Organizations of all sizes having been trying to address Big Data, Security Intelligence and contextual security for awhile, but without much success. For security folks in particular this is a sensitive topic, as nestled among the thousands of lines of code or logs files is what they need to know to prevent the next successful breach.
SIEM was supposed to be the savior; take all this info, gather, correlate and give it to you in a useful format, but all it really did was put the information in a different format, one that still requires human intervention to figure out what to do next. Instead of reviewing the data in a raw format and making educated decisions, now companies have 2, 4 or more people reviewing log files to figure their next steps.
So what did people do when they realized that SIEM wasn't the end-all-be all solution? They went out and bought GRC. While is it a great tool for governing compliance (i.e. did I follow all 17 steps in patching process or are we patching all critical vulnerabilities in less than X days?), it doesn't give you a proactive measure of the risk to your most critical assets. It's a great tool for handing off a report to an auditor, but it doesn't help the folks in the trenches to get a better idea of where the next attack is coming from. It doesn't say where you are most vulnerable and what could happen if the vulnerability is exploited. So flipping the question around, how can you be sure the "issues" that you are ignoring won't come back to bite you?
We know people aren't going to work on, say "patch all the vulnerabilities we found with Retina", and we know that if you are like most of our customers you are only going to work on a fraction of the output from your vulnerability management system - so the key is working on the RIGHT THINGS. Most organizations today can't say with any reasonable confidence that they are in fact working on the most pressing security issues to their business. Instead they are simply working on what they think they should.
Our goal is to give context to your information security process. Do these vulnerabilities you plan to address tie to a critical asset? By devoting your precious resources to remediation will you lower your overall risk profile? Can you report in the context of the business to upper management? If you can't answer all these questions in the affirmative maybe it's time to take a fresh look at how you are managing your vulnerabilities. It's not about working harder it's about working smarter.
Mike Yaffe, Vice President, Marketing at BeyondTrust
Michael brings more than 15 years of experience at organizations ranging from start-ups to Fortune 100 companies to his position. He has a significant record of achievement in developing strategic and tactical marketing programs for information security companies. He possesses a strong set of skills in lead generation, public and analyst relations, product marketing, partnership development, positioning and branding. Prior to his role at BeyondTrust, he spent over 10 years with Core Security where he established the company's leadership position in the penetration testing space and helped grow revenues more than 10 fold during his tenure. Earlier in his career, he held various strategic, product, and marketing positions with NTRU Cryptosystems, SHYM Technology and CyberTrust. Michael was also a TV reporter and anchor for WVNY-TV (ABC) in Burlington, VT. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing from Bryant University and a Master’s Degree in Journalism from Boston University.
