Preempt Blog

The 2010 discovery of the Stuxnet worm was one of the truly seminal moments in the world of cybersecurity. The world saw firsthand how malicious code could cause crippling damage to physical assets. Virtually every industry had to stop and take notice, and none more so than the energy sector.

This week, IAM and security professionals came together in Las Vegas for the Gartner Identity and Access Management (IAM) Summit to discuss the top trends and strategies across the IAM landscape in 2018 and beyond. From best practices for implementing mature solutions to discussions about the future of the innovative technologies, the summit gave refuge for all the weary-eyed professionals looking to tackle their biggest security challenges.

Most of us still dream practical, down to earth, old fashioned dreams. And I’d place a bet that not many people, if any, dream about their credentials being stolen.  Almost all of my memories from the last 15 years or so are stored digitally. The majority of my day to day activity is managed online. My online persona is almost identical to my physical one. I imagine that  many of you are in the same situation.

Multi-factor authentication (MFA) has become an essential building block of security policy and practice, and likewise has taken on an increasingly important role in regulatory standards such as the PCI-DSS. Specifically, PCI Requirement 8.3 calls out how MFA should be used to secure both the cardholder data environment (CDE) as well as any networks connected to the CDE. And while protecting your most valuable assets with MFA makes good intuitive sense, the details can get a little tricky if you don’t have a flexible way of enforcing policy in your networks. Fortunately, Preempt’s security platform makes it easy to extend MFA to any asset based on almost context you choose. So let’s take a quick look at what PCI requires, and how you can turn a deceptively tricky requirement into a simple, automated process that you never have to think about.

Penetration testing is a critical best practice for virtually any organization’s cybersecurity posture. By putting defenses to the test against trained offensively-minded professionals, organizations can gain deep insights into how they’ll fare against real attackers. Often, the challenge is that the results are not what you would have hoped. When pen testers are able to carve through your defenses at will, it can be discouraging and hard to know where to start.

Corporate boards widely recognize due diligence as a critically important component of the M&A process, particularly when it comes to vetting financial numbers and legal obligations. The stakes are enormous: The value of worldwide mergers and acquisitions totaled $3.6 trillion in 2017, according to Thomson Reuters. Globally, M&A activity is increasing and could reach record highs in 2018.

Across the conference circuit and the general cybersecurity community this year, Zero Trust – a term originally coined in 2010 – has been perhaps the industry’s hottest buzzword. Move over, blockchain and machine learning. In my previous blog, I outlined what Zero Trust means and what lessons the framework offers for the security community. To recap the challenges of Zero Trust: organizations face hurdles around securing legacy applications/network resources and tools and protocols; regulatory headwinds given that the framework can theoretically conflict with global legislation, including GDPR; and the looming reality that the typical large global enterprise lacks the organization-wide visibility and control necessary for implementation. Here, I’ll outline a framework for a true Zero Trust model that adheres to industry best practices while specifically avoiding the potential for an over-engineered network overhaul, wasted IT budget, and potentially costly organizational disruption.

NTLM (NT LAN Manager) is Microsoft's old authentication protocol that was replaced with Kerberos starting Windows 2000. It was designed and implemented by Microsoft engineers for the purpose of authenticating accounts between Microsoft Windows machines and servers. Even though it has not been the default for Windows deployments for more than 17 years, it is still very much in use, and I have not yet seen a network where it has been completely abandoned. In fact, it also supported by the latest version of Active Directory.

Last week, I was on the road speaking with CISOs across the country. One theme emerged loud and clear: Virtually all of the organizations have invested a lot in security tools and solutions, but despite their investment, they struggle with getting a complete view of user access across platforms. So, with that, I’d like to share how our customers have been able to overcome this common challenge to gain a more holistic view of users and identity within their organizations.

(Note: see part two of our Zero Trust blog posts here)

It’s a common question after a major breach: did you do everything you could have to protect your network? Most of the time the answer is...probably not. Often, we live in a false sense of security. We know it, and most of us are OK with it. But let's talk about what’s practical and what steps can be taken to help you get to a better sense of security.