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ESET named a Major Player in two Modern Endpoint Security IDC MarketScape reports

Bratislava, November 10, 2021 – ESET, a global leader in cybersecurity, has been recognized as a Major Player in two IDC MarketScape reports – the Worldwide Modern Endpoint Security Enterprise 2021 Vendor Assessment (Doc #US48306021, November 2021), and the Worldwide Modern Endpoint Security SMB 2021 Vendor Assessment (Doc #US48304721, November 2021). Together, the reports assess vendors’ endpoint security offerings across the SMB and enterprise markets.

Through a mix of surveys and interviews with market leaders, participants and end users, IDC MarketScape is known for providing in-depth quantitative and qualitative technology market assessments of different vendors’ capabilities. The reports’ assessment criteria focused on two main categories – an organization’s capabilities and its strategies. While the capabilities category focuses on the company’s offerings today, the strategies category looks at how the vendor’s strategy will deliver on what customers need in three to five years’ time.

The two reports focus on the importance of robust modern endpoint security for organizations both small and large. Modern endpoint security products protect personal computing devices from cyberattacks through detect and response mechanisms. One of the two mechanisms, endpoint protection platforms (EPP), reach detection verdicts and initiate responses in real time and autonomously, without human involvement. Endpoint detection and response (EDR) is the second stage of detection and response against cyberattacks that have evaded EPP detection. With EDR, the time to reach detection verdicts and initiate responses can span minutes to days depending on the severity of the threat itself.

In both reports, ESET was noted for reinvesting its profits into software development, core threat research, and threat hunting – the essential areas for advancing its products. ESET was also recognized for its local language support across an expansive base of global customers. ESET’s participation in independent EPP and EDR evaluations and willingness to put its products to the test was highlighted, as well as its broad and natively integrated cross-product platform solutions. Customers also benefit from the in-house threat hunting services and the unique threat data it collects and analyzes. All this has been enabled by ESET’s constant drive for self-improvement throughout its history, robust research, a technology-driven culture and stable leadership.

Pavol Balaj, Segment Director for Enterprises at ESET comments, “We are very proud to be named a Major Player in the IDC MarketScape evaluation of our endpoint solutions. With cyber-attacks being one of the most pertinent threats to modern businesses, at ESET we invest heavily in our people and our technology to deliver solutions that address the constantly evolving threat landscape. We will continue on our path of innovation to ensure the highest possible level of protection for our customers and partners.”

Michal Jankech, Segment Director for SMB and MSP at ESET comments, “Here at ESET, we are committed to protecting businesses of all sizes and equipping them and our MSP partners with cutting edge modern endpoint security. We are proud that our continued investment in our customers and partners, through our ever-improving services and solutions, is recognized externally too.”

To learn more about ESET’s Endpoint Security offering for SMBs, click here, and for Enterprises, click here

About Version 2 Digital

Version 2 Digital is one of the most dynamic IT companies in Asia. The company distributes a wide range of IT products across various areas including cyber security, cloud, data protection, end points, infrastructures, system monitoring, storage, networking, business productivity and communication products.

Through an extensive network of channels, point of sales, resellers, and partnership companies, Version 2 offers quality products and services which are highly acclaimed in the market. Its customers cover a wide spectrum which include Global 1000 enterprises, regional listed companies, different vertical industries, public utilities, Government, a vast number of successful SMEs, and consumers in various Asian cities.

About ESET
For 30 years, ESET® has been developing industry-leading IT security software and services for businesses and consumers worldwide. With solutions ranging from endpoint security to encryption and two-factor authentication, ESET’s high-performing, easy-to-use products give individuals and businesses the peace of mind to enjoy the full potential of their technology. ESET unobtrusively protects and monitors 24/7, updating defenses in real time to keep users safe and businesses running without interruption. Evolving threats require an evolving IT security company. Backed by R&D facilities worldwide, ESET became the first IT security company to earn 100 Virus Bulletin VB100 awards, identifying every single “in-the-wild” malware without interruption since 2003.

About IDC MarketScape
IDC MarketScape vendor assessment model is designed to provide an overview of the competitive fitness of ICT (information and communications technology) suppliers in a given market. The research methodology utilizes a rigorous scoring methodology based on both qualitative and quantitative criteria that results in a single graphical illustration of each vendor’s position within a given market. IDC MarketScape provides a clear framework in which the product and service offerings, capabilities and strategies, and current and future market success factors of IT and telecommunications vendors can be meaningfully compared. The framework also provides technology buyers with a 360-degree assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of current and prospective vendors.

What is a data warehouse and what is it for?

Do you already know what a data warehouse is?

We would love to say that companies, above all else, value their employees, but it would be as naive as it is false. Yes, because at the top of the companies’ scale of values is data. The precious data. Data that actually only plays an important role when properly stored. And here is where the data warehouses come in.

What exactly is a data warehouse?

A data warehouse is actually a way of managing your data, specially designed, of course, to support business activities, especially those related to analytics. Enterprise data warehouses contain, of course, vast amounts of historical data to collate, query, pattern or analyze. These data, which the warehouse centralizes, come from a wide and different range of sources. We have the type: application log files, transaction applications, etc.

Apart from centralizing data and unifying their sources, data warehouses help in the decision-making process. This is because they contain valuable raw business knowledge. A very rich historical record for analysts and data experts. And from them, from the experts, we have taken the main advantages of data warehouses:

  • Source tracking and verification Thanks to data warehouses, we may trace the data to its source and verify both the information as well as the root it comes from. That way we will be able to store this source in our database and always ensure consistent and relevant information.
  • Sifting relevant data for companies. Once in the system, the quality and integrity of the data is guaranteed. Companies will only have useful data, those necessary for their activities, since the data warehouse format predisposes the analysis of their information at any time and under any circumstance. No one should any longer depend on a hunch or rash from the decision-maker, incomplete or poor quality data. The results will be fast and accurate.
  • In the data warehouse, the data is copied and processed, integrated and restructured, in advance, in a Semantic Data Store. This makes any analysis process much easier.
  • Imagine analyzing large amounts of data of all kinds and retrieving a value from them in a specific and precise way.

Types of data warehouses

If we strictly stick to company data warehouses, today we can have three main types:

  • Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW): A data warehouse that contains the business data of a business and that includes all the information about its customers. It enables data analysis and can provide actionable insights. It also offers a unified approach to organizing and representing such data.
  • Operational Data Warehouse (ODS): We are faced with a central database that provides us with a snapshot of the freshest data from multiple transactional systems so that we can prepare operational reports. The ODS enables organizations to combine data in its original format, from several sources, to produce business reports.
  • Data market: It focuses on a single functional area of an organization and encompasses a subset of stored data. The data marketplace is specially designed for use by a specific department or set of users in an organization. We are talking about a condensed version of the data warehouse.

Small retrospective

Most would stop the clock on their time machine in 1980, where they believe that the concept of the data warehouse arises, but we would have to let it run a little further back, to the hippy sixties. When Dartmouth and Mills develop the term dimension and facts in a collaborative project.

Then we would advance to the seventies to witness how Nielsen and IRI introduce Dimensional Data Marts for retail sales, Tera Data Corporation launches a database management system prepared to help and assist in making decisions, and then, after a decade of progress, in the eighties, where the first implementation of a data warehouse emerged by the hand of Paul Murphy and Barry Devlin, IBM workers.

From the data warehouse to the Cloud?

As we have already seen in previous articles, the coronavirus pandemic that has devastated our planet has a lot to do with the new technological restructuring and with the religious ascents to the Cloud. It is also, of course, to blame for moving data warehouses to Cloud platforms.

On-premise data warehouses have great advantages: security, speed, etc. But they are not that elastic, and the foresight to determine how to scale the data warehouse, regarding future needs, is quite complex. During the famous Confinement, most moved to the Cloud and the data warehouses were going to follow their example of course. Even those in large companies, those who no one thought they could abandon their local data centers, are switching to the Cloud to make the most out of its advantages. That flexibility in computing and storage. Its ease of use, its versatile management and its profitability.

Tomorrow: Automation of the data warehouse

The list of issues a data warehouse deals with is still there: data integration, data views, data quality, optimization, competing methodologies, and so on. However, we can find an answer: warehouse automation..

With data warehouse automation, a data warehouse can use the latest technology for pattern-based automation and advanced design processes. This allows you to automate the planning, modeling and integration steps of the entire life cycle. We are faced with what seems like a very efficient alternative to traditional data warehouse design, one that reduces time-consuming tasks such as generating and deploying ETL codes on a database server.

After this long journey through the life and exploits of the data warehouses, we say goodbye, as you can see, focusing on the answers that it promises to give us in the near future. We will always be positive in the matter.

About Version 2 Digital

Version 2 Digital is one of the most dynamic IT companies in Asia. The company distributes a wide range of IT products across various areas including cyber security, cloud, data protection, end points, infrastructures, system monitoring, storage, networking, business productivity and communication products.

Through an extensive network of channels, point of sales, resellers, and partnership companies, Version 2 offers quality products and services which are highly acclaimed in the market. Its customers cover a wide spectrum which include Global 1000 enterprises, regional listed companies, different vertical industries, public utilities, Government, a vast number of successful SMEs, and consumers in various Asian cities.

About PandoraFMS
Pandora FMS is a flexible monitoring system, capable of monitoring devices, infrastructures, applications, services and business processes.
Of course, one of the things that Pandora FMS can control is the hard disks of your computers.

To Patch or Not to Patch in OT

When organizations are seeking out the right cybersecurity controls for their OT environments and devices, the clear objective is to decrease and eliminate risks. Too often organizations only adopt the minimal level of security. While each organization defines its security risk levels, it is often based on their production environments, industrial devices and the critical risk factor of their facility production.

 

Many organizations will use different techniques to manage their risks, but one of the most common methods is patching. At the heart of every security strategy, patching is one of the key elements to securing any potential vulnerabilities within an organization. Despite patching being commonly used in risk management strategies, advancing patching for OT devices is still a work in progress.

Patch management in OT and Industrial Control Systems (ICS) comes with many security challenges. From lack of OT experts, proprietary hardware and software, compliance regulation reporting, minimal testing equipment and device and system maintenance, many industrial organizations struggle to clearly understand how they need to patch their vulnerable devices. This results in unmanaged patches.

Industrial Device Vulnerability Management Processes

When deciding what needs to be patched, security teams need to decide and evaluate the practicability of OT patching for their organization. With OT environments, applying patches is a balance that is based on the security benefits of what the patch provides versus the disruption of operational activities due to patching. These both are crucial factors to consider when patching OT environments.

With every standard OT security patching program, it starts with 4 steps to success. The first step is to detect and discover which assets you have within your OT environments. The next step is to assess the industrial devices and OT equipment for vulnerabilities. There can be different types of vulnerabilities but most vulnerabilities will fall under the categories of security risks or software and device misconfiguration.

The third step is to analyze and prioritize the vulnerabilities. Here is where organizations learn which devices are vulnerable and which are not and what priority should be assigned to patch the vulnerable devices. In some cases in this step, organizations will question should we even patch the vulnerability or why should we care about it? While it’s an organization’s job to decide what to patch and not to patch, we recommend patching all vulnerabilities to ensure the security of an organization will be secure. 

The fourth and final step is remediating the vulnerability. This is where security teams will patch the vulnerabilities within their industrial devices.  For example, patching a PLC, fixing device configurations and more. 

IT Patching Does Not Work in OT 

Today’s organizations need to run different security testing to clearly understand which vulnerabilities they have in their OT environments. In IT security, most organizations will adopt vulnerability scanning tools. With asset vulnerability scans, these are typically assessed based on port enumeration and authenticating to the devices to get comprehensive configuration/policy and registry information. While this might be useful for IT security it doesn’t work with OT security. 

For example, an automotive manufacturer in Germany had a couple of critical servers that were connected to their production line. Their servers crashed after scanning for vulnerabilities. They only scanned to see if they had one vulnerability in their environment. While they knew exactly what they were scanning for, it resulted in their OT environments being affected. The servers were a key part of their manufacturing process and the failure caused downtime and a loss of revenue of over a million dollars. 

When they investigated what the problem was, they identified that the scanner opened 13 sockets while the servers only supported up to four sockets in parallel. They flooded the servers with a capacity of three times higher than what was normal. The servers were unable to handle their operational processes and crashed. 

The lesson learned in this example is if you come with an IT security approach of scanning for vulnerabilities with OT, an organization might cause more damage than a cyber attack.

Don’t Forget about the Costs

Now that organizations know the four-step process of device patching management, the cost of patching is a crucial aspect they must be aware of. Once organizations have all the information (asset inventory, network mapping, disclosure sources and maps of vulnerabilities) and they are ready to patch the vulnerabilities they need to understand the price to patch. 

With each patching process, there is a different cost associated with it and it shouldn’t be taken lightly. Every industrial organization’s biggest nightmare is production downtime. With every patching process, the organization will experience some kind of downtime but when managed correctly, it will only be for a short period of time. However, when an organization doesn’t manage the industrial device management process correctly it can financially impact the organization not only in the production line but also in the headlines.  

At SCADAfence, we have helped many industrial organizations to patch their OT devices. One common theme we have seen is when we show the organization the different vulnerabilities, they go ahead and they only fix that vulnerability and don’t fix their entire vulnerable device. This is a huge problem because if an organization doesn’t fix the core issue of a vulnerability, it will be easy for attackers to find another vulnerability. Organizations need to patch the entire device to ensure no vulnerabilities are left behind. 

Industrial Device Patching Comes with Benefits  

Now that we explained the risks of the cost impact of improper patching methods, organizations should consider what are the benefits. While patching OT devices can be risky at times for devices and servers to crash which results in downtime, there is a real benefit to patching.  

One of the biggest benefits that organizations experience is having an asset inventory, this is a great place to start. Adopting an automatic asset inventory provides the most efficient and the most accurate method to visually manage an organization’s industrial devices and understand if there are vulnerabilities in those devices. By mapping vulnerabilities to assets, it will allow organizations to prioritize the patching of vulnerable devices and increase the visibility into the connection points of each device on the OT network. 

In addition, we recommend isolating vulnerable devices from the OT network. In some cases, some OT devices will have a vulnerability that does not have a patch available. This could result from the protocols of a specific industrial device having too lenient restrictions which would make the device more vulnerable. By isolating vulnerable devices it will help organizations from allowing attackers to move laterally within their OT environment.

Simplifying Industrial Device Management

Moving forward, organizations need to assume that there are always unpatched devices in their OT networks due to not being able to be patched or because they haven’t been patched yet. If organizations adopt a concrete industrial device patching management strategy it will allow their security teams to efficiently detect vulnerabilities and attacks early on before attackers exploit the devices.

To answer the question, “to patch or not to patch”, is not a simple yes or no answer. 

We recommend adopting an industrial device patching approach based on actual trial testing with different scenarios. By understanding real-time device data and vulnerability information it will allow organizations to prioritize their patching of industrial devices.

To learn more about industrial device patching, on November 10th at 11 am EST, Rapid7 and SCADAfence will host a joint webinar: The Comprehensive Guide to Industrial Device Patching. 

During the webinar, we will provide three excellent tools that will help you with the decision-making process if “to patch, workaround or do nothing.”

About Version 2 Digital

Version 2 Digital is one of the most dynamic IT companies in Asia. The company distributes a wide range of IT products across various areas including cyber security, cloud, data protection, end points, infrastructures, system monitoring, storage, networking, business productivity and communication products.

Through an extensive network of channels, point of sales, resellers, and partnership companies, Version 2 offers quality products and services which are highly acclaimed in the market. Its customers cover a wide spectrum which include Global 1000 enterprises, regional listed companies, different vertical industries, public utilities, Government, a vast number of successful SMEs, and consumers in various Asian cities.

About SCADAfence
SCADAfence helps companies with large-scale operational technology (OT) networks embrace the benefits of industrial IoT by reducing cyber risks and mitigating operational threats. Our non-intrusive platform provides full coverage of large-scale networks, offering best-in-class detection accuracy, asset discovery and user experience. The platform seamlessly integrates OT security within existing security operations, bridging the IT/OT convergence gap. SCADAfence secures OT networks in manufacturing, building management and critical infrastructure industries. We deliver security and visibility for some of world’s most complex OT networks, including Europe’s largest manufacturing facility. With SCADAfence, companies can operate securely, reliably and efficiently as they go through the digital transformation journey.

Top Nmap Commands for System Admins

Network Mapper (Nmap) is an open-source Linux command-line tool for network exploration and security auditing. With Nmap, server administrators can reveal services and hosts quickly, scan for open ports and search for security issues. The Nmap tool can assess and discover local and remote open ports as well as network information and hosts.

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The Main Effects Caused by the Pandemic on Information Security

With the coronavirus pandemic, companies had to adapt and reframe their businesses, which brought many benefits in terms of growth and digital presence. Home office and hybrid jobs are already a reality for most companies, especially technology ones; physical servers are being moved to cloud environments; and companies had to change the way they present themselves in the market and relate to clients, using large volumes of data combined with tools and Artificial Intelligence as the main resources to improve business strategies and increase sales.

These positive changes in the digital transformation, in turn, have created an almost complete reliance on technology, increasing companies’ exposure to vulnerabilities and cyberattacks such as cloud server hacks, leaks, and data hijacking. The current context forces organizations to go through this transformation process, without which it is impossible to evolve. 

Therefore, all business leaders must be aware of the dangers they are exposing their business to and are prepared to protect themselves and deal with these risky situations as assertively as possible. From the users’ point of view, it is important to pay attention to the protection of their own data and put aside some habits of insecure behavior in the virtual environment.

Check out the main effects of the pandemic on Information Security, according to research released by IBM Security and Kaspersky data.

Increased Attacks in Cloud Environment

Due to the pandemic, many companies are moving to the cloud environment, which increases the flow of data and, consequently, the risk of threats and attacks. Work previously performed on a machine under the supervision of the company’s IT staff is now performed on a machine handed over to the user, with little or no control by the information security team. 

The companies’ IT infrastructures are also freed up for remote access on the employees’ own machines. All these factors increase the chances of attacks.

Another concern, according to IBM, is the fact that Linux is the main responsible for workloads in the cloud (about 90%) and a good part of malware attacks are related to this operating system, which only tends to increase the attacks in cloud environments that use these virtual machines. 

Cybercriminals Are Impersonating Famous Brands in Online Shopping

It is no surprise that the pandemic has generated an increase in online purchases. As a result, cyberattacks have also become more frequent, and the lack of information from many consumers on how to shop safely online is also a fertile ground for this. 

According to an IBM report, cybercriminals are posing as consumer-trusted brands more often. Adidas was one of the brands that drew the most attention from the attacks, due to the high demand from consumers for coveted products. 

The launch of a brand model in 2020 may have increased this wave of attacks. Users were directed to pages identical to the original ones and, when making payments, cyber criminals tried to steal financial information, passwords, personal information, and even break into the victim’s devices.

Ransomware Attacks Were the Biggest Since 2019

A ransomware attack takes place through malicious software that blocks access or encrypts the data on the system, network, or computer of companies and/or users. Generally, cyber criminals ask for millions of dollars, mainly from prominent companies and people, in exchange for returning these accesses.

Social distancing and the practice of home office during the pandemic have intensified ransomware attacks around the world. “People stayed at home and had time to explore vulnerabilities in systems and critical infrastructure,” explains Apostolos Malatras, leader of the knowledge and information team at ENISA (European Agency for Network and Information Security). 

According to numerous recent research, this category of scam is becoming increasingly popular, particularly on corporate networks, as they can offer higher amounts in exchange for regaining access to data.

In Brazil alone, there was a 350% increase in this type of attack, just in the first quarter of 2020, according to data from Kaspersky. Also according to these data, the country leads the ranking of the largest number of companies attacked by this type of threat during the pandemic. 

Ransom figures have increased a lot and created a very profitable business for criminals. According to Fabio Assolini, an expert at Kaspersky, in addition to a greater guarantee of profit from attacks on organizations, this increase was also due to the recent drop in the price of Bitcoin, the main digital currency used by hackers. 

According to the expert, “Criminals know that companies and individuals are more vulnerable and accessing corporate networks from potentially unprotected devices. This increases the risk”.

About Version 2 Digital

Version 2 Digital is one of the most dynamic IT companies in Asia. The company distributes a wide range of IT products across various areas including cyber security, cloud, data protection, end points, infrastructures, system monitoring, storage, networking, business productivity and communication products.

Through an extensive network of channels, point of sales, resellers, and partnership companies, Version 2 offers quality products and services which are highly acclaimed in the market. Its customers cover a wide spectrum which include Global 1000 enterprises, regional listed companies, different vertical industries, public utilities, Government, a vast number of successful SMEs, and consumers in various Asian cities.

About Segura®
Segura® strive to ensure the sovereignty of companies over actions and privileged information. To this end, we work against data theft through traceability of administrator actions on networks, servers, databases and a multitude of devices. In addition, we pursue compliance with auditing requirements and the most demanding standards, including PCI DSS, Sarbanes-Oxley, ISO 27001 and HIPAA.

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