CURRENT THREAT SCENARIO

We have entered the era of “Cyber Attacks 2.0". Operation Aurora, Zeus, and Stuxnet are all part of a new generation of malware, which evaded existing security products, were engineered by highly skilled programmers and showed that traditional security approaches are no longer sufficient for effective protection.Tasked with protecting highly sensitive data assets, government cyber security teams must defend against these threats on a daily basis. Budget pressures force governments to increasingly rely on Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) products to help maintain network security. While these security solutions are necessary, experience shows that they are not enough for comprehensive protection of government networks. They can only detect known threats and standard attacks. They have known specifications that can be easily compromised by adversaries.In most cases, the role of COTS is to ensure a first line of cyber defense, which allows a government’s uniquely qualified cyber security specialists to focus on the abnormal and potentially most serious threats with custom solutions for complex infrastructure, confidentiality, and rapid threat mitigation needs. Must governments then go it alone to harden network security behind their COTS barriers? New trends to increase public/private partnerships and still preserve government’s unique confidentiality requirements can provide higher performance, cost-effective, cyber security solutions.

WHAT DOES THIS TECHNOLOGY DO?

Qosmos ixEngine builds on the concepts and capabilities of Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) and Business Intelligence (BI) to provide a more immediate and detailed understanding of data that transits networks. It examines IP packets in real time by identifying the communications protocols used and extracting flow / session / application content or metadata. This allows government teams to deploy more sophisticated cyber security solutions faster and more affordably than having to develop highly advanced security technology entirely on their own. ixEngine can be used by cyber defense teams to develop a custom barrier to deal specifically with the abnormal threats that evade COTS products. The information retrieved from the network allows cyber security specialists to improve their situational awareness so they can take preventive measures and protect sensitive assets.This second line of defense improves detection and mitigation of real and covert attacks that can compromise networks, and hastens response to new threats before they can be implemented by COTS vendors, enabling Government agencies to keep strategies confidential and minimize exposure to cyber threats.

The information retrieved from the network allows cyber security specialists to improve their situational awareness so they can take preventive measures and protect sensitive assets. Qosmos’ building block approach enables government cyber security teams to develop a custom barrier to deal with only the abnormal threats that evade COTS products. This improves detection and mitigation of real and covert attacks that can compromise networks, and hastens response to new threats before they can be implemented by COTS vendors. The building block approach with Qosmos ixEngine allows a government agency to leverage specific security policies and expertise that only their security teams have and, for confidentiality needs, can never be disclosed to vendors. The ixEngine building blocks decompose network activ¬ity in real time to expose protocol and application layer attributes, enabling deep network intelligence. The same technology building blocks can be used for multiple cyber security applications, which further reduces solutions development and maintenance costs. The custom barrier can be built to identify attacks from specific countries, terrorist groups, and dissidents acting alone.

CONCLUSION:

Governments still want to optimize resources and budgets. They search for synergy within the private sector to help address their unique cyber security requirements. Network Intelligence (NI ) technology from Qosmos feeds into this synergy with technology “building blocks” that allow governments to deploy more sophisticated cyber security solutions based on extraction and analysis of network data faster and more affordably. It would take years and considerable expense for agencies to develop capabilities similar to Qosmos ixEngine on their own. As an enabling technology, it significantly reduces the time and cost to achieve the substantial economic and operational benefits of Network Intelligence technology in their security systems. Available as a software development kit, Qosmos ixEngine can be used by government agencies to accelerate the delivery of more precise, secure and intelligent cyber defense capabilities.

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