Verizon’s new Threat Intelligence Platform Service combines cyber threat intelligence from the carrier’s Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR) and cyber-situational awareness from the Verizon Threat Research Advisory Center. The Verizon Threat Intelligence Platform will be available globally in the fall, the company said.
“We’re taking cyber intelligence to the next level by opening up our cybersecurity data to businesses around the world,” Bryan Sartin, Verizon’s executive director of security professional services, said in a press release. “Verizon operates one of the largest global IP networks, which gives us a wide view into a large portion of the world’s data traffic. When you cross reference this with intelligence gleaned from over a decade of analysis from our DBIR series, it provides a treasure trove of cyber-intelligence that is hard to beat.”
The threat advisory center tracks threat activity across the carrier’s global IP backbone. That intelligence will be delivered by the Anomali Threat Platform. Anomali offers a “mission control center” that automates the collection and integration of threat intelligence. Depending on customers’ level of service, the data can be analyzed by consultants from Verizon’s Professional Services team at the client site. This enables threats to be identified and dealt with earlier in “the cyber-kill chain.”
The 2018 DBIR, released in April, reported that ransomware was found in 39% of malware-related data breaches, which was double the percentage noted in the previous year’s report. Verizon found that attacks were migrating to deeper and more dangerous areas of enterprise networks, such as business-critical file servers and databases. This is enabling ransomware to cause more damage and extract bigger ransom payments. The report says that attacks such as financial pretexting and phishing are aimed at human resource departments. The goal is to steal employee wage and tax data and to use the data to commit fraud and divert tax rebates.
Image courtesy of flickr user Defence Images.
