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Boosting SOC Efficiency: The Impact of Automation and AI on Cyber Security

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Mohan Raj, the Vice President for META & APAC Regions, says automation has become indispensable in today’s SOC environment. As cyber threats evolve at an unprecedented pace, SOCs must detect, investigate, and respond to these threats in real-time, often at wire-speed

What is the role of automation in enhancing the efficiency of a Security Operations Center (SOC)?
In today’s cyber arena, cyber security threats are evolving daily, with this rapid increase in threat vectors, the Security operations centre must detect, investigate and respond to these threats in real-time as much as in wire speed. Manually defending these threats would increase the mean time to detect (MTTD) and mean time to respond (MTTR), hence automation of the Threat Detection, Investigation and Response (TDIR) in the SOC is critical.

Enterprises need a people-centred Security Analytics platform like Gurucul’s REVEAL that automates these SOC processes and provides clarity, focus and actionable intelligence. This is how SOC analysts can outpace threats and discover the full potential of an informed, empowered SecOps.

How do you prioritise which tasks to automate in a SOC?
Automation in all layers of the Security Operations Center is possible with the advancement and adaptation of ML&AI in cybersecurity today. Right from the ingestion of the metadata or telemetry to the NextGen SIEM Solution (TDIR), to analyse the data, executing the analytics on the data using ML models and responding to these threats using a Dynamic SOAR that is natively present in the TDIR platform. Gurucul’s REVEAL can provide enterprises with end-to-end automation on all layers of the SOC by leveraging close to 4000 ML models and Generative AI (SME AI).

What are the challenges you’ve faced when automating security processes, and how did you overcome them?
Automation in Cyber security if not done accurately would create a lot of false positive alarms. ML models need to be trained accurately and should be built to do both supervised and unsupervised learning in real-life scenarios of SOC. Plus Risk scoring of all the alerts is required to quantify the severity of the alerts and to prioritize the response actions.

Gurucul’s REVEAL quantifies and normalizes risk on a scale of 0–100, so security teams can quickly and easily understand and prioritize the top threats to the business. Analysts can see a consolidated risk score for any user, entity, application, or asset across every transaction, entitlement, and activity—and then take decisive action using a library of fully customizable response playbooks configured to your organization’s unique criteria.

With just a few clicks, security teams can easily customize risk scores based on defined risk tolerance—so analysts know where to focus time and attention. REVEAL even allows teams to create custom groups for critical or sensitive entities like executive laptops, contractors, database servers, or critical business applications—and then elevates risk scores to help analysts respond when these groups are impacted.

What strategies have you employed to optimise costs in security operations without compromising security?
Gurucul brings complete visibility into security threats and data analytics while controlling volume, and complexity and reducing cost by at least 40%. By streamlining collection, filtering, normalization, enrichment, and routing, Gurucul prepares data for in-depth analysis to give you radical clarity into your cyber risk. the Gurucul Data Optimizer centralizes data from any source, for any destination, in any format, and across any data lake.

Choose from a library of built-in data integrations, quickly create custom connectors, or request a guaranteed integration within 48 hours. From there, you can easily customize parsers and fork data to a variety of third-party systems—including SIEMs, data lakes, and low-cost storage. Enterprises with Gurucul’s REVEAL can now route unwanted records to long-term, cost-optimized storage and send relevant data to any SIEM or to any data lake. Once the data is optimised, analysts can query all of it from a single console through a federated search to avoid ingestion and transfer costs.

What are the primary risks involved in migrating from a traditional SIEM to a NextGen SIEM?
Most of the legacy or traditional SIEM solutions adopt a closed architecture and don’t have open integrations or pipelines to transfer data or content libraries to be exported. Hence the NextGen platforms should have the capabilities to ingest data from the legacy SIEMs in the existing formats of these platforms and should also have a mechanism to replicate and enrich the threat content, use cases, etc that these traditional SIEMs would be configured for.

Migrating from a traditional SIEM to Gurucul’s REVEAL NextGen SIEM platform is made much easier with the direct integration that REVEAL has with all the third-party traditional SIEMs. Data integrity is ensured in the migration from 3rd Party SIEMs to REVEAL’s Data lake. The use cases can be enabled on the fly with logical mapping. The 4000 ML models of Gurucul’s REVEAL can run on the historic data from the migrated SIEM and build baselines for all assets, entities, Users and identities, thus making it ready for analytics on Day 1.

Cyber Security

Here’s How Smart Devices are Eroding Privacy and Security

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Privacy is generally held as a fundamental right, with citizens often having high expectations regarding the protection of their personal information. Citizens protest when they fear that governments are increasing their involvement in the citizens’ personal lives. However, they don’t consider how much personal and sensitive data they share with any application that they install on their smartphone, or with smart devices in their homes.

Big tech companies and vendors of personal devices such as wearables, smartphones, and voice assistants collect intimate details about their users—often far more than any healthcare provider or government agency. These devices capture data on physical health (like heart rate, sleep patterns, and physical activity), mental well-being (through analysis of speech, facial expressions, and online activity), and personal preferences, including what we search for, buy, or listen to. Voice assistants continuously learn from user interactions, building profiles that can include details about routines, relationships, and even moods, inferred from voice tone and language.

This data extends beyond what any individual doctor could know, compiling a digital “fingerprint” of personal health and behaviour. For instance, wearables record heart rate, stress levels, and steps taken, creating a comprehensive record of the wearer’s physical and mental state. Online Platforms use sophisticated algorithms to understand users’ interests and behaviours better than many friends or family members might, mapping out everything from buying habits to political views.

These companies achieve such depth by aggregating data across devices, apps, and digital environments. The insights generated are not just for providing services but are also used in targeted advertising and can be shared with third parties or government entities under certain conditions, sometimes without users’ explicit knowledge.

Applications must request consent and permission to ask for sensors in your device, and usually, users easily give it. While this data has immense value for improving products and personalizing services, it raises significant privacy concerns because it operates largely without oversight, allowing tech companies to wield unprecedented insight into the intimate details of billions of lives.

In 2018, we learned about the Facebook and Cambridge Analytica scandal. In short, a consulting firm harvested personal data from millions of users without their consent. The data was used to build psychological profiles of users, which were then leveraged to deliver targeted political advertisements. The major concern was data monetization, ad profiling and targeted campaigns.
The discussion has escalated since then, and it is now around homeland security, influence campaigns, and espionage by foreign governments.

Privacy and cultural differences
A current public debate surrounds data collection practices by popular social media and technology companies. Investigations revealed that such apps gather extensive user data, including location, contacts, and behavioural data, raising concerns about data security and potential access by foreign governments. While these companies deny any unlawful access, governments have imposed strict oversight measures to ensure that sensitive user information is not compromised. This has sparked action worldwide, as countries prioritize data security for their citizens.

Smartphone and IoT device manufacturers from various regions are also under scrutiny. Concerns have been raised about the risk of foreign governments accessing user data through backdoors or other surveillance mechanisms. This issue is particularly prominent in countries with different approaches to data privacy, especially in authoritarian regimes that prioritise state control over individual privacy. These practices have led to heightened concerns over the potential misuse of devices for espionage or surveillance.

How Governments are Responding
Privacy Laws in Western countries exemplify this commitment to data privacy by giving individuals control over their data and requiring transparency from companies about data collection and sharing practices. Such frameworks are influenced by cultural values that prioritise individual freedoms and a deep-seated aversion to surveillance, especially in the private domain of one’s home.

This divergence not only shapes local privacy standards but also impacts international relations and the global IoT market. Democracies are increasingly implementing policies to restrict foreign-made devices suspected of being vulnerable to government interference, reinforcing the broader geopolitical contest between open and closed data governance models.

As these cases demonstrate, the threat is not hypothetical. Governments worldwide are actively grappling with the security and privacy implications posed by IoT devices, particularly from vendors with potential ties to state surveillance. In response, several regulatory and legal actions are underway:

  1. Bans and Restrictions on High-Risk Vendors: Select governments have taken action by banning specific foreign-made devices from critical infrastructure, particularly in government buildings and other sensitive areas. This approach, while controversial, is perceived as a necessary step to reduce the risk of espionage.
  2. Data Protection and Privacy Laws: The European GDPR and similar laws around the world are designed to give consumers more control over their data. These regulations require that companies provide clear consent options, disclose data usage, and allow users to manage the data collected by their devices. However, enforcing these laws on foreign companies remains a challenge. Therefore, in Europe, the commission approved last month the new extended Cyber Resilience Act (CRA), which demands manufacturers to comply with both privacy and security requirements in any connected device, if they want to sell them in the European market.
  3. Device Security Standards: Several countries have introduced laws mandating minimum security standards for devices used by government agencies. These laws encourage basic security measures like banning default passwords, thereby reducing the risk of unauthorized access.

The privacy breach incidents highlight the urgent need for stronger regulations and better consumer awareness of potential security threats. This story is not just about one family or a single breach; it’s a broader narrative of how the “smart” devices in our homes could, in the wrong hands, compromise our privacy and security. As governments, regulatory bodies, and consumers begin to navigate this new reality, collaboration and vigilance will be key to preserving the sanctity of our private spaces.

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Cyber Security

OPSWAT and TCC Partner to Secure Saudi Arabia’s Critical Infrastructure

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OPSWAT has formed a strategic partnership with Technology Control Company (TCC), a prominent Saudi firm specialising in security services, digital solutions, and big data. Through this partnership, TCC will implement and market OPSWAT’s unified MetaDefender platform, addressing critical challenges in malware detection, secure access, and data sanitisation. Together, OPSWAT and TCC will provide scalable, comprehensive solutions to protect Saudi Arabia’s essential IT and OT environments, addressing the growing demand for secure digital infrastructure across energy, finance, and government sectors.

Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, which emphasises the importance of cybersecurity to drive digital transformation and economic diversification, has pushed the growth of the Saudi cybersecurity market which is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12.5%, reaching SAR 15 billion by 2025. The industry still faces a significant shortage of cybersecurity professionals, with an estimated gap of 500,000 experts across the Middle East. OPSWAT’s solutions, combined with its educational initiatives through OPSWAT Academy, aim to address this skills gap by upskilling local professionals and reducing dependency on highly specialised in-house expertise through the solutions provided in collaboration with TCC.

“The demand for advanced cybersecurity solutions in Saudi Arabia has surged throughout 2023 and 2024, driven by the Kingdom’s ambitious digital transformation initiatives,” said Amjad Quteifan, Regional Sales Director at OPSWAT. “Through our partnership with TCC, we are uniquely positioned to deliver comprehensive security solutions that protect the critical infrastructure, empowering Saudi organisations to innovate and scale securely in support of Saudi Vision 2030.”

TCC has been a trusted provider of cutting-edge security solutions across Saudi Arabia since 2008. Commenting on the partnership, Mohammed AlMarri, TCC’s General Manager of Cybersecurity Services, stated, “With the growing convergence of IT and OT environments, the demand for advanced cybersecurity solutions is at an all-time high. At TCC, we leverage decades of expertise to deliver tailored cybersecurity services that protect critical infrastructure and sensitive data. Through our partnership with OPSWAT, we enhance our ability to provide comprehensive, scalable solutions that empower organisations to navigate the evolving threat landscape and safeguard their most valuable assets with confidence.”

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Cyber Security

Positive Technologies and MCS Join Forces as MEA Cyber Threats Surge

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Positive Technologies has signed a distribution agreement with Mideast Communication Systems (MCS), a leading provider of information technology and cybersecurity solutions headquartered in Cairo for the Middle East and Africa markets. The partnership will focus on sharing cybersecurity expertise and jointly promoting products and services in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Africa for result-driven cybersecurity.

Cyberattacks are still on the rise around the world: in the Middle East, their number tripled in Q1 compared to the same period in 2023. In Africa, over 70% of all cyberattacks in the last year targeted the public, finance, industry, and telecommunication sectors. Dark web marketplace research for the same period shows that information to access the networks of large domestic companies is available for an average of $2,970.

According to the 2023–2024 report by the International Telecommunication Union, Egypt is one of 12 nations awarded the highest rating in the Global Cybersecurity Index. However, Positive Technologies ranks the country second in Africa in terms of the number of cyberattacks (13%) after South Africa (22%).

Tarek Shabaka, MCS CEO, stated, “MCS has been in cybersecurity for 18 years, and today our strategic plan is centred on implementing cutting-edge solutions, supporting Egypt’s digital transformation, and expanding in the region. Our company has been growing its presence in Africa for the last several years. I’m confident that our partnership with Positive Technologies, a leading developer of advanced cybersecurity solutions and services, will help us significantly contribute to building a high level of cyber resilience among companies and organizations in the region.”

Ilya Leonov, Regional Director for MENA, Positive Technologies, stated that Positive Technologies has been working in the Middle East for several years and is excited to expand its partner network in Africa. “MCS has a wealth of experience with public sector and financial institutions, which we see targeted in more than half of all cyberattacks in Africa. We’re ready to share our extensive expertise, experience, and practical knowledge with our partners. Our collaboration with MCS will stretch beyond Egypt and include other countries in the Middle East and Africa. Priority will be given to industrial safety, DevSecOps, red team services, and ATM security assessment,” noted Ilya Leonov.

Mideast Communication Systems was founded in 2006 in Egypt, and today also has an office in Nairobi and operates in 10 countries in East and Central Africa. MCS annually hosts the FDC Summit, one of the largest IT exhibitions in Egypt held under the patronage of the Egyptian government and the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology.

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