The advent of social networks have had a tremendous impact on how
individuals relate to one another in the cybersphere, and have also
proven to be an effective means for businesses to further corporate
branding and product marketing efforts.
Simply put, the Internet
has revolutionized how individuals and corporations interface with the
each other, and now social networks are revolutionizing how we
interface with the Internet.
Unfortunately, these innovations
have come at a tremendous cost to enterprise security efforts by
dramatically increasing network vulnerability pathways, and by
decreasing the level of organizational controls over access to
sensitive and proprietary information.
According to Mark Nicolett, VP Distinguished Analyst - Security Privacy & Risk, at Gartner, in the recent report entitled Security Monitoring and Assessment for Cloud Environments, "application
activity monitoring is important because application weaknesses are
frequently exploited in targeted attacks, and because abnormal
application activity may be the only signal of a successful breach or of
fraudulent activity."
Sandy Bird, co-founder and CTO of Q1 Labs said,
"Companies today face the increasing challenge of keeping their
networks safe from hackers that have evolved, and that are taking
advantage of new avenues of attack - such as social networking sites and
applications utilized by partners, outsourcers and employees. They are
also faced with keeping productivity up, due to the ‘always-connected'
mentality of employees that want to be constantly connected to their
social networks.
Businesses can regain the element of
control without hampering the flow of crucial information by employing
software that monitors activity on an enterprise-wide basis for
potential threats to information and network security.
Q1 Labs
recently announced it has introduced the next version of its security
information and event management (SIEM) product called QRadar 7.0,
complete with the ability to monitor activity on social media platforms
and multimedia applications such as Twitter, Facebook, Gmail, LinkedIn
and Skype, among others.
The anomaly detection and configurable
content capture via deep packet inspection (DPI) make it easy to detect
Web-based malware, discover what vulnerabilities are being introduced
to the environment when applications are accessed, and what kinds of
information users are making public in real-time.
Q1 Lab's Sandy Bird also indicated that "leveraging
our native capabilities for DPI and content capture, the new version
of QRadar allows companies to see into what social media applications
are being used on their networks, and determine what types of threats
come to light if these types of applications are allowed."
Social Media Monitoring and Correlation:
the ability to monitor the usage of social media from within a
customer's network. This includes the ability to identify which users
are accessing which social media services, determine the volume and
pattern of usage, and inspect and alert on the content being
transmitted to those services.
Social media usage can also be
correlated against other network and log activity within an enterprise -
e.g. the transmission of data to a social media site immediately
following the user accessing a sensitive internal resource.
User and Application Anomaly Detection:
the ability to detect anomalous behavior of both network and
application usage by specific users. Excessive or out-of-profile
behavior can be detected for example, out-of-hours or excessive usage
of an application or cloud-based service, or network activity patterns
which are inconsistent with a system's or user's historical profile.
Client-Side Vulnerability Profiling:
the ability to identify a network's most vulnerable assets, and then
detect and alert immediately when these systems engage in activity that
potentially exposes those vulnerabilities.
For example,
customers can scan their networks for unpatched applications, devices
and systems, determine which ones connect to the Internet, and
prioritize remediation actions based on the risk profile of each
application.
Q1 Labs is a global provider of high-value,
cost-effective next-generation security intelligence products. The
company's flagship product, QRadar SIEM, integrates previously disparate functions - including risk management, log management,
network behavior analytics, and security event management - into a
total security intelligence solution, making it the most intelligent,
integrated and automated SIEM product available.
QRadar SIEM
provides users with crucial visibility into what is occurring with
their networks, data centers, and applications to better protect IT
assets and meet regulatory requirements.
Q1 Labs is headquartered
in Waltham, Mass., U.S.A., and the company's customers include
healthcare providers, energy firms, retail organizations, utility
companies, financial institutions, government agencies, and
universities, among others.
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