Edge-based solution detects and blocks malicious files uploaded to Web apps and APIs.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., June 6, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM), the cloud company that powers and protects life online, today unveiled Malware Protection, which shields web applications and APIs from malicious uploads. The solution expands Akamai's web application and API protection (WAAP), detecting and blocking malware at the edge, preventing it from reaching targeted systems where it can detonate and spread.

Malware Protection addresses the growing problem of malware embedded in files uploaded to web applications such as travel & hospitality, financial sites, customer portals and content management systems. The solution provides a modern approach to protection, inspecting files uploaded to applications and APIs on the Akamai Intelligent Edge network, detecting and blocking malware at the edge.

Because the malware scanning engine is hosted completely on the Akamai Intelligent Edge, there is nothing for customers to install and no changes in application code are required. This makes it easier to deploy and maintain than alternative approaches, such as Internet Content Adaptation Protocol (ICAP)-integrated solutions. Because malware is blocked at the edge, Malware Protection also provides a better security outcome, isolating threats from targeted origins.

"Business processes across a variety of industries have shifted to web applications and users are uploading far more files than before," said Patrick Sullivan, CTO, Security Strategy for Akamai. "With Malware Protection, Akamai is helping customers to easily reduce risk resulting from files uploaded via Web Apps right at the Edge.. This addresses a growing concern among Akamai customers and provides added assurance that their online assets are protected."

**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.

Akamai Launches New Malware Protection for Uploaded Files

A coalition of over 25 industry leaders, led by NightDragon and non-profit NextGen Cyber Talent, partner to raise $1 million for collegiate cybersecurity education

SAN FRANCISCO, June 6, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- NightDragon, an investment and advisory firm focused on the cybersecurity, safety, security, and privacy industries, and NextGen Cyber Talent, a nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing diversity and inclusion in the cybersecurity industry through education and career opportunities for underserved and underrepresented students, today announced the launch of the Coalition to Close the Cybersecurity Talent Gap ("Coalition"), a campaign to raise $1 million to help fund one year of community college courses for Bay Area students pursuing careers in cybersecurity.

The Coalition is composed of more than 25 industry-leading cybersecurity and technology leaders that are passionate about cultivating the next generation of cybersecurity talent and committed to closing the cybersecurity skills gap. Driven to make a difference in the lives of students and their local communities, at launch, the Coalition has raised more than $300,000 of the $1 million needed to fund the cybersecurity education initiative for Bay Area students.

Through leveraging its vast network, NightDragon led the formation of the coalition including NightDragon portfolio companies, go-to-market and investment partners. Founding members for the initial cohort include: AllegisCyber Capital, Carahsoft, Claroty, Coalfire, Cyderes, Deloitte, Exclusive Networks, ForgeRock, HUMAN Security, iboss, Immuta, Ingram Micro, Interos, Knight Group, Macnica, Marsh, Merlin, Mezmo, NightDragon, Onapsis, Optiv, Palo Alto Networks, Prosek, Team8, Ten Eleven Ventures, ThriveDX, SafeGuard Cyber, Snowflake, and vArmour.

"There are an estimated 2.7 million unfilled cybersecurity positions. These vacancies create a significant challenge as security teams everywhere struggle to hire talent to monitor and remediate cyberattacks, as well as develop new technology to combat today's latest threats," said Krishnan Chellakarai, Founder and Co-Chairman of NextGen Cyber Talent and CISO of Gilead Sciences. "Solving the cybersecurity talent shortage will take a collective industry-wide effort. We are calling on the industry during the RSA Conference to contribute to the campaign and look forward to the impact we can make together to close the cybersecurity talent gap."

"The cybersecurity talent shortage is an issue that impacts all of us and is one of the biggest challenges facing our industry and national security. Let's demonstrate that as an industry we can come together to help solve for the talent shortage and foster the next generation in cyber talent that will help us combat today's threats," said Dave DeWalt, Founder, and Managing Director, NightDragon, and Board Member, NextGen Cyber Talent.

"The partners who have pulled together on this important mission are an impactful group of leaders from across the industry, which speaks to the universal nature of this mission to close the cybersecurity talent gap. By reaching out to the broader industry at the RSA Conference, we hope to show the power and compassion of our industry to help the underserved and enrich the cybersecurity workforce with more diversity," said Amy De Salvatore, VP Business Development and Strategic Alliances, NightDragon, who initiated the campaign and led the formation of the Coalition.

NextGen Cyber Talent partners with Bay Area community colleges to offer several cohorts of training programs, continuous career development and mentoring, and grants to hundreds of students pursuing cybersecurity education. The funds will be distributed by NextGen Cyber Talent to students at participating Bay Area community colleges who have applied and met the qualifying grade criteria of a B- or better. In addition to capital, founding coalition partners have also contributed additional in-kind donations, including lectures, curriculum materials, and internships for students.

"As we continue to focus on the essential mission of making each day safer than the one before, we have a responsibility as an industry to encourage and educate the next generation of cyber leaders," said BJ Jenkins, President at Palo Alto Networks and NightDragon Board member. "We thank NightDragon and NextGen Cyber Talent for bringing us together on this shared vision. We look forward to helping students recognize all of the cybersecurity career possibilities."

Donations of any size can be made through the Coalition to Close the Cybersecurity Talent Gap campaign donations page.

**About NextGen Cyber Talent**

NextGen Cyber Talent is a non-profit providing a platform to increase diversity and inclusion in the cybersecurity industry. It brings together cybersecurity experts, solution providers and enterprises to make a difference in the underserved and underprivileged community and address a mounting cyber skills shortage and talent gap. To learn more, visit www.NextGencybertalent.com.

**About NightDragon**

NightDragon is an investment and advisory firm focused on growth and late-stage investments within the cybersecurity, safety, security and privacy industries. Its platform and vast industry network provide unparalleled threat insights, deal flow, market leverage and operating expertise to drive portfolio company growth and increase shareholder value. Founded by Dave DeWalt, the NightDragon team has more than 25 years of operational and market expertise leading technology companies such as Documentum, EMC, Siebel Systems (Oracle), McAfee, Mandiant, Avast and FireEye. Read more about NightDragon at www.nightdragon.com.

Cybersecurity Industry Leaders Launch Campaign to Close the Cybersecurity Talent Gap

Nation’s cyber defense agency urges America to enable multifactor authentication.

WASHINGTON – The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is announcing a collaborative effort with industry to dramatically increase adoption of multi-factor authentication (MFA) and ensure widespread understanding of why it is one of the strongest tools to prevent cyber intrusions. Launching at the 2022 RSA Conference, CISA is embarking on a campaign to encourage widespread awareness and understanding of the benefits of MFA, to ensure that every American knows the simple steps they can take to keep themselves safe online, and to urge technology companies to make MFA available as a default option. CISA’s _More Than a Password_ campaign includes a newly launched webpage with resources, how-to guides, and social media content throughout the month of June.

Adversaries are increasingly harvesting credentials through phishing emails or by identifying passwords reused from other systems. MFA increases security because even if one credential is compromised, unauthorized users will be challenged to meet the second authentication requirement, largely thwarting their ability to access the targeted device, network, or database.

“Whether you call it multi-factor or two-factor authentication, this simple step can make you 99% less likely to get hacked. Think of it like an airbag or the seatbelt in your car—an extra layer to keep you safe in the event of an accident,” said CISA Director Jen Easterly. “We need to get the word out that to stay safe online, every American needs to have _More Than a Password_ on all their sensitive accounts. And if you have an account that doesn’t offer an option for MFA, urge your provider to begin offering this essential security feature.”

There are many ways you may be asked to provide a second form of authentication:

*   **Text Message or Email**: When you login to an account, you’ll be asked to provide a code sent to you by text message or email.
*   **Authenticator App**: An authenticator app is an app that generates MFA login codes on your phone.
*   **Push Notification:** Instead of using a numeric code, the service “pushes” a request to your phone to ask if it should let you in.
*   **FIDO Key:** FIDO stands for "Fast Identity Online" and is considered the gold standard of multi-factor authentication.

Two steps are harder for a hacker to compromise. Users should implement MFA on all their sensitive accounts—email, bank accounts, social media, online stores, gaming and streaming entertainment services. In addition to protecting consumers, MFA makes it more difficult for a threat actor to gain access to an organization’s information systems. It can better protect remote access technology, email, and billing systems, even if passwords are compromised through phishing attacks or other means. On its new webpage, CISA also provides a guide for organizations that need help getting started with deploying MFA to employees and customers.

Finally, CISA is asking our industry partners to help spread the word by ensuring that MFA is available for all services and enabled by default where possible. We’re also asking partners to share the value of MFA to customers and employees, and champion MFA on communication and social media channels. Whether you sing it, shout it, or post it this June, CISA is asking everyone to take the extra step and implement #_MoreThanAPassword_!

For more information, visit: http://www.cisa.gov/MoreThanAPassword

**About CISA**

As the nation’s cyber defense agency, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) leads the national effort to understand, manage, and reduce risk to the digital and physical infrastructure Americans rely on every hour of every day. Visit CISA.gov for more information.

Visit CISA on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram

CISA Challenges Partners and Public to Push for 'More Than a Password' in New Social Media Campaign

Acquisition will leverage Forescout’s automated cybersecurity with Cysiv's cloud-native platform to deliver data-powered analytics for 24/7 threat detection and response.

**SAN JOSE, Calif., June 6, 2022** – Forescout Technologies, Inc., the global leader in automated cybersecurity, today announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Cysiv, a cybersecurity innovator that uses its cloud platform to improve detection and response of true threats. With this acquisition, Forescout will leverage Cysiv’s threat detection engine to analyze a wealth of asset and network communications data automatically collected by Forescout’s platform. This comprehensive data across IT, IoT, OT and IoMT devices, as well as other essential data sources, enables better true threat detection and response so customers can operate more securely and efficiently. Upon the close of the acquisition, Cysiv will join Forescout.

“Organizations need to be able to reduce the billions of data points on their networks to a handful of actionable true threats – automatically. Together with Cysiv, Forescout will provide customers with the most powerful platform for automated cybersecurity across their digital terrains,” said Wael Mohamed, CEO of Forescout. “Upon close, the acquisition will help our customers leverage actionable threat intelligence from comprehensive data collected by Forescout and analyzed by Cysiv. We will receive far more than just great technology in this acquisition. The Cysiv team is exceptional, and our two organizations are highly complementary.”

Today, organizations are faced with the immense pressure to secure their networks. CIOs and CISOs have experienced rapid growth in the volume and diversity of managed and unmanaged devices, including IoT devices, that has given rise to increased risks and cybersecurity threats, coinciding with a drop in available cybersecurity resources. With the rapid adoption of cloud, and a cloud-first mindset that’s been accelerated by the work-from-anywhere shift of the past two years, enterprises are particularly concerned with managing threats to these fluid threat environments. This has resulted in organizations not being able to effectively manage the detection, investigation, escalation and response of true threats, particularly as the threat landscape and unmanaged device landscape have become more complex.

Existing solutions for threat detection and response, such as EDR, require the use of agents on managed devices. This means that organizations dependent on an agent-based approach for threat detection and response are not able to look for threats coming from the majority of their connected devices, particularly critical assets like IoT, IoMT and OT.

For over a decade, Forescout’s ability to deeply integrate into the fabric of customers’ networks has enabled it to collect real-time data for all connected assets and users, together with the communications among those assets and users. Customers have been asking Forescout to leverage this comprehensive data to provide greater insight into threats for all types of assets and to enable faster, more automated response and remediation.

“We have always been on a mission to provide better threat detection and faster response,” said Partha Panda, CEO and co-founder of Cysiv. “After successfully partnering together for the last year, we are thrilled to join Forescout as we continue on the next stage of our journey. The combination of Forescout and Cysiv will provide organizations with best-in-class threat detection together with automated incident prioritization and automated response.”

The acquisition is expected to close in July, 2022, subject to the satisfaction of closing conditions and receipt of applicable regulatory approvals and comes on the heels of its acquisition of CyberMDX which further strengthens Forescout’s industry-leading IT, IoT and OT device coverage with IoMT expertise.

**About Forescout**

Forescout Technologies, Inc. delivers cybersecurity automation across the digital terrain, maintaining continuous alignment of customers’ security frameworks with their digital realities, including all asset types. The Forescout Continuum Platform provides complete asset visibility, continuous compliance, network segmentation and a strong foundation for Zero Trust. For more than 20 years, Fortune 100 organizations and government agencies have trusted Forescout to provide automated cybersecurity at scale. Forescout arms customers with data-powered intelligence to accurately detect risks and quickly remediate cyberthreats without disruption of critical business assets. www.forescout.com

Forescout Announces Intent to Acquire Cysiv to Deliver Data-Powered Threat Detection and Response

Fortinet FortiGate-VM receives AAA rating across all five categories in CyberRating's assessment.

AUSTIN, Texas, June 6, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- CyberRatings.org, the non-profit entity dedicated to providing transparency on cybersecurity product efficacy, has completed an independent test of FortiGate-VM, Fortinet's virtual network firewall, as part of the first-ever Cloud Network Firewall evaluation. Fortinet received the highest possible rating of 'AAA' with Management and Reporting Capabilities, Routing and Policy Enforcement, SSL/TLS Functionality, Threat Prevention and Performance all earning 'AAA' ratings.

The CyberRatings exploit repository contains exploits that demonstrate a wide range of protocols and applications. Exploit sets for individual tests are selected based on CVSS score (how widely used is an application + what can an attacker do?), use case, and relevance to customers. Fortinet's Threat Protection was rated excellent, blocking 35 out of 35 evasion techniques, 977 out of 977 exploits, and passing all the stability and reliability tests.

While the firewall market is one of the largest and most mature security technology segments, cloud network firewalls are relatively new. Firewalls have undergone several stages of development, from early packet filtering and circuit relay firewalls to application layer (proxy-based) and dynamic packet filtering firewalls. This latest evolution virtualizes this functionality to provide scalable and elastic policy enforcement in a cloud environment.

"This Cloud Network Firewall test is the first of its kind," said Vikram Phatak, CEO of CyberRatings.org "This is a new technology, deployed within a cloud service that by definition is constantly changing, protecting resources that are also deployed within that same cloud service. It is always fun to be the first to test new technologies because we get to learn new things and apply what we have learned," added Phatak.

"We are extremely proud to have received top marks across all five categories in CyberRatings' assessment of FortiGate-VM. With cyberattacks more advanced and persistent than ever before, it's crucial for the safety of people, devices, and data everywhere that cybersecurity products deliver the performance and protection that vendors claim," said John Maddison, CMO and EVP of Products at Fortinet. "Independent testing from nonprofits like CyberRatings plays a critical role in helping organizations stay ahead of the threat landscape because it offers an unbiased assessment of effective security solutions that meet an evolving set of requirements and aids customers in their decision-making process."

To read the CyberRatings in-depth report on the various CNFW capabilities offered by Fortinet, go to CyberRatings.org.

**Additional Resources**

*   Follow CyberRatings.org on Twitter
*   Follow CyberRatings.org on LinkedIn

**About CyberRatings.org**

CyberRatings.org is a non-profit 501(c)6 entity dedicated to quantifying cyber risk and providing transparency on cybersecurity product efficacy through testing and ratings programs. To become a member, visit www.cyberratings.org

CyberRatings.org Announces Test on Cloud Network Firewall

Basic Pen Tests support rapid, basic vulnerability discovery, while Standard Pen Tests provide compliance-driven testing to meet requirements for Web apps, APIs, and networks.

SAN FRANCISCO, June 6, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Bugcrowd, the leader in crowdsourced security, today announced a significant expansion of its Penetration Testing as a Service (PTaaS) product line to include new offerings—Basic Pen Test and Standard Pen Test—purpose built for today's digital business where continuous testing must keep pace with continuous and agile development. These strategic additions expand the use cases covered by Bugcrowd's PTaaS suite to cover the gamut of customer needs, from basic assurance for simple web apps and networks to continuous, crowd-powered testing of complex apps, cloud services, mobile apps, APIs, and IoT devices for maximum risk reduction.

Most pen test providers today offer cumbersome, ad hoc consulting offerings that do not identify all risks and are hard to execute at scale in a consistent and configurable way for buyers as well as pentesters themselves. PTaaS solutions have emerged to address these issues, but most don't go far enough—only Bugcrowd delivers a modern, platform-powered approach, enabling organizations to keep innovating without compromising security.

With Bugcrowd's expanded PTaaS product line, pen test buyers now have an option for meeting every requirement, and for every asset type:

*   **Basic Pen Tests** for rapid, basic vulnerability discovery and reporting
*   **Standard Pen Tests** for easy-to-launch, compliance-driven testing packaged to meet most customer requirements for common use cases for simple web apps, APIs and networks
*   **Plus Pen Tests** for meeting special needs around targets, testing times, geographic requirements, etc.
*   **Max Pen Tests** for continuous, maximum risk reduction

"We have a diverse set of use cases for pen testing, ranging from basic vulnerability discovery for very simple web apps to intensive and continuous risk reduction for business-critical ones," said Jason Frost, Manager, Security Assessment, Paychex. "These new additions to the Bugcrowd PTaaS product line fulfill all our needs in one platform."

The Bugcrowd Security Knowledge Platform™ enables pen tests to run alongside Bugcrowd's managed bug bounty, vulnerability disclosure programs, and other solutions as a fully integrated and orchestrated experience blending data, technology, and human intelligence, with all findings flowing directly into the software development lifecycle. Bugcrowd's PTaaS suite allows customers to:

*   Activate precisely the right crowd at the right time leveraging the platform's CrowdMatch ML technology, delivering a 2x increase in high-impact findings versus manual matching methods
*   Launch tests in days instead of weeks and continually get fresh eyes-on-target from Bugcrowd's broad and diverse crowd
*   Utilize historical information to create standardized tests that reduce the need for contracted SOW discussions, while getting the intelligence of the aggregated experience of the platform, customer needs, and researchers to conduct the most relevant pen test scope
*   Get high-impact results that go beyond compliance checkboxes
*   See prioritized results and methodology progress in real-time via a rich PTaaS Dashboard experience

"Traditional penetration testing often delivers noisy, low-impact results, often takes weeks or even months to produce results, and offers no visibility into test progress," said Ashish Gupta, CEO, Bugcrowd. "We provide real-time visibility into pen testing results and vulnerabilities being found that allow our customers to continuously reduce risk and secure their environments, helping them stay ahead of a breach with solutions tailored to meet their needs."

Click here to learn more about these additions to Bugcrowd's PTaaS.

Click here to learn more about the Bugcrowd Security Knowledge Platform.

"Bugcrowd", "CrowdMatch", and "Bugcrowd Security Knowledge Platform" are trademarks of Bugcrowd Inc. and its subsidiaries. All other trademarks, trade names, service marks and logos referenced herein belong to their respective companies.

**About Bugcrowd  
**Bugcrowd is the leading provider of crowdsourced cybersecurity solutions purpose-built to secure the digitally connected world. Today's enterprise demands an offensive approach to cybersecurity—and Bugcrowd offers the only solution that orchestrates data, technology, and human intelligence to expose blind spots. The Bugcrowd Security Knowledge Platform™ enables businesses to do everything proactively possible to protect their organization, reputation, and customers with products like Bug Bounty, Penetration Testing-as-a-Service, and more. Trusted by organizations across the globe, Bugcrowd uncovers and remediates vulnerabilities before they interrupt business by leveraging expert ingenuity and the knowledge of world-class security researchers. Based in San Francisco, Bugcrowd is backed by Blackbird Ventures, Costanoa Ventures, Industry Ventures, Paladin Capital Group, Rally Ventures, Salesforce Ventures and Triangle Peak Partners. Learn more at www.bugcrowd.com.

Bugcrowd Expands Pen Testing Solutions with New Platform Services

The tool underpins cybersecurity capabilities including SIEM, SOAR, compliance automation, and vulnerability management.

Cybersecurity teams can now use Snowflake as their data platform for a range of critical use cases, making it possible for security teams to deploy a security data lake and unify their security data in one place.

Snowflake's Cybersecurity workload offers customers access to cybersecurity capabilities including security information and event management (SIEM), security orchestration, automation, and response (SOAR), compliance automation, and vulnerability management through connected applications that run on top of their existing Snowflake environmentx.

Snowflake serves as the security data lake, providing scalable storage, while analytics enable security metrics for live insights into an organization's security posture.

Partners including Hunters, Panther Labs, and Securonix offer security capabilities on top of Snowflake accounts through connected applications, removing the need for the homegrown tools security teams used to rely on to build for scale.

**Context Is Key**

"Whether it's spotting risky configurations or catching threat actors in the act, security insights depend on available data," explains Omer Singer, Snowflake's head of cybersecurity strategy. "Less obvious is the need for context and cross-source correlation."

He says many risks and attacks cannot be identified just by looking at a single finding or event log, with unified visibility the key to fewer false positives and false negatives.

For example, a vulnerability may have a CVSS score of 8.0 and be not so concerning if it's affecting a test system without Internet access. "The same issue may be super critical, on the other hand, if it affects a publicly facing Web server that handles customer financial transactions," he adds.

Another example is around user deprovisioning, which Singer calls "a real scourge" for many security compliance teams.

"Has access been revoked from all systems for all terminated employees? If not, has a terminated employee taken advantage of their access?" he asks. "It takes unified visibility to answer these questions."

**Consolidated Data Shows the Whole Picture**

Singer explains that Snowflake is enabling an alternative to typical security tools that operate in a silo and place the burden of connecting the dots on overstretched security teams.

"Our customers kept telling us that their traditional SIEM solutions didn't consolidate security logs — the legacy SIEMs actually create silos since their cost for comprehensive ingest and retention is prohibitively high," he says. "The result has been that security teams struggle to achieve necessary prevention, detection, and response outcomes."

Prabhath Karanth, senior director of security, compliance, and trust at TripActions, says that Snowflake has helped the company with log aggregation, better triaging, removing noisy alerts, faster threat detection and response, applying new threat intelligence to data, and continuous compliance.

"All of this ultimately results in better security assurance and building customer trust," Karanth says. He adds that the adoption of Cybersecurity workload is central to most of the company's data and strategic security initiatives.

"The platform allows us to leverage one single source of truth for multiple use cases," Karanth explained. "It helps us collect all data sources in a centralized location and run analytics on top, both for our business and security use cases."

In addition, integrations with Snowflake partner tools like the autonomous threat monitor Hunters and the compliance program Anecdotes on top of the Snowflake security data lake has helped TripActions further enhance some security use cases.

**The Importance of Compliance**

On the security compliance side, Karanth says TripActions is looking to achieve near-real-time controls automation using Snowflake's Cybersecurity workload and continuous compliance.

"We push all security tooling data into Snowflake data lake," he says. "This includes tools like cloud security posture management, application security posture management, and endpoint security tooling. Most of the compliance controls belong to one of these domains."

He adds that the company can get a unified view of the controls posture to meet compliance requirements like SOC2, ISO, PCI, and others by integrating with Anecdotes.

"This helps us identify control effectiveness from an audit perspective, quicker metrics reporting to leadership, and remediation activities," he says. "From a threat detection and response standpoint, again security tooling is the basis for all of this."

Karanth explains that the deviation from the desired state of assets can be identified from the data the platform collects, and integrations with autonomous tools like Hunters help his company respond with corrective action in a timely manner using custom-built and prebuilt alerts.

"Our ultimate goal as a security team is to enable our business and protect our customers' data," he says. "The need of the hour is to enable our business and at the same time reduce risk. We need to protect our customers' travel data both from a security and privacy perspective. We take customer trust very seriously. It's the foundation for how we do business."

Snowflake Debuts Cybersecurity Workload to Aid Visibility, Automation

FortiRecon combines machine learning, automation, and human intelligence to continually monitor an organization’s external attack surface.

**SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., – RSAC 2022 - Jun 6, 2022**

**John Maddison, EVP of Products and CMO at Fortinet**

“The sooner in the attack cycle you identify and stop an adversary, the less costly and damaging their actions. Employing a powerful combination of human and artificial intelligence, FortiRecon provides organizations with a view of what adversaries are seeing, doing and planning. FortiRecon’s vendor agnostic SaaS delivery model combined with an intuitive interface and easily digestible reports enable executives across the organization to quickly understand the risks posed to their company, data, and brand reputation, while our team of FortiGuard Labs cybersecurity experts enhance the offering with takedown services, guidance on prioritization of remediation efforts, and targeted threat research and intelligence.”

**News Summary**

Fortinet® (NASDAQ: FTNT), a global leader in broad, integrated, and automated cybersecurity solutions, today announced FortiRecon, a complete Digital Risk Protection Service (DRPS) offering that uses a powerful combination of machine learning, automation capabilities, and FortiGuard Labs cybersecurity experts to manage a company’s risk posture and advise meaningful action to protect their brand reputation, enterprise assets, and data. FortiRecon uniquely delivers a triple offering of outside-in coverage across External Attack Surface Management (EASM), Brand Protection (BP), and Adversary-Centric Intelligence (ACI) to counter attacks at the reconnaissance phase – the first stage of a cyberattack – to significantly reduce the risk, time, and cost of later stage threat mitigation.

**Organizations are Overwhelmed in the Fight to Protect their Network, Data, and Reputation and Mitigate Risk Early**

Before attacking an organization, a cybercriminal’s primary objective is to gather as much intelligence about their target as possible. This phase of early reconnaissance arms the adversary with everything they need to determine if and how they would exploit an organization. They will test a company’s defense and response tactics, look for unpatched systems, use social media to learn more about its employees and their normal behavior, and go as far as researching business partners, recent acquisitions, and any other third-party affiliation that could lead to a successful compromise. As organizations digitally accelerate their businesses and deploy hybrid IT architectures that expand the attack surface, identifying and mitigating these threats has become increasingly more difficult. In response to the velocity of threats, cybersecurity best practices have evolved from point-in-time evaluations to continual monitoring, ongoing reviews, and continuous enhancements to an organization’s security posture.

**Taking a Page Out of the Adversary Playbook to Mitigate Risk**

With the introduction of FortiRecon, Fortinet provides enterprise organizations with a powerful tool to understand how the adversary views an organization from the outside to help inform cybersecurity teams, the C-Level, and risk and compliance management on how to prioritize risk and improve the company's overall security posture. FortiRecon offers companies consistent and comprehensive coverage across three areas:

*   **External Attack Surface Monitoring:** Empowers organizations to understand their risk profile and mitigate risks early. Provides an outside-in view of an organization and its subsidiaries to identify exposed known and unknown enterprise assets and associated vulnerabilities, and prioritize the remediation of critical issues. EASM identifies servers, credentials, public cloud service misconfigurations, and even third-party partner software code vulnerabilities that could be exploited by malicious actors.
*   **Brand Protection:** Enables organizations to protect their brand and identify risks to their customers. Proprietary algorithms detect web-based typo-squatting, defacements, and phishing impersonations, as well as rogue mobile apps, credential leaks, and brand impersonation on social media, all common techniques used by cyber threat actors. The early detection of malicious activity allows teams to quickly take action (such as website or application takedown) to stop and prevent damage.
*   **Adversary-Centric Intelligence:** Increases the security awareness of an organization’s SOC team with industry and geography specific coverage to better understand their attackers and protect assets. FortiGuard Labs cybersecurity experts assess the underground and imminent threat risks posed by active cybercriminals to an individual company by proactively monitoring public and private forums, open-source, dark web, and other cybercriminal domains. By engaging in human intelligence collection, FortiGuard Labs experts assess and curate custom threat intelligence, providing recommendations specific to the company, industry, and geography.

For partners, FortiRecon can be sold on top of the Fortinet Security Fabric or as a stand-alone, vendor-agnostic solution that delivers easily digestible reports and enables their customers to quickly understand the risks posed to their company, data, and brand reputation. FortiRecon also extends the categories of risk for which partners can provide insight to customers and increases the opportunity to land new customers that have only invested in more traditional security solutions.

**Enhancing Fortinet’s Early Detection and Response Portfolio and Industry Leading Security Services**

FortiRecon complements Fortinet’s robust portfolio of early detection and advanced response products, including FortiNDR, FortiXDR, FortiDeceptor, in-line sandboxing, as well as advanced automation with FortiAnalyzer, FortiSIEM and FortiSOAR.

Fortinet is firmly committed to the success of SOC teams and the protection of organziations and offers an extensive portfolio of outsource services ranging from cybersecurity assessments and readiness, playbook development, tabletop training, Incident Response, MDR and SOC-as-a-service. This combined offering, alongside the many enhancements across the Fortinet Security Fabric and extended ecosystem deliver simplification and automation to help SOC teams regain focus, control, and speed by strengthening an organization’s SOC with FortiGuard Labs cybersecurity tools and experts.

**Get a demo of FortiRecon in the Fortinet booth at RSAC 2022**

Fortinet will be a Platinum Sponsor at this year’s RSA Conference and will feature product demos, a live theater, and a Fortinet Expert Bar at booth #5855 in the Moscone Center North Hall. Stop by the booth to get a demo of FortiRecon and other recent product, solution, and services innovations from Fortinet. Learn more about Fortinet at RSA and presentations featuring Fortinet executives in the media alert.

**Additional Resources**

*   Read our blog to learn more about the value security services can bring to any organization and find out more about Fortinet’s robust portfolio of AI-powered Security Services.
*   Learn more about Fortinet’s advanced detection offerings for the SOC: FortiNDR, FortiDeceptor, FortiXDR, and FortiGuard In-line Sandbox Service
*   Learn more about Fortinet SOC-as-a-Service.
*   Learn more about how the Fortinet Security Fabric delivers broad, integrated, and automated protection across an organization’s entire digital infrastructure.
*   Learn more about FortiGuard Labs threat intelligence and research or Fortinet’s AI-powered FortiGuard Security Services portfolio.
*   Learn more about Fortinet’s free cybersecurity training which includes broad cyber awareness and product training. As part of the Fortinet Training Advancement Agenda (TAA), the Fortinet Training Institute also provides training and certification through the Network Security Expert (NSE) Certification, Academic Partner, and Education Outreach programs.
*   Read more about how Fortinet customers are securing their organizations.
*   Engage in the Fortinet User Community (Fuse). Share ideas and feedback, learn more about our products and technology, and connect with peers.
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**About Fortinet**

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Crackdowns are driving down ransomware profits, and analysts see signs that operators are pivoting to business email compromise attacks, security researcher warned.

RSA CONFERENCE 2022 – San Francisco – Law enforcement crackdowns, tighter cryptocurrency regulations, and ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) operator shutdowns are driving down the return on investment for ransomware operations across the globe. 

Abnormal Security threat researcher Crane Hassold, in a presentation at the RSA Conference, laid out his latest analysis of the ransomware threat landscape, predicting that there will be a pivot from ransomware toward renewed interest in basic business email compromise (BEC) attacks in the next 6 to 12 months. 

**RaaS Operator Crackdowns**

Ransomware attacks grab headlines and have been supercharged by a few prolific RaaS operators, Hassold explained. But crackdowns on just one group can make an enormous dent. 

"Ransomware is a centralized ecosystem with small numbers of operators responsible for the majority of attacks," Hassold said. 

He pointed to the recent disappearance of Pysa, leaving just two groups, Conti and Lockbit, with more than 50% of the share of the total ransomware attacks in the first half of 2022. BEC groups, on the other hand, are diffuse and scattered, making them much harder to eradicate, Hassold added. 

Although they're not as quick to make the headlines, BEC attacks have cost business more than $43 billion since 2016, according to the FBI, and make up $1 out of every $3 lost to cyberattacks, far outpacing ransomware losses, Hassold said. 

**Cryptocurrency Supercharged Ransomware**

Ransomware has had a moment over the past couple of years, Hassold explained, in part because once threat actors were able to abandon arcane wire transfers to collect ransoms and rely on cryptocurrency, caps on transactions were lifted and it became simple to collect much larger amounts. But new crypto regulations are chilling the ability of these cybercriminals to rely on its infrastructure to do business, adding what Hassold called "friction" to the transactions. 

BEC attacks, by comparison, rely on social engineering to corrupt a business's financial supply chain to get employees to willingly part with the cash, making them exponentially harder to track and stop.  

**Social Engineering Works**

By far, the most-used BEC tactic is the standard gift-card swindle, tricking employees to buy bogus gift cards, meaning the tried-and-true grift is still working. But Hassold said the BEC landscape is shifting from impersonating internal employees to posing as external business contacts. 

Once inside a business email account, attackers will wait and gather intelligence that can help them impersonate a trusted source. Today's BEC attacks are aimed at a company's financial supply chain, and once threat actors are inside, they will look for opportunities to spoof vendor emails to send payments to controlled accounts, change direct deposit information of executives to steal their paychecks, and even order aging reports showing which vendors owe the company. Once they have an aging report, an attacker will simply try to reach out to partners and collect any outstanding balances. 

In short, social engineering works. 

"BEC, in my opinion, is the clear threat to enterprises everywhere," Hassold warned. "These attacks disproportionately impact business." 

He added there is already evidence that ransomware operators and West African BEC attackers have already started comparing notes. 

"They're not collaborating, but interacting," Hassold said. "Those relationships might harden in the future."

Ransomware's ROI Retreat Will Drive More BEC Attacks

A panel of CISOs at the RSA Conference outlined what a successful first 90-day plan looks like, and it boiled down to effective communication and listening.

RSA CONFERENCE – San Francisco – A trio of high-powered CISOs talked about the first 90 days in their roles, and whether the aim was getting board of directors' buy-in or building rank-and-file credibility, they all said how they communicated was what mattered the most. 

The RSAC panel included Allison Miller, Reddit's CISO and VP of Trust; Olivia Rose, Amplitude's CISO and VP of IT; and Caleb Sima, CISO for Robin Hood. Chenxi Wang, founder of the Rain Capital venture capital fund, moderated the discussion.

Practically, Sima opened up by explaining how during his first few days with Robin Hood he gathered simple data points he labeled "top challenges" and "things that scare me."   

But Rose interjected that in many instances blunt statements like that could end up offending and alienating critical engineering and IT teams right out of the gate, which can make a CISO's job much harder. 

**The Internal Comms "Dance"**

"It's a dance," Rose said. "You have to be careful not to offend those who have been handling this before you got there." 

Rose suggests meeting members of other departments where they are. 

"Whether its infrastructure or executive, talk their language," she said. "And be very clear and persistent." 

Sima disagreed, adding with a bit of a chuckle, "If you don't have any haters, you're not doing the right thing."

Regardless of the approach, both of them, as well as Miller, spent time early in their positions trying to sell a security program to internal teams often not in line with their strategies. Miller and Rose said legal and compliance became their most natural partners inside the business.

"You've got to have allies," Rose said. There's often friction with engineering, infrastructure, IT, product, customer service, and others, but the legal and compliance teams have a clearer vision of the consequences of a security incident and can be invaluable in communicating them to the wider enterprise. 

**Communicating With the Board of Directors**

Beyond everyday internal wrangling, these CISOs unpacked their communications approach with their respective companies' boards of directors. Sima explained he relies heavily on narrative to tell the story about where his team is right now and where it's heading. The techie stuff he drops in the appendix in case someone wants more detail. 

When it comes to providing boards with data they can digest and use, Rose said she relies on the CMMI Cybermaturity Model and Sima and Miller said they lean on the NIST CSF framework. 

"It's an easy way to visually show people who don't understand security where you need to be and why," Rose said. 

Moderator Wang sits on a company's board of directors and suggested the boards should requisition a third-party validation assessment so they can be assured that the information the CISO is providing is correct.

"The first board meeting should be about setting expectations," Sima added. 

But for all the competing messages and audiences CISOs regularly juggle, during the first 90 days in the CISO chair, talking as little as possible is the best bet, Rose explained.

"You first 90 days you should just shut up," Rose said. "You have to listen to what's going on."

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