions.com.

Dealers Report Dramatic Increase in Identity Fraud: Most Lack Effective Protection

From ransomware to remote workers to cyber-extortion gangs to Fred in shipping who clicks on the wrong link, cybersecurity concerns can keep you awake this season and all seasons.

Autumn is here and with it, pumpkins, Halloween, and scary movies. And despite the horrors that accompany the season, for many people, nothing is more terrifying than … cybersecurity risks.

In fact, among US executives, literally nothing is more frightening than cyberattacks. According to a survey by PwC this year, 40% of executives considered cyberattacks to be their top business risk. With some research suggesting the average breach could cost nearly $10 million, it's no wonder cybersecurity concerns are so scary.

In honor of Cybersecurity Awareness Month, we've decided to break down some of the chilling threats facing business leaders, as well as spotlight stats from a recent iboss and Forrester research survey of cybersecurity pros.

From professional Russian hackers to simple-but-dangerous human error, here are the horrors keeping business leaders up at night.

**Ransomware's Villain is Back**

_Spooky stat from cyber pros: Nearly two-thirds (63%) of security pros say an increasing number of ransomware incidents are driving their cybersecurity decisions._

Just like Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers, and Jason Voorhees, who always come back from the dead, one of the most notorious ransomware villains was "gone" for a moment but is back with a vengeance.

The ransomware resurgence was headlined by the resurrection of the notorious operation REvil. Most known for its high-profile attack on Kaseya that paralyzed as many as 1,500 organizations, REvil gave businesses and cybersecurity professionals nightmares for years. Then, suddenly in 2021, REvil dropped offline. At the time, the reasons it shuttered were unclear, with some suggesting its members had been arrested. However, earlier this year, amid rising tensions between Russia and the US, REvil announced its triumphant return.

Armed with new infrastructure and resources enabling the organization to carry out more targeted attacks, REvil is a boogeyman for companies of all sizes.

**Digital Transformation, Remote Work & The Great Unknown**

_Spooky stat from cyber pros: Two-thirds (66%) have difficulty monitoring user activity in remote/hybrid settings and 60% admit they have difficulty protecting a remote workforce._

We all fear change … and maybe rightfully so.

The last several years have given rise to organizations rapidly accelerating their digital transformation, driven in part by the long-term adoption of remote and hybrid work. To help ensure remote workforces are remaining connected and productive, companies have adopted new technology and practices. In a startlingly short period of time, many businesses have implemented multicloud environments, countless productivity apps, Internet of Things (IoT)-connected devices, VPNs, and much more.

With more devices in more places accessing more company data and resources, attack surfaces have become larger than ever. As a result, the majority of cybersecurity professionals admit they have less visibility into user activity in remote settings.

All of these factors combined add up to increased cybersecurity risks for organizations that have embraced digital transformation and modern workplaces.

**Human Error: The Killer You Know**

_Spooky stat from cyber pros: Nearly three-quarters (74%) of cyber pros say protecting their network from insider threats is a top strategic priority this year._

In many horror films, it turns out that the killer is someone the audience already knows, making them harder to spot and nearly impossible to stop. When it comes to cybersecurity, often "the call is coming from inside the house," with many incidents caused by company employees and the result of simple human error.

Unfortunately, this type of human error is chillingly common. In fact, in a recent survey, 84% of IT leaders said that human error was the top cause of serious incidents. Human error even led to some of the most notable recent cyber incidents on record, including those that befell Capital One and Equifax. A postmortem of the Equifax incident found that the breach likely could have been prevented if an employee had installed simple software fixes as directed.

**Escalating Cyber Conflict May Have Nuclear Consequences**

_Spooky stat from cyber pros: There's no spooky stat for this one. It's too spooky._

At the outset of the war in Ukraine, many experts also thought that the invasion would quickly lead to all-out global cyber warfare. Fortunately, to date, many of those cyberwar predictions have not come true.

However, as Russia sustains losses on the battlefield and ramps up its rhetoric, fears of an escalation in global cyberwar suddenly carry alarming, nuclear consequences. In Ukraine, Russia has already carried out multiple cyber offensives against a nuclear power plant, sparking international fears of a catastrophic meltdown.

Additionally, the Russian government has also essentially admitted to working with hacking groups, the likes of which have been tied to attacks on critical American nuclear infrastructure and weapons agencies in the past.

Despite all the cybersecurity horrors that lurk under the bed, there is still hope. More organizations are embracing modern cybersecurity solutions and architectures designed to prevent the very threats we've laid out. If organizations continue to take threats seriously and improve their security posture, there's a good chance we can all make it through the spooky season together.

Cybersecurity Risks & Stats This Spooky Season

Free service provides insights developers need to systematically identify and reduce container vulnerabilities.

DETROIT, Oct. 25, 2022 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — KUBECON + CLOUDNATIVECON NORTH AMERICA — In software supply chain security, knowing your software means knowing what's in it--for better or worse. Slim.AI, the Boston-based startup focused on optimizing and securing cloud-native applications, has today launched Container Intelligence, a free and open service that anyone can use to quickly gain  
valuable insights into what's in the most popular container images that they're baking into their software every day.

Despite the supercharged emphasis on security in the software industry, containers now have more vulnerabilities than ever before; moreover, a worrisome gap exists between developers and leadership on resources needed to address the problem. These findings are detailed in the second annual Slim.AI Public Container Report, published today and available for complimentary download.

Slim.AI aims to help close the gaps identified in the report by making Container Intelligence available to everyone, free. Container Intelligence scans more than 160 popular public container images making up 30% of total global pull volume using a combination of open-source and proprietary scanning tools. Slim.AI will quickly expand the dataset to cover the majority of public containers used by developers today across multiple registry providers. Developers can use Container Intelligence to make informed decisions when selecting containers or containerized applications for use in their tech stacks.

"Democratizing information about the security posture of public containers is critical if we want to meet the challenges of today's software supply chain," said John Amaral, co-founder and CEO at Slim.AI. "At Slim.AI, we believe in sharing information we have about the security and usability of public containers with developers so that they can make informed decisions about the containers they work with."

Key features of 'Container Intelligence' by Slim.AI:

*   Publicly available container profile pages on the Slim.AI website -- no login, no registration needed.
*   Profiles include vulnerability counts by severity, container construction details, and package information, along with comparisons to  
    similar public containers.
*   Containers are fully searchable and categorized according to use case (for example, base images, CMSs or DevOps tools).
*   The data is updated daily to ensure freshness.

Slim.AI will be adding more capabilities to Container Intelligence throughout the coming year. Future enhancements will include expanding the database to include more public registries, adding comparative analysis across images and providing container update notifications.

**Taking It to the Next Level with Slim.AI**

  
For those who want to know even more about their containers, developers can log in to the Slim.AI platform from the Container Intelligence page to analyze their own private containers, get vulnerability reports from multiple scanners, and automatically harden their container images for production.

Additionally, Slim.AI has been adding functionality for teams and is accepting a limited number of organizations into its design partner program. For more information, contact \[email protected\].

**Learn More About Container Security at KubeCon/CloudNativeCon**

  
For those interested in hearing more, Ayse Kaya, Slim.AI's senior director of strategy and insights, will present a keynote at KubeCon NA based on this dataset on Wednesday, October 26 at 10:05 a.m. EDT. Her presentation, "What We Learned Dissecting the World's Most Popular Containers," demonstrates the current paradox in software supply chain practices, especially the trade-offs teams make between "developer experience" and "production readiness."

Kaya's insights are based on a Dimensional Research survey of 300 software developers and DevOps engineers globally as well as an analysis of the most popular public container images used by developers today. This work forms the basis of the second annual Slim.AI Public Container Report.

"Perhaps the most stunning finding at a macro level is that after a year of intense focus on security, the cloud-native ecosystem is no safer today than it was this time last year," said Kaya. "The silver lining, however, is that awareness is increasing. The complexity of the problem is not our enemy; ignorance of the problem is. And our industry is taking strides to come together and make applications more secure."

Watch Kaya's keynote at KubeCon to learn more about her findings, which include:

1.  Of the top public containers Slim.AI observed over the past year, 60% actually contain more vulnerabilities today than they did one year ago. Most notably, high-severity vulnerabilities increased by 50%, followed by a 10% increase in critical vulnerabilities. The average public container has 287 vulnerabilities, 30% of which belong to a high/critical category (up from 20% last year).
2.  A discrepancy between executives and developers on both the capabilities required for supply chain security and the organization's preparedness. According to the survey, executives believe that more container security practices are happening in their organizations (49%) than frontline developers (34%).
3.  Developers are getting squeezed from both sides -- shifts to the left mean removing vulnerabilities from containers is a developer problem, with more and more customers demanding often unrealistic "zero vulnerabilities" in delivered software. Among developers, 88% said it is challenging to ensure containerized apps are free from vulnerabilities, complexity being the #1 contributing factor. Seventy percent stated their customers demand that their containers have zero vulnerabilities.

Visit Slim.AI at Booth SU64 to learn more from Slim.AI representatives.

**About Slim.AI**

  
Slim.AI helps developers create, build, deploy and run their cloud-native applications more efficiently and securely. The unique approach used by Slim.AI moves the focus on container optimization upstream in the DevOps lifecycle, giving developers the tools they need to author, manage and ship production-ready containers efficiently and effectively. More information at https://slim.ai and @SlimDevOps.

As Vulnerabilities Soar, Slim.AI Launches 'Container Intelligence' to Give In-Depth Analysis on Hundreds of Popular Container Images

Platform delivers unmatched performance, broad analysis capabilities, and governance across any data, geo, or cloud.

Hoboken, New Jersey — (October 25, 2022) Duality Technologies, the leader in secure data collaboration for enterprises, has launched the first of its kind, enterprise-ready privacy-enhanced data collaboration platform that enables organizations to share and jointly analyze sensitive data while ensuring privacy and regulatory compliance. The fully production-ready platform comes equipped with unparalleled data science and performance capabilities that significantly reduce the time to carry out encrypted queries on large datasets across any environment or cloud.

Enterprises need to have the ability to conduct deep analytics on data across their organization and subsidiaries, as well as with their business ecosystem: customers, partners, and suppliers. However, many are blocked by concerns around privacy, competition, and regulatory compliance. The platform serves as a one-stop-data-collaboration solution, replacing single point tools, and is powered by advanced cryptographic and data science techniques that eliminate concerns around data exposure while realizing the value of enterprise data.

Duality seamlessly integrates with OpenFHE, the leading open-source fully homomorphic encryption library, as well as uniquely supports the combination and stand-alone use of the breadth of Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs) to compute on data without exposing it. These include fully homomorphic encryption, multiparty computation, federated learning, differential privacy and more.

“Enterprises are increasingly moving from applying analytics and data science to data in silos, to setting strategies for how they collaborate on information to derive greater value.” Comments, Dr. Alon Kaufman, chief executive officer and co-founder at Duality. “The Duality platform opens up a full new set of opportunities to enhance an enterprise data strategy, while breaking down data silos.”

This highly scalable platform complies with each enterprise’s data privacy policy and governance needs, empowering data analysts and researchers to compute on sensitive data, anywhere, across any cloud or any geography. With Duality, enterprise customers are completely in control of how their data is used in collaborations and can select from a broad range of analytical capabilities to drive improved insights and outcomes.

Kaufman added, “Duality consolidates and builds on our years of expertise in data science, cryptography, and collaborative computing to deliver a production-ready solution that addresses enterprise needs for secure and compliant data collaboration. With Duality, organizations have the power to control how they collaborate, and consume data – compliantly and with privacy always maintained.”

Gartner recently listed privacy-enhancing computation (PEC), an umbrella term for various forward-looking and emerging techniques that maintain privacy and security, as a top three strategic technology trends for 2022, Gartner, Top Strategic Technology Trends for 2022, Bart Willemsen et al., 18 October 2021. Duality responds directly to this trend by embedding several leading privacy-enhancing technologies and computations within the Duality platform, such as fully homomorphic encryption (FHE), multiparty computation (MPC), federated learning (FL), differential privacy (DP), and more.

“By 2025, 60% of large organizations will use at least one privacy-enhancing computation technique in analytics, business intelligence and/or cloud computing,” Gartner, Top Strategic Technology Trends for 2022: Privacy-Enhancing Computation, Bart Willemsen, Ramon Krikken, et al.., 18 October 2021.

For more information about Duality and how they are revolutionizing the sensitive data sharing landscape, read the full white paper: Eliminate Data Silos to Unleash the Power of Collaboration.

**About Duality Technologies**

Duality is the leader in privacy enhanced secure data collaboration, empowering organizations worldwide to maximize the value of their data without compromising on privacy or regulatory compliance. Founded and led by world-renowned cryptographers and data scientists, Duality operationalizes privacy enhancing technologies (PETs) to accelerate data insights by enabling analysis and AI on encrypted data, while preserving data privacy, compliance and protecting valuable IP. A Gartner® Cool Vendor®, Duality was named a Tech Pioneer 2021 by the World Economic Forum (WEF) and listed on Fast Company's 2020 Most Innovative Companies and recently won the 2022 CB Insights’ AI 100, the 2022 RegTech 100 Awards, and the AIFinTech100 2022 Awards.

Duality Launches First Ever Enterprise-Ready Privacy-Enhanced Data Collaboration Platform

Trend Micro research finds most are over-confident about ability to withstand ransomware.

DALLAS, Oct. 25, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Trend Micro Incorporated (TYO: 4704; TSE: 4704), a global cybersecurity leader, today revealed that financial services firms are more confident they're protected from ransomware than any other sector. Yet at the same time, they're exposed by supply chain risk and sub-par detection capabilities.  
  
Trend Micro commissioned Sapio Research to poll over 355 financial services IT and business leaders across the globe, as part of a wider cross-industry report into ransomware.

It found that 75% believe they're adequately protected from ransomware, far higher than the average of 63% across all sectors.

This confidence is partly justified: 99% say they regularly patch servers, 92% secure remote desktop protocol (RDP) endpoints, and 94% have rules in place to mitigate risks from email attachments.

However, 72% of respondents admitted their organisation has been compromised by ransomware in the past, and 79% see their sector as a more attractive target for threat actors than others.

This awareness of current threat levels in the financial services sector does not always translate into action.

Around two-fifths do not use network detection and response (40%) or endpoint detection and response tools (39%), and half (49%) don't have extended detection and response (XDR) in place.

This may account for poor detection rates for activity connected with ransomware. Only a third (33%) say they can accurately spot lateral movement, and 44% initial access.

Trend Micro also uncovered significant third-party cyber risk for financial services organisations:

*   56% have had supplier compromised by ransomware, mostly partners (56%) and subsidiaries (29%)
*   54% believe their suppliers make them a more attractive target
*   52% say a significant number of their suppliers are SMBs, who may have less resource to spend on security

"Greater collaboration and information sharing with third parties could help to improve the security posture of the overall supply chain," said Bharat Mistry, Technical Director at Trend Micro. "However, without adequate detection and response capabilities, they may not have the intelligence to hand in the first place. Financial services leaders recognise they're a top target for ransomware actors. It's time to turn that awareness into action."

A quarter (24%) of financial services firms don't share any threat information with their partners, 38% do not do so with suppliers, and even more (42%) don't engage with the broader ecosystem, according to the research.

**About Trend Micro**

Trend Micro, a global cybersecurity leader, helps make the world safe for exchanging digital information. Fueled by decades of security expertise, global threat research, and continuous innovation, Trend Micro's cybersecurity platform protects hundreds of thousands of organizations and millions of individuals across clouds, networks, devices, and endpoints. As a leader in cloud and enterprise cybersecurity, the platform delivers a powerful range of advanced threat defense techniques optimized for environments like AWS, Microsoft, and Google, and central visibility for better, faster detection and response. With 7,000 employees across 65 countries, Trend Micro enables organizations to simplify and secure their connected world. www.TrendMicro.com.

Financial Services Firms Operating Under False Sense of Security

Driving better security outcomes for customers through partner-delivered incident response services built on Cortex XDR.

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Oct. 25, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — Building on its managed services momentum, Palo Alto Networks (NASDAQ: PANW) announced today the expansion of the NextWave Program to empower partners to rapidly contain and remediate cyberthreats by enabling them to deliver incident response (IR) services powered by industry-leading Cortex XDR®.

The effects of cybersecurity incidents are far reaching in the digital age, but navigating rapidly evolving risks can pose a challenge for organizations. To solve this challenge, many turn to managed security service providers (MSSPs) for help strengthening their security outcomes. The NextWave Program now provides the tools, training and resources to address customer demand for IR services and aligns with the expansion of the Palo Alto Networks Cortex® MSSP ecosystem, which grew 146% year over year. Leveraging a partner specializing in IR services can accelerate response and remediation across the incident lifecycle for holistic response to an incident.

"The 2022 Unit 42 Incident Response Report found that in 44% of cases, organizations did not have an extended detection and response (XDR) security solution, or it was not fully deployed on the initially impacted systems. Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR is designed to provide more comprehensive visibility so threats are identified early along with better context for accelerated investigation and tighter containment," said Tom Barsi, vice president, WW Cortex Ecosystems, Palo Alto Networks. "We are investing in our MSSP partner ecosystem more than ever before with the expansion of the NextWave Partner Program to encompass Threat Response. Partners that achieve this designation are highly skilled and have met stringent requirements with demonstrated deep experience in delivering Threat Hunting and IR services leveraging Cortex XDR. They are able to support customers through Incident Response, during their greatest time of need."

The Palo Alto Networks NextWave Program for Threat Response offers partners:

*   **Leading IR XDR technology** built utilizing proactive and reactive use cases to reduce time and resources spent on delivering services, including collecting data, aggregating data, analyzing data and remediating; a purpose-built platform and program that is designed for true IR in addition to endpoint detection and response (EDR).
*   **Expert technical and deployment support 24/7** for online access to XDR tenants within minutes and around-the-clock technical support.
*   **Expanded routes to market** with more ways to offer proactive services to clients pre- or post-IR engagement, including advanced threat analytics, proactive assessments and attack surface management.

**NextWave Partner Quotes  
**Deloitte India and Palo Alto Networks recently announced an expansion of their collaboration to offer complete, end-to-end technology-based cyber incident response services to businesses in India. "We are pleased to have earned the Palo Alto Networks NextWave designation for Threat Response to help transform the cyber incident response space together. With cybersecurity incidents becoming increasingly prevalent and sophisticated, along with added regulatory pressure, we foresaw the need for a smarter, faster, and more extensive suite of services that would provide our clients with next-generation security technology and services. Our partnership with Palo Alto Networks affirms that commitment to our clients," said Aloke Kumar Dani, partner — Risk Advisory, Deloitte India.

"Earning the Palo Alto Networks NextWave designation for Threat Response helps further our security team's expertise in delivering a holistic security operations platform to our customers," said Kevin Kilgo, vice president of Managed Services, Fulcrum. "Combining Fulcrum's managed security services, our 24x7x365 security operations center, SIEM as a service, and SOAR capabilities with the best-in-class power of Cortex XDR has helped our SOC team significantly in addressing the ever-growing burden of our customer's detection & response operations."

"We continue to see our enterprise clients divesting internal Digital Forensics and Incident Response (DFIR) capabilities. Instead, they are outsourcing this work to chosen partners like PwC," said Ross Foley, director, Managed Cyber Defense Lead, PwC UK. "We are proud to have achieved the Palo Alto Networks NextWave designation for Threat Response to help clients respond to, contain, and remediate cyberthreats and vulnerabilities so they can focus on their business. Our solutions powered by Palo Alto Networks Cortex XDR deliver trusted offerings to clients, combining the recognized cyber expertise of both organizations to reduce the probability of a breach as well as the impact should an incident occur."

"We required a technology that checked the boxes for IR capabilities while simultaneously meeting the needs and use cases of an incident responder. The Cortex XDR platform has been built with our biggest daily pain points in mind, and it is designed to be deployed in fragile incident response situations," said Imelda Flores, head of SCILabs, Scitum TELMEX. "By receiving the Palo Alto Networks NextWave designation for Threat Response and adopting Cortex into our service delivery portfolio, we have multiplied our capabilities and offerings without investing in additional resources."

Learn more about Palo Alto Networks NextWave Threat Response.

**About Palo Alto Networks  
**Palo Alto Networks is the world's cybersecurity leader. We innovate to outpace cyberthreats, so organizations can embrace technology with confidence. We provide next-gen cybersecurity to thousands of customers globally, across all sectors. Our best-in-class cybersecurity platforms and services are backed by industry-leading threat intelligence and strengthened by state-of-the-art automation. Whether deploying our products to enable the Zero Trust Enterprise, responding to a security incident, or partnering to deliver better security outcomes through a world-class partner ecosystem, we're committed to helping ensure each day is safer than the one before. It's what makes us the cybersecurity partner of choice.

At Palo Alto Networks, we're committed to bringing together the very best people in service of our mission, so we're also proud to be the cybersecurity workplace of choice, recognized among Newsweek's Most Loved Workplaces (2021), Comparably Best Companies for Diversity (2021) and HRC Best Places for LGBTQ Equality (2022). For more information, visit www.paloaltonetworks.com.

Palo Alto Networks NextWave Program Provides the Threat Response Community With XDR for Incident Response Fueled by MSSP Demand

LAVAL, QC, Oct. 25, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — Terranova Security, a global leader in security awareness training, is today launching a report that showcases the level of cyber security awareness among workers in the United States. Overall, the research uncovered that U.S. businesses still aren't doing enough to protect their organizations from cyber threats by not providing proper cyber awareness training and education.

In collaboration with research company Ipsos, Terranova Security surveyed 1,500 U.S. employees and found that the level of concern over cyber risks was alarmingly low. Just over a third (35%) of employees express little-to-no concern about data theft at work, and 20% believe they can't be targeted at all by cyber criminals.

The research shows there is still confusion among employees over who is responsible for protecting company data, despite human error being the cause of 95% of cyber issues. More than three-quarters (76%) of U.S. employees believe it's the IT department's responsibility to protect company data, compared to just 53% who understand they play an essential role.

These findings come at a time when the danger from a breach is at an all-time high. According to the Identity Theft Resource Center, 294 million people were impacted by data breaches in 2021.

The research highlights that U.S. businesses are failing to provide employees with enough education on common cyber threats and security best practices. Only 41% of employees say they work in a company where cyber security awareness training is mandatory. 43% haven't participated in any cyber security training, and nearly a third (31%) indicated that their company doesn't offer any relevant training at all.

These low training rates aren't due to a lack of interest from employees, as 77% believe cyber security training is interesting, and 57% have started or completed the training when it's offered to them.

"The research shows that there's some work to do on educating people about the important role they play in protecting data at work, but the responsibility doesn't just fall on them," **said Theo Zafirakos, Chief Information Security Officer, Terranova Security.** "It's clear that security awareness training fell by the wayside for many American businesses, even though cyber crime is rising, and that's a concern. But employees also have an appetite for learning more about it. These people are the first line of defense against any cyber attack. By investing more in education and building a culture around data security within the business, companies will set up a powerful barrier against any cyber threats."

Read the full Ipsos report and learn more about Terranova Security here.

**About Terranova Security**

Terranova Security, part of the HelpSystems solution ecosystem, has been transforming the world's end users into cyber heroes for more than 20 years. Using a proven pedagogical framework, Terranova Security training solutions empower organizations worldwide to implement programs that change user behaviors, reduce the human risk factor, and build a security-aware organizational culture. As a result, any employee can better understand phishing, social engineering, data privacy, compliance, and other critical best practices. With the addition of new features like its Content Hub and Security Awareness Index, Terranova Security consistently innovates to support all organizations' cyber-security objectives. These industry-leading solution additions also strengthen long-term information security for all professionals, regardless of region or sector, in an era where remote work and borderless productivity are standard. Learn more at terranovasecurity.com.

**About IPSOS**

Ipsos is the third largest market research company in the world, present in 90 markets and employing more than 18,000 people.

Our research professionals, analysts and scientists have built unique multi-specialist capabilities that provide powerful insights into the actions, opinions and motivations of citizens, consumers, patients, customers or employees. Our 75 business solutions are based on primary data coming from our surveys, social media monitoring, and qualitative or observational techniques.

"Game Changers" – our tagline – summarises our ambition to help our 5,000 clients to navigate more easily our deeply changing world.

Founded in France in 1975, Ipsos is listed on the Euronext Paris since July 1st, 1999. The company is part of the SBF 120 and the Mid-60 index and is eligible for the Deferred Settlement Service (SRD).

US Employees Feel Little Concern for Data Theft at Work, New Research Reveals

Open source tools by Spyderbat address the needs of Platform Engineering and DevOps teams by delivering new insights to workload activities and behaviors.

AUSTIN, Texas, Oct. 25, 2022 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — Spyderbat, a cloud native runtime security company, today announced its Open Source program delivering new tools to increase visibility and security in cloud native environments. Spyderbat's open source projects include Spydertop, an htop-like tool for historic understanding of a workload's process behavior, and the Spyderbat Falco Connector, integrating the popular Falco open source tool for container security with the Spyderbat platform.

Spyderbat introduces its program to contribute and participate in the open source community with useful innovations that solve real-world problems.

"Spyderbat's open source tools demonstrate that Sypderbat isn't just a security product, it's a game-changer," comments Hal Pomeranz, a Linux Forensics Expert and Instructor. "Spyderbat has created an intelligence platform that provides highly granular and customizable information from your Linux infrastructure, both in real-time and historically."

"To align to platform engineering teams' goals for productivity and reliability, it is critical to create opportunities for automation." states Brian Smith, CTO and co-founder of Spyderbat. "The objective of our open source program is to empower these teams with the necessary tooling for securing cloud native environments and sharing visibility that fosters collaboration with other teams, all with the flexibility to adapt to individuals' or organizations' needs."

As part of Spyderbat's open source program are two new tools, Spydertop and Falco Connector.

*    Spydertop is a command-line tool with a similar view as the popular troubleshooting tool htop with the added capability of retrieving  
    historic data sets from Spyderbat's API. This added capability becomes incredibly useful for troubleshooting intermittent or difficult to  
    reproduce issues. 
*   Spyderbat Falco Connector is an integration to collect Falco events into the Spyderbat platform. Mapping Falco intrusion detection events in real-time with Spyderbat identifies processes and network activity causally connected to the Falco event, including activities in other containers or to the host itself. This results in reducing the noise of false positives while immediately presenting the root cause to real concerns.

The announcement of Spyderbat's open source program coincides with their announcement of new Series A funding, fueling growth for the company's solution for cloud native runtime security. Spyderbat is a member of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation and Linux Foundation.

Spyderbat is exhibiting at KubeCon+CloudNativeCon Oct 26th-Oct 28th. Learn more about Spyderbat's solution for cloud native runtime security by visiting their booth #SU45.

About Spyderbat Spyderbat delivers cloud native runtime security to customers with unprecedented precision in intrusion prevention and mitigation. Founded in 2019 on the recognition that the manual processes of traditional security operations are completely ineffective in rapidly-changing cloud environments, Spyderbat is making threat prevention and security operation automation available with a platform for early, accurate, and thorough recognition of attacks. To learn more about Spyderbat's solutions, open source projects, career opportunities, or to begin using Spyderbat's free tier, visit http://www.spyderbat.com.

Spyderbat Announces Open Source Program for Cloud Native Visibility and Security

Upgrade boosts Akamai's dedicated mitigation capacity by 100% and enhances attack fighting capabilities for increasingly sophisticated DDoS threats.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Oct. 25, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM), the cloud company that powers and protects life online, today announced a significant evolution of its DDoS protection platform (Prolexic) with a global rollout of new, fully software-defined scrubbing centers, which will extend its dedicated defense capacity\* to 20 Tbps and accelerate future product innovations. In the wake of increasingly sophisticated and record-setting DDoS attacks worldwide, the move further enables Akamai Prolexic to defend customers from the largest, multi-terabit attacks and provide better performance and reliability for online businesses of any size, anywhere on the planet.

New and additional globally distributed scrubbing centers analyze incoming traffic, identify threats and remove malicious activities to prevent downtime for end users or networks. The centers are fully software-defined and facilitate rapid deployments for capacity extension, better regional coverage and improved redundancy.

The initial rollout commences in Q3 2022 and continues in 2023 with additional centers being deployed in all major regions, including North America (US-East/West, Canada), Europe (Italy, Spain, Switzerland), Asia (India, Japan, Hong Kong), and the Middle East.

DDoS threats are evolving rapidly, subjecting businesses without the proper defenses to considerable risk. Since 2020, organizations have experienced a deluge of DDoS extortion, high-profile, multi-terabit attacks, hacktivism, and an explosion of novel threats.

Security teams are also under immense pressure to defend against a booming arsenal of increasingly sophisticated attacks. In 2010, the top five DDoS attack vectors represented 90% of all attacks, whereas today's top five accounted for a mere 55%.

"DDoS attacks are innovating at an unprecedented rate, but our customers can rest assured that Akamai's DDoS defense evolves even faster and will always be many steps ahead of the latest threats," said Akamai's Senior Vice President and General Manager of Infrastructure Security, Sean Lyons. "This platform advancement drastically accelerates our time to market and will enable us to deliver new cybersecurity innovations with greater frequency. In addition, our extension of defense capacity, regional presence and next generation scrubbing centers further strengthens our ability to mitigate all types and volumes of attacks. And by bringing DDoS protection even closer to our customers, they know they can rely on Akamai to deliver unmatched security without impacting latency and end user experience."

Akamai Prolexic stops attacks with a cloud-based DDoS scrubbing platform to protect applications wherever they are deployed, whether in a data center, the public cloud, or a colocation facility. It provides comprehensive protection against the broadest range of DDoS attack types and defends against high-bandwidth sustained attacks, as well as today's complex multi-vector attacks that jump from application to application. Prolexic includes proactive mitigation controls tailored to network traffic to stop attacks instantly, backed by active mitigation performed by Akamai's 24/7 global SOCC, and provides customers a unique 100% uptime Service Level Agreement (SLA).

\*Dedicated defense capacity represents the resources available for consuming and stopping attacks, and is a better indicator of DDoS mitigation capabilities than total network capacity, which also accounts for traffic delivery and utilization.

**About Akamai**

Akamai powers and protects life online. Leading companies worldwide choose Akamai to build, deliver, and secure their digital experiences — helping billions of people live, work, and play every day. With the world's most distributed compute platform — from cloud to edge — we make it easy for customers to develop and run applications, while we keep experiences closer to users and threats farther away. Learn more about Akamai's security, compute, and delivery solutions at akamai.com and akamai.com/blog, or follow Akamai Technologies on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Source

DARKReading