Endpoint Security and Network Monitoring News for the Week of July 19; AppOmni, SonicWall, Fortinet, and More

The editors at Solutions Review have curated this list of the most noteworthy endpoint security and network monitoring news for the week of July 19. This curated list features endpoint security and network monitoring vendors such as AppOmni, SonicWall, Fortinet, and more.

Keeping tabs on all the most relevant endpoint security and network monitoring news can be a time-consuming task. As a result, our editorial team aims to provide a summary of the top headlines from the last month in this space. Solutions Review editors will curate vendor product news, mergers and acquisitions, venture capital funding, talent acquisition, and other noteworthy endpoint security and network monitoring news items.

Endpoint Security and Network Monitoring News for the Week of July 19

Routine CrowdStrike Update Leads to Global Microsoft Outage

A routine software update caused cascading chaos Friday that has engulfed global businesses from airports and banks to retail and law enforcement. It wasn’t a cyberattack, but was caused by one of the world’s largest cybersecurity companies deploying a flawed update while trying to keep their customers safe from hackers. CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity company based in Austin, Texas, that’s widely used by businesses and government agencies that run on Microsoft computers, said that a defect in one of its updates for computers running the Windows operating system had caused the issue. The result was arguably the largest global information technology outage in history.

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AppOmni Brings Aboard Industry Veteran Joel Wallenstrom

AppOmni, a pioneer of SaaS security posture management (SSPM), this week announced that industry veteran Joel Wallenstrom joins the company as General Manager. In this new role, Joel will lead a united function that brings together the Product, Engineering, and Customer Success disciplines. Joel brings a unique set of credentials to his new role. He was previously CEO of Wickr, a secure communications provider that was acquired by Amazon Web Services (AWS). He led the transformation of the company’s key offering from a consumer messaging app to an end-to-end encrypted collaboration platform used by Fortune 100 companies and critical commands across the Five Eyes and NATO allies. Previously, he served as President & CEO of iSEC Partners, a professional services firm highly respected for its cutting-edge independent security research and incident response in high-profile cyber cases. In 2010, security consulting firm NCC Group acquired iSEC Partners, and he subsequently served as GM of North America for the parent company. During this period, NCC Group acquired leading security players, notably Matasano, Intrepidus, FOX-IT and VSR. He began his career in tech security in late 1999 as Director for Strategic Alliances, @stake, one of the first information security providers.

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KnowBe4 Launches BreachSim, a Free Tool to Aid in Detecting Network Security Weaknesses

KnowBe4, a security awareness training and simulated phishing platform and solutions provider, this week announced the release of BreachSim, a free tool designed to help organizations identify and address network security vulnerabilities from the lens of a hacker. BreachSim enables IT security professionals and network administrators to uncover weaknesses in their security infrastructure and demonstrate the critical importance of employee training. BreachSim detects how data is being exfiltrated and helps uncover network vulnerabilities unique to an organization. This information allows organizations to know the necessary measures to harden their cybersecurity defenses and train their employees to build a strong human firewall. BreachSim conducts the simulations and provides results in a few minutes. Compatible with Windows 10 or later and Windows Server 2016 or later, BreachSim offers an analysis of potential data exfiltration.

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SonicWall Launches Cloud Secure Edge (CSE) Platform

SonicWall announced this week the launch of Cloud Secure Edge (CSE), offering a suite of Zero Trust Access solutions designed specifically for MSPs who are meeting customers with increasingly remote work forces on their cloud migration journeys. “In today’s dynamic threat landscape, where remote work and cloud adoption are accelerating, organizations need a flexible security solution that can seamlessly protect users and data across any network environment,” said SonicWall Executive Vice President of Product Strategy Tarun Desikan. “Banyan was an early innovator and market leader in delivering SSE to enterprises of all sizes. CSE takes that experience and adds SonicWall’s network security knowledge to launch highly flexible and cost-effective solutions – ensuring that any organization can maintain high-performance connectivity while safeguarding against evolving cyber threats. These innovative offerings, designed in consultation with SonicWall MSPs, not only simplify deployment and management but also enhance overall security posture, making them essential and accessible tools for evolving IT environments.”

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Mimecast Unveils Human Risk Management Platform

Mimecast, a global cybersecurity leader, has unveiled its Human Risk Management (HRM) platform this week. The platform will provide “unprecedented” visibility into an organization’s risk profile, scoring users by risk and allowing security teams to educate and protect the riskiest part of their employee base. “Our platform is centered around protecting organizations from employee mistakes and user error, aligning key defense and data controls to offer one of the most comprehensive approaches to human risk management,” said Mimecast CEO, Marc van Zadelhoff. “We provide a single solution that brings together multiple technologies – from Mimecast and dozens of partners – to help organizations protect collaboration and engage employees in risk mitigation.”

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Fortinet Research: “Dark Web Shows Cybercriminals Ready for Olympics”

According to a new FortiGuard Labs analysis based on threat intelligence provided by FortiRecon, this year’s Olympics have been a target for a growing number of cybercriminals for over a year. Using publicly available information and proprietary analysis, this report provides a comprehensive view of planned attacks, such as third-party breaches, infostealers, phishing, and malware, including ransomware. Beginning the second half of 2023, FortiGuard Labs has observed a significant increase in darknet activity targeting France and resources being gathered for the Paris Olympic Games, especially those targeting French-speaking users, French government agencies and businesses, and French infrastructure providers. This 80 percent to 90 percent increase in activity has remained consistent across 2H 2023 and 1H 2024. The prevalence and sophistication of these threats are a testament to cybercriminals’ planning and execution, with the dark web serving as a hub for their activities.

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Expert Insights Section

Watch this space each week as our editors will share upcoming events, new thought leadership, and the best resources from Insight Jam, Solutions Review’s enterprise tech community for business software pros. The goal? To help you gain a forward-thinking analysis and remain on-trend through expert advice, best practices, trends and predictions, and vendor-neutral software evaluation tools.

SecurityScorecard CEO Offers Commentary on Microsoft Global Outage

“When I used to work at Goldman Sachs, the policy was to get tools from multiple vendors. This way, if one firewall goes down by one vendor, you have another vendor who may be more resilient.

Today’s global outage is a reminder of the fragility and systemic ‘nth-party’ concentration risk of the technology that runs everyday life: airlines, banks, telecoms, stock exchanges, and more. SecurityScorecard, in collaboration with McKinsey, produced research showing that 62 percent of the global external attack surface is concentrated in the products and services of just 15 companies.

An outage is just another form of a security incident. Antifragility in these situations comes from not putting all your eggs in one basket. You need to have diverse systems, know where your single points of failure are, and proactively stress-test through tabletop exercises and simulations of outages. Consider the “chaos monkey” concept, where you deliberately break your systems—e.g., shut down your database or make your firewall malfunction to see how your computers react.

Whether caused by a malicious DDoS attack or a faulty patch update, the end result of an outage is the same: Users are denied access to critical systems.

This disruption creates a fertile ground for exploitation, as attackers prey on the vulnerability of users seeking solutions. The timing of this event and how public it is happens to be exactly what attackers look for to craft targeted attacks. Threat actors may use social engineering tactics to disguise malware as legitimate restoration tools to gain unauthorized access to systems. Vigilance is paramount, as organizations must not only address the outage but also fortify defenses against opportunistic attacks that exploit the chaos.”

-Aleksandr Yampolskiy, CEO of SecurityScorecard