Starting Monday, January 29, arguably the biggest Cyber Technology event in Israel took place in Tel Aviv. Each year this event lets scores of startups showcase their cyber security solutions alongside established companies and giants like Dell, IBM and Checkpoint.
The conference brings together an amazing assortment of Cyber technologies for defense, offense and management.
After walking the aisles and meeting these great people of innovation for hours a few insights came up:
1. Each solution is unique
In the not-so-far past, Information technology was more or less standard. You had your generic AV solutions and your firewalls which were pretty standard. A few years later, we are at a point where even solutions for the same issue are different and unique in design, implementation, management and probably any other criteria you can think of.
As technology advances, new ideas form into solutions and change the niches they're in or even create new niches altogether.
One exciting example is Minerva Labs - a technology which emerged from the malware deception field but then created an entire niche of its own. While our idea of malware deception was basically deploying honeypots (in some or other capacity) Minerva's agent deceives malware using evasive technology, blocks its deployment and reports the dormant malware back to the cyber-security team for research and response. Combined with any other AV software (and even free ones) this solution reaches amazing success ratios in blocking malware from attacking a network.
Another solution comes from Intezer which, not unlike Minerva Labs, is a new Israeli-based cyber technology company. Their solution is mapping known code and identifying 'DNA strings' to trace the code on any given file to its developers - malicious or benign. This technology can solve once and for all problems in identifying malware that 'hides' in complicated files, compiled binary files and maybe even encrypted files - overcoming compilation, obfuscation, polymorphism etc.
They were among the first to trace the devastating WannaCry ransomeware attack to its creators.
2. You Can Sell Anything
Following the previous section, and probably as a result of it, you can see a number of solutions to an issue, some are more complete than others obviously yet all claim to have the right answer and promise to deliver a complete solution. You hear the term robust used quite a lot...
As I inquired on the different companies' install-base, client-base and experience they all seem to be selling and in advanced POC stages in many companies around the world. This, by the way, is true for most cyber security fields and niches - for Israeli companies and otherwise.
3. People Are Still Buying Snake Oil
We, the entire Cyber Security industry, are making a lot of noise. While most of this noise is the sound of positive and necessary ingenuity, some is good ole' off-the-wagon snake oil.
In this new market that keeps changing and evolving, technologies are constantly being developed to meet the changing and evolving threats. Now, our good old information security manager has to be on the lookout for new technology that could increase the company's cyber security resilience on the one hand but on the other, they have to figure out which technology is better than most in a certain niche and then how well-suited is that technology to the organization's infrastructure and overall IT and cyber security schemes.
Final Thought
We live in exciting times! Technological advancement is taking us farther and faster than ever before. Attackers are becoming more sophisticated, more daring and ever more successful. To be successful in securing your organization to a reasonable level - get some help. Call a consultant. Get expert knowledge to support your decision making process. A few hours of expert knowledge and experience could save your company considerable resources and help you shine!