Cyber Resilience Approaches, New Illumio Tools, and the Hacking Humans Podcast

Solving modern cybersecurity problems isn’t always easy. With traditional security approaches failing to protect organizations from devastating attacks, it’s clear that the security industry must continue to innovate to move forward – and quickly. This requires fast, creative thinking with a focus on the future.  

Illumio news coverage from this month shows the innovative work Illumio is doing to be a leader in the security industry by continuously improving the ways organizations can secure themselves against breaches.

Keep reading to learn about:

• Forbes’ recommendation of a new approach to security (like Illumio Zero Trust Segmentation)

• The new Illumio Incident Response Partner program, updated platform features, and tools you can start using now
• How Paul Dant, Senior Systems Engineer at Illumio, uses his childhood hacking experience in his current cybersecurity role

Forbes: Cyber resilience requires budget – and a new approach

The cyber threat landscape gets riskier every day, and organizations must be prepared with an “assume breach” mindset. Forbes’ Roger Trapp featured the Illumio Zero Trust Segmentation (ZTS) Platform as a key technology working to help protect companies from devastating breaches in his latest article, Combatting Cyber Attacks Requires More Than Just Money.

“It is a worrying fact,” wrote Trapp, “that, while digital technology is transforming both our personal lives and our interactions with companies and government, it is also making us increasingly susceptible to fraud and other crimes.”

In fact, Trapp cites recent data by the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Defense Agency, that 47% of American adults have had their information exposed online from cyber criminals. Further substantiating the fact that breaches – and their oftentimes significant impact – are inevitable in today’s complex technological ecosystem.  

Trapp explains that this increase in cyberattacks is leading organizations to spend more money than ever before to prevent, detect, and recover from breaches. In fact, Trapp explains, cyberattacks have become such a serious issue that reducing cyber risk is now increasingly a board-level priority.

“Yet, despite this renewed focus, business leaders still don’t have a firm grasp on how cyber risk can impact different business initiatives – or that it could be used as a strategic asset and core business differentiator,” said Trapp.

While adding budget to security initiatives will help fill security gaps, organizations also need to recognize that cyber risks are “existential” and require new approaches that go beyond traditional prevention and detection, according to Trapp.

Trapp highlights Illumio ZTS as a solution working to combat this problem.

“Running slightly counter to the vogue for flat hierarchies with free-flowing information, the idea [of Illumio ZTS] is that when breaches occur they are contained and so do not become serious threats to the whole organization,” explained Trapp. “[Andrew] Rubin and co-founder and chief technology officer PJ Kirner started the business in 2013 out of a realization that the security industry as it then was was not really designed to solve the problems they could see happening at a time when breaches at leading companies were becoming ‘a part of life.’”

As Rubin told Trapp, “If you want a radically different outcome, you need a radically different approach.”

New Illumio tools for security practitioners

This month, Illumio announced a new partner program and new ZTS dashboard features to help organizations improve incident response, simplify tracking, increase cyber resilience, and improve ROI on their security investments.

Illumio Incident Response Partner Program

Global Security Magazine’s Marc Jacob featured Illumio’s new Incident Response Partner Program.

Jacob highlighted key metrics that show the importance of the new program in today’s threat landscape: according to IBM’s Cost of a Data Breach Report, on average, it takes 277 days to identify and contain a breach, with the average cost of a data breach now reaching $4.35 million. . And even as the recovery process begins, attackers are often still active in the environment (which has often prohibited organizations from bringing systems fully back online).  

According to Jacob, Illumio’s Incident Response Partner Program works to mitigate these issues by helping organizations respond, contain, and recover faster during ransomware and other breaches. It brings the Illumio ZTS Platform into the practice of leading digital forensic and incident response (DFIR) providers, allowing response teams to gain immediate network visibility, restore operations quicker, and prevent reinfection which reduces the risk from and impact of a cyberattack.  

In fact, the program has already been responsible for successfully minimizing the impact of dozens of active ransomware attacks around the world.

“The Illumio ZTS platform has already helped us to stop dozens of attacks from spreading mid-breach and has proven to be a valuable addition for our response teams,” said Matt Baruch, Senior Director at MOXFIVE, a technical advisory firm specializing in cybersecurity and information technology. “It gives us the visibility and ability to carve out clean environments, even in complex recovery projects with distributed networks, enabling our clients to get back to business faster and avoid costly business disruption from cyberattacks.”

Now, by deploying Illumio ZTS into the active breach, DFIR teams can quickly see risky connections and halt all traffic between infected endpoints and servers. Teams can deploy the platform within an hour either as a fully managed or standalone service.  

Learn more about Illumio’s Incident Response Partner Program.

New Illumio dashboards and an improved platform user interface

Global Security Magazine also featured Illumio’s product updates, including new dashboards and improved platform user interface (UI).

These improvements to Illumio ZTS make it easier for customers to manage their Illumio deployments and reduce their risk from cyberattacks.

The dashboards help organizations:

• Better prepare for and protect themselves against ransomware by identifying which ports and workloads are at critical, high, medium, and low risk and visualizing the number of protected and unprotected workloads. This makes it easier for organizations to prioritize and determine next steps in their ZTS strategy.
• Save time and accelerate their Illumio ZTS deployment by illustrating how many workloads Illumio is deployed on and ensuring all devices are responding as expected. These easy-to-understand insights into their overall security posture help security teams identify the next steps to quickly improve their security policy and further build cyber resilience.

Illumio Zero Trust Segmentation ROI Calculator

In today’s difficult economy, organizations need to be able to understand and show the impact of every dollar they spend – and they need solutions that deliver a reliable return on investment. That’s why Illumio commissioned Forrester Consulting to develop a self-service tool that quantified an organization’s ROI for Illumio’s ZTS Platform.

On a limited security budget? Learn the four ways to get the most out of your cyber spend.

By answering a few simple questions related to their organization’s specific business environment, respondents will receive a written assessment of the quantitative impact Illumio ZTS would have on their organization. This arms decision makers with data to support further cybersecurity investments that reduce risk and increase resilience to breaches.

To measure the impact Illumio ZTS could have on your organization, use the Illumio Zero Trust Segmentation ROI Calculator.

In addition to the ROI calculator, Illumio also commissioned a Total Economic Impact Study of Illumio Zero Trust Segmentation (ZTS) from Forrester Consulting. The study combines Forrester analyst research, real-world data and insights from a diverse range of Illumio customers, and information from Illumio employees engaged in all aspects of pre- and post-sales cycles.  

The study found that within three years, Illumio provided 111 percent ROI, delivered a total benefit of $10.2 million, and paid for itself in six months for a composite organization.

Additionally, over three years, Illumio ZTS:

• Reduced a cyberattack’s blast radius by 66 percent by restricting lateral movement, which saved $1.8 million via decreased overall risk exposure.
• Drove $3 million in savings via tool consolidation and reduced firewall costs.
• Saved $3.8 million by limiting unplanned downtime.
• Increased InfoSec’s operational efficiency by $1.6 million by reducing the time and effort needed to implement security policy.

Get your copy of the study here.

Hacking Humans podcast features Illumio’s Paul Dant

How did a childhood interest in computer games turn Paul Dant into a fourth-grade hacker? Dant, a Senior Systems Engineer at Illumio, shares how his experience as a child hacker has informed his thinking about cybersecurity today in the recent Hacking Humans podcast episode, Inside the history of a child hacker.  

Listen to Dant’s episode here.

Dant became fascinated as a child with the computer game industry, specifically how game developers were using copy protection to make sure people actually paid for the games. This led Dant to teach himself how to code and create his own computer game called “Gulliver’s Travels” (which he sold for $5 to his fourth-grade classmates – what a steal!).  

Though his shareware scheme was soon foiled, the success of this early enterprise set Dant on a trajectory to start leveraging his hacker background in the cybersecurity space as an ethical hacker and strategist. Listen to the podcast episode to learn more.

Ready to learn more about Illumio Zero Trust Segmentation? Contact us to find out how Illumio can help strengthen your defenses against cybersecurity threats.