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Cyber Security

Meeting the Cybersecurity Jobs Challenge

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Written by Allen McNaughton, Systems Engineering Director for Infoblox Public Sector

It’s no secret that the cybersecurity industry is in something of a talent crisis. The need for cybersecurity experts greatly outpaces the supply. These professionals underpin the security and integrity of networks and data, manage a company’s security stack, and have the skills to identify, react to and remediate security risks.

Over the past year, this talent pool has faced unprecedented demands as the pandemic forced understaffed cybersecurity teams to extend security to cover the blending of corporate and home technologies as millions of employees worked remotely—all while adjusting to the challenges of remote work themselves.

To compound these difficulties, malicious actors have pounced, preying on these new work arrangements, hastily set up network architectures, and fears of the pandemic to launch a growing number of cyber-attacks. All of this has culminated in a cybersecurity workforce that is stretched out, overburdened, and burnt out.

The novelty of this situation has forced organizations to rethink how they attract talent, train employees, and educate those inside and outside the organization to better understand the different threats they face. Organizations are raising pay, recruiting from underserved communities, and making cybersecurity careers more accessible to students without a traditional degree.

These solutions are helping but not filling the entire gap. This challenge did not arise overnight and will require long-term strategic thinking to overcome. And unfortunately, time is a luxury. Malicious actors are not good sports, waiting for the cybersecurity community to transform itself before launching an attack.

The cybersecurity industry needs to act now and follow the lead of the fast food industry and small businesses that have addressed skill shortages by leveraging technology to help manage work, increase productivity, and reduce burnout.

Here’s how…

First, look for technology solutions that prioritize automation. Technology that automates lower-order tasks is relatively easy to deploy, frees up workers’ valuable time and also removes the potential for any human error combing through different risks.

Second, recognize the power of context. In cybersecurity, context can help workers better understand the threats they face and enable them to make better, more accurate, and faster decisions.

Not all threats are the same, so it’s important that context follows automation so that security teams do not waste hours chasing down the most basic of threats that can easily be remediated via technology.

Third, look for technology solutions that leverage the expertise you already have. While context is key for understanding a single threat, it’s also valuable for cybersecurity teams who need to make decisions about which threats to prioritize. Workflow prioritization can help identify and remediate the most dangerous, time-consuming threats instead of randomly remediating threats based on when they’re discovered.

Many solutions already exist that can provide this kind of automation, orchestration and context. For example, if you are monitoring the DNS traffic of your network and your DNS Firewall blocks a request to a malicious site, solutions that can automatically trigger a response to the Network Access Control system to quarantine that user into a sandbox until it can be further researched by an analyst can dramatically reduce the time and effort needed to track down and isolate infected devices. At the same time, systems that automatically send additional context about that user and the request (Who is the user? What kind of machine are they using? Where was the request sent?) to the analyst can give them a head start into researching and ultimately mitigating the threat.

Vulnerability scanners are also a point of note. Oftentimes, they only scan networks at a given interval (once a day, week, or even month. Yes, monthly scans are a thing). Organizations can quickly, easily, and automatically improve their security posture by scanning a device as soon as it connects to the network by leveraging an orchestration flow where the DHCP server automatically identifies the new machine and triggers the scan.

These and other technology solutions that leverage automation, context, and the skills your team already has are not merely a bridge between now and a fully-staffed cybersecurity industry of the future. They are a critical part of a robust cybersecurity platform today, one that both improves network security and extends the capabilities of the team you already have.

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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Cyber Security

Beyond Blocklists: How Behavioural Intent Analysis Can Safeguard Middle East Businesses from Rising AI-Driven Bot Threats

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The Middle East is facing an unprecedented surge in AI-driven bot attacks, with malicious automation now outpacing traditional defenses. Mohammad Ismail, Vice President for EMEA at Cequence Security, warns that legacy tools like IP blocklists and rate limiting are no match for today’s sophisticated threats (more…)

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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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