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Mimecast Publishes New Report Detailing Threat Actor Attacks During “The Year of Social Distancing”

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Mimecast Limited has announced the publication of its new “The Year of Social Distancing” global report. Drawing on data from the Mimecast threat intelligence team, the report details how threat actors targeted remote workers during the first year of the pandemic, March 2020 – February 2021. The report describes how attack volume surged by 48% during the first year of the pandemic, with sudden increases in volume corresponding to spikes in COVID-19 infection rates in April and October 2020.

“Threat actors took advantage of the pandemic to launch a torrent of COVID-19-themed social engineering attacks, understanding that people were under stress working in the home environment, and thus more likely to be deceived and make mistakes,” said Josh Douglas, vice president, product management at Mimecast. “The second part of that strategy was to ‘flood the zone’ in security operations centers. They knew analysts would also be stressed and stretched thin, so overwhelming them with a high volume of threats would increase the likelihood of their attacks slipping through defenses.”

The report also examines the cyber habits of at-home workers, which revealed some alarming facts, including:

  • A 3x rise in unsafe clicks in March 2020, right when the work-from-home trend began.
  • In the UAE, 61 % of the respondents admitted to opening suspicious emails, while 50% do not report suspicious emails to their IT or security teams.
  • 87% of UAE respondents extensively use their company-issued device for personal matters, with two-thirds (66%) admitting to an increase in frequency since starting to work remote.

Even though vaccine rollouts have begun and organizations may soon start making plans for people to return to offices in the months ahead, the Mimecast threat intelligence team has assessed the likelihood of threat actors continuing to exploit the unsettled work situation as very likely (95%). These exploitation efforts will likely focus both on remote workers and those returning to the office – which creates the possibility of a new “unsettled” situation that opens the door for the possibility of new waves social engineering campaigns.

“We’re now seeing sophisticated digital-deception campaigns where threat actors combine COVID-19-related social engineering with multi-channel campaigns – including email, social media and even phone – to gain credibility with their targets so they can then be tricked into giving away valuable information or credentials,” said Douglas. “We expect this challenging threat environment to continue for the foreseeable future as employees transition to the new normal  which in many cases will be a hybrid in-office/at-home work mix. It has never been more important for enterprises to take steps to counter these digital-deception campaigns by hardening employees as targets through ongoing cybersecurity training programs, and to secure the infrastructure of the new ‘virtual workplace’  particularly email and collaboration tools.”

Cloud

SentinelOne Simplifies Secure Cloud Migrations on AWS

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SentinelOne today announced its participation in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Independent Software Vendor (ISV) Workload Migration Program. This initiative supports AWS Partner Network (APN) members with SaaS offerings on AWS to accelerate and streamline workload migrations.

Through the program, SentinelOne will provide AWS customers with accelerated, secure cloud migration support, leveraging modern AI-powered CNAPP capabilities to ensure rapid and protected transitions. With access to AWS funding, technical resources, and go-to-market support, SentinelOne will help organizations reduce migration timelines and costs while maintaining robust security.

SentinelOne’s Singularity Cloud Security delivers real-time visibility and protection throughout the migration journey—whether from on-premises or another cloud—enabling a secure, seamless transition to AWS.

“Through our participation in the AWS ISV Workload Migration Program, SentinelOne is helping customers accelerate secure cloud migrations with end-to-end protection and visibility,” said Ric Smith, President of Product, Technology, and Operations at SentinelOne. “Whether moving from on-prem or another cloud to AWS, organizations can count on us to deliver the security they need throughout their journey—realizing the performance, speed, agility, and cost benefits of the cloud.”

Singularity Cloud Security combines agentless and agent-based protection for deep visibility, continuous posture management, and real-time threat detection across hybrid and multi-cloud environments. By collaborating with AWS and ecosystem partners, SentinelOne ensures seamless integration into migration projects, helping customers move faster, reduce risk, and scale confidently in the cloud.

Availability: SentinelOne’s solutions are available globally.

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Versa and OPSWAT Partner to Strengthen SASE Security with Real-Time Device Defense

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Versa has announced a strategic technology partnership with OPSWAT to significantly enhance the real-time device security monitoring capabilities of the Versa SASE Client. The Versa SASE Client uniquely combines connectivity and security for users and their devices. It facilitates real-time best-path routing and enforces dynamic security policies based on Zero Trust principles and continuously evaluated device security posture.

Through this partnership, Versa has integrated OPSWAT’s MetaDefender Endpoint Security SDK directly into the Versa SASE Client. This integration empowers IT teams to leverage real-time device posture data, enabling them to automatically validate endpoints and enforce Zero Trust policies, thereby reducing the attack surface.

“Remote workers and BYOD users need access to critical business systems and data; however, this increases organizations’ threat risks if endpoint devices are not secure,” said Anusha Vaidyanathan, Senior Director of Product Management at Versa. “This partnership enables Versa customers to apply OPSWAT’s MetaDefender Endpoint Security SDK directly within our VersaONE Universal SASE Platform. As businesses continue to operate in cloud and hybrid settings, this joint solution enables IT teams to minimize risk by verifying device security and compliance policies before granting access to secure company systems.”

“Our partnership with Versa validates OPSWAT’s commitment to securing critical infrastructure by integrating advanced endpoint compliance capabilities directly into the VersaONE Universal SASE Platform,” said Hamid Karimi, Vice President of Technical Alliances and OEM at OPSWAT. “With OPSWAT MetaDefender Endpoint Security SDK, Versa customers can confidently ensure device compliance and security before network access, providing better defense against today’s evolving cybersecurity threats.”

The MetaDefender SDK is a versatile, cross-platform, and modular framework that serves as a powerful endpoint security software development platform. It enables software engineers and technology vendors to develop advanced endpoint security products. Specifically, the SDK’s Device Compliance Module allows software engineers to implement features for a wide range of applications, including device posture assessment and detection of potentially unwanted applications. This empowers them to deliver enhanced secure remote access, compliance, network access control, remote support, and other critical capabilities to their end customers.

The Versa SASE Client, now with OPSWAT enhancements, is currently available as a core component of the Versa Universal SASE Platform.

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Cyber Security

Sophos Boosts Firewall with New Protection and Incident Response Features

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Sophos has announced a significant update to its Sophos Firewall software, introducing enhanced protection and incident response capabilities. This update notably includes Sophos NDR Essential, a new feature now available free of charge to all customers holding an XStream Protection license for Sophos Firewall.

This integration empowers Sophos Firewall with two dedicated artificial intelligence (AI) engines specifically designed to detect both malware communications and those utilizing algorithmically generated domain names. This advanced functionality, derived from the Sophos Network Detection and Response (NDR) probe, aims to identify sophisticated malware communications even if they are previously unknown or not yet indexed. It serves as a powerful complement to the Active Threat Response capabilities already embedded within Sophos firewalls.

Chris McCormack, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Sophos

Addressing the technical demands of such advanced detection, Chris McCormack, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Sophos, explained the strategic approach, “NDR traffic analysis requires substantial processing power. That’s why we’ve adopted a new approach by deploying an NDR solution in Sophos Cloud to offload the heaviest tasks from the firewall.” This cloud-centric design ensures optimal performance without burdening the firewall’s on-device resources.

Beyond network detection, the update also brings significant improvements to connectivity and user authentication. Sophos Connect now integrates EntraID for Single Sign-On (SSO). This new feature for the VPN client, bundled with Sophos Firewall, is set to enhance both the security and user experience for SSL and IPsec VPN connections. The integration with EntraID (Azure AD) enables users to authenticate and leverage multi-factor authentication for both Sophos Connect and access to the user portal hosted by the firewall, streamlining secure access.

Further VPN-related enhancements include:

  • Improved user interface and usability: Connection types have been renamed for greater clarity, with “site-to-site” now referred to as “policy-based” and tunnel interfaces as “route-based,” making configurations more intuitive.
  • Dynamic validation of the IP address pool: For VPN connections (SSL VPN, IPsec, L2TP, and PPTP), the system now dynamically validates the allocated IP address pool, helping to better resolve potential IP address conflicts.
  • Strict profile enforcement: IPsec profiles now exclude default values to ensure algorithm synchronization, effectively eliminating potential fragmentation of session negotiation packets that could otherwise prevent site-to-site VPN tunnels from being established.
  • Route-based VPN and SD-RED scalability: The system has been optimized to support up to 3,000 simultaneously established tunnels. Specifically, Sophos Firewall solutions can now manage up to 1,000 SD-RED site-to-site tunnels and connect up to 650 concurrent SD-RED devices.

Additional management improvements enhance administrative flexibility and search capabilities:

  • More flexible DHCP Prefix Delegation (IPv6 DHCP-PD): The system now supports a broader range of prefixes, from /48 to /64, improving compatibility with various internet service providers.
  • Router Advertisement (RA) and DHCPv6 server: These features are now enabled by default, simplifying IPv6 network setup.
  • Resizable table columns: The web admin interface continues its adaptation for ultra-wide screens, with many configuration pages now allowing users to resize columns as needed for improved usability.
  • Enhanced object search functionality: The search field within the SD-WAN routing configuration screen now supports more granular criteria, including route name, ID, objects, and object values like IP addresses and domains. Similarly, local ACL rules now also support object name and value searches, extending to content-based searches for more precise results.
  • Default configuration changes: To streamline initial setups, default firewall rules and rule groups previously created during new firewall deployments have been removed. The initial configuration now only includes the default network rule and MTA rules. Furthermore, the default firewall rule group and the default gateway probe for custom gateways are now set to “None” by default.

Sophos continues its commitment to cybersecurity through a “Secure by Design” approach, enhancing the intrinsic security of its firewalls. This methodology involves the containerization of specific features and rigorous integrity checks on critical operating system files using mathematical checksums. Any detected checksum mismatch triggers a potential compromise alert, enabling monitoring teams to proactively identify possible security incidents affecting the firewall OS integrity. This proactive detection allows incident response and development teams to react swiftly to critical security events.

This update is now available for manual download and deployment by customers with any Sophos Firewall equipped with a valid license.

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