Welcome to the Vectra Blog

Discover three essential guideposts for enhancing organizational security, focusing on strategic planning, resilience, and risk quantification.

Vectra researchers dissect the SolarWinds supply chain attack, tracking backdoor to persistent access in data centers and cloud, with a focus on Office 365

As witnessed by the SolarWinds attack, compromising a single Azure AD account gives an attacker access to multiple SaaS apps, including Microsoft Office 365. This single point has made it critical for organizations to be able to detect and respond to attacks from Azure AD.

Learn how Command and Control (C2) frameworks are continuing to evolve in order to evade detection. Here we will examine a method known as JA3 signature randomization.

Discover why the NIST Zero Trust Architecture no longer requires decryption and how Vectra’s NDR solution enhances security.

As our reliance on technology grows, so does the need for robust cybersecurity to protect users and keep data and business operations safe.

The number of threats targeted towards Office 365 users and other similar platforms will undoubtedly continue to grow in 2021. Learn from our CTO, Oliver Tavakoli, what your company can do to prepare for the rise of targeted SaaS threats in 2021.

With Adobe Flash officially marking its end-of-life on Jan. 1, 2021, assessing Flash usage is imperative to prevent attacks though that avenue. Cognito Recall from Vectra now has a Flash dashboard to help organizations decommission Flash across their networks.

Discover how the new security insights feature in the Vectra Cognito network detection and response platform eliminates the need for analysts to pivot between tools and provides additional insights related to attacker detections.

Discover new learnings from the FireEye breach, including the objectives of the stolen tools, how those tools would present on the network, and how behavior-based detection can identify their use in an attack.

Most solutions today provide siloed views of an account, making it impossible to track attack progression across the cloud and network-except ours. We're excited to release a unified view of an account, one that tracks attacker behaviors across network and cloud.

Vectra CTO Oliver Tavakoli looks back on a disruptive 2020 and shares his view of what 2021 holds for security practices.

Learn why we are celebrating our placement in the Deloitte Fast 500 list as an achievement and testament to a customer-first approach rather than a numbers goal.

Learn how Vectra protects users and data beyond the traditional network by detecting malicious intent and tracking and stopping attackers who move between cloud, hybrid, and enterprise-ultimately reducing the risk of breach.

Discover how ransomware has evolved into targeted, double extortion attacks and learn proactive defense strategies to protect your organization.

Learn from Principle Research Analyst, Eric Hanselman, from 451 Research how the combination of the right data and the right analytics can help security teams to secure what is an important resource for the modern enterprise.

Vectra announces the expansion of the partnership with Splunk as a launch partner for Splunk Mission Control, a cloud-based and future-ready unified security operations platform.

When you factor in how long it takes to discover a data breach, it suggests that healthcare is losing the battle. Discover a fundamental approach being advocated by a growing number of healthcare security professionals.

Learn more about how Vectra's new Detect Lockdown feature, made possible by integrating with CrowdStrike Falcon Insight Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR), enables you to automatically thwart cyberattackers on the device level.

Read the Office 365 Spotlight Report to learn about the primary cybersecurity threats that can lead to Office 365 takeovers and breaches.

A mature incident response process provides the benefit of faster response to reduce the amount of time an attacker has access to organization resources. Discover the metrics security teams can use to measure risk and mitigation.

We're delighted to to announce a new integration between our Cognito platform for NDR and the cPacket Networks visibility solution. The combined techniques provide robust security-response capabilities that track the source, target, and method of attack.

Evaluating risk factors is the first step in implementing an effective insider threat program. Learn why implementing preventative solutions like network detection and response can minimize financial loss and risk of a breach.

Discover how Vectra AI improves cybersecurity during M&As by detecting inherited and insider threats across all attack stages.

With the advent of AI, managed security service providers (MSSPs) have a huge opportunity to improve 24x7 network threat detection, response and visibility while augmenting their understanding of security events.

Discover in this blog why many organizations are struggling with the burden of maintaining IDPS deployments and how security teams can instead concentrate on detecting and mitigating active threats inside the network with network detection and response.

See the certificates in your network that are actively in use, those that are about to expire and ones that have already expired in the new dashboard in Cognito Recall.

Learn how IDPS is ill-equipped to detect what is known as lateral movement, east-west traffic, or simply attackers moving around inside your deployments due to reliance on signatures and being deployed at the network perimeter.

Consider getting rid of IDPS and the noise it creates and check out detecting and stopping cyberattacks using NDR. Free-up your security analysts to focus on investigations and threat-hunting instead of tweaking signatures.

AI-based detections are great at identifying attacker behaviors while threat intelligence provides fast, labeled coverage of known threats. Adding threat intelligence extends the coverage of AI-based detections to give you the most durable coverage and early understanding of threats.

Discover step-by-step how Vectra AI identified early indicators of the Maze ransomware attack and prevented the encryption of the company files.

We need more than just APIs. When security vendors truly collaborate and integrate their tools, we enable our customer's security teams to further improve the agility, efficiency and efficacy of their security operations.

The newly announced Vectra services enable our customers to produce positive security outcomes, optimize security operations, and backup their teams when it matters most, with access to Vectra experts.

Battista Cagnoni explores how to mature your SOC with processes for reactive threat detection and proactive threat hunting.

Our integration with Microsoft Defender ATP lets you perform Host Lockdown on Microsoft Defender ATP hosts.

At Vectra, our partners are integral to the way we go tomarket and we want to ensure you we are committed to the mutual success of our relationship.

Healthcare's shift to the cloud is not new. However,COVID-19 has accelerated the roadmap for cloud adoption leaving healthcare security teams in a reactive mode rather than staying proactive to head-off the spread of potential attacks.

The long-awaited Gartner Market Guide for Network Detection and Response (NDR) has been released and there are a few critically important things we believe you should note before diving into the document and the redefined category.

Vectra announces a partnership and deep product integration with Microsoft Defender for Endpoint (EDR) and Microsoft Azure Sentinel (SIEM) to further our extensive partner ecosystem and allow our customers to leverage the tools they already are using.

Explore the role of network metadata in enhancing cybersecurity, its benefits, and how Vectra AI's advanced solutions provide comprehensive visibility and threat detection.

Together, Vectra and Sentinel One lead to fast and well-coordinated responses across all resources, enhance the efficiency of security operations and reduce the dwell times that ultimately drive risk for the business.

Together, Cognito and Cybereason provides visibility into all enterprise environments, supporting hybrid, multi-cloud, or on-premises deployments with ease to combat against today's modern cyberattacks.

Modern SOCs today are looking for tools that can give them complete visibility into user endpoints, multi-cloud, hybrid, and on-prem networks, as well as correlation and forensic capabilities. In this search, the SOC visibility triad has emerged as the de-facto standard.

Account Lockdown from Vectra allows for immediate, customizable account enforcement via Active Directory integration. You can now surgically freeze account access and avoid service disruption by disabling accounts rather than your network.

With increasingly sophisticated threats,cyber-risk is becoming an escalating concern for organizations around the world. Data breaches through Office 365 lead the pack as 40% of organizations suffer from account takeovers despite the rising adoption of incremental security approaches like multi-factor authentication.

Over the past decade, cyber operations have become intertwined with geopolitical conflict. In recent asymmetric campaigns, state-sponsored threat groups have mapped critical infrastructure, disrupted systems, held information hostage, and stolen state secrets as a form of warfare.

PAA enables SOC teams to monitor and defend against these types of attacks. In addition to our extensive models that detect command-and-control channels, this make the Cognito platform a powerful tool to combat evolving malware attacks against enterprises.

That's why we are happy to announce the integration of Vectra Cognito automated threat detection and response platform with the Swimlane security orchestration, automation and response (SOAR) platform.

Explore new NIST guidelines on Zero Trust Architecture and how Vectra enhances network visibility and security.

By analyzing data in the 2019 Black Hat Edition of the Attacker Behavior Industry Report from Vectra, we determined that RDP abuse is extremely prevalent in the real world. 90% of the organizations where the Cognito platform is deployed exhibited some form of suspicious RDP behaviors from January-June 2019.

Learn how Vectra AI strengthens zero trust security with continuous monitoring and real-time threat detection across hybrid and cloud environments.

The rationale behind choosing a managed security services provider (MSSP) can be numerous, but one of the primary reasons is to overcome the cybersecurity skills shortage. Finding the right talent in cybersecurity and retaining skilled professionals once they've been trained is very difficult.

The time of separated networks-when you could safely keep tools for manufacturing, transportation, utilities, energy and critical infrastructure apart from your IT environment-is long gone.

Modern ransomware has been heavily weaponized, has a sweeping blast radius and is a staple tool in the attacker's arsenal. In a call to arms, cloud and enterprise organizations everywhere are scrambling to detect and respond early to ransomware attacks.

Earlier this month, the Gartner Market Guide for Intrusion Detection and Prevention Systems that describes the market definition and direction of requirements that buyers should look for in their IDPS solution as well as the top use-cases that drive IDPS today.

Leveraging the multi-homed attribute to identify potential command-and-control channels within expansive infrastructures.

As the transformation of healthcare through new medical technology continues to move forward, healthcare organizations must remain mindful about what technologies are in place, how they are utilized, and when unauthorized actions occur.

Today, I am thrilled to share the news that Vectra has completed a $100 million Series E funding round led by TCV, one of the largest growth equity firms backing private and public technology companies.

When considering how to equip your security teams to identify lateral movement behaviors, we encourage the evaluation of the efficacy of your processes and tools to identify and quickly respond to the top 5 lateral movement behaviors that we commonly observe.

Imagine having a security tool that thinks the way you teach it to think, that takes action when and how you have trained it to act. No more adapting your work habits to generic rules written by a third party and wondering how to fill in security gaps that the rules did not tell you about.

The United States has not been hit by a paralyzing cyberattack on critical infrastructure like the one that sidelined Ukraine in 2015. That attack disabled Ukraine's power grid, leaving more than 700,000 people in the dark.

Microsoft unveiled the Azure Virtual Network TAP, and Vectra announced its first-mover advantage as a development partner and the demonstration of its Cognito platform operating in Azure hybrid cloud environments.

Recently, Vectra published the 2018 Black Hat Edition of the Attacker Behavior Industry Report, which covers the period from January through June 2018. While there are plenty of threat-research reports out there, this one offers unique insights about real-world cyberattacker behaviors found in cloud, data center and enterprise networks.

Explore how cybersecurity AI systems can effectively leverage various learning techniques enhance threat detection and reduce analyst workload.

Recently, we made an alarming discovery: hackers are using hidden tunnels to break into and steal from financial services firms! Clearly, this is serious business if it involves bad guys targeting massive amounts of money and private information. But what exactly are we dealing with? Let's dig into what hidden tunnels are and how I find them to uncover the answer.

Learn how neural networks and deep learning enable AI systems to detect and respond to complex cyber threats with speed and precision.

Cybersecurity analysts are overwhelmed with security events that need to be triaged, analyzed, correlated and prioritized. If you're an analyst, you probably have some incredible skills but are being held back by tedious, manual work.

Explore the fundamentals of algorithmic learning with Sohrob Kazerounian as he delves into supervised, unsupervised, and reinforcement learning methods.

Explore the distinctions between AI and machine learning, clarifying their unique roles and interconnections within cybersecurity applications.

Explore the origins of AI, tracing the evolution from early neural networks to the foundational Dartmouth workshop that defined AI's trajectory.

While ransomware attacks like NotPetya and WannaCry were making headlines (and money) in 2017, cryptocurrency mining was quietly gaining strength as the heir apparent when it comes to opportunistic behaviors for monetary gain.

Explore Alan Turing's pioneering contributions to machine intelligence, the Turing Machine, and his perspectives on the development of modern computing.

In my last blog, I spoke about a financial customer performing pen testing and how I helped the blue team detect the red team as it carried-out an attack. I'm back again today with another story from the trenches.

Vectra® was recently positioned as the sole Visionary in the Gartner 2018 Magic Quadrant for Intrusion Detection and Prevention Systems (IDPS). Over the years, intrusion detection systems (IDS) have converged with intrusion prevention systems (IPS) and the two are now known collectively as IDPS.

Cisco recently <a href="https://newsroom.cisco.com/press-release-content?type=webcontent&articleId=1854555" target="_blank">announced</a> the term "intent-based networking" in a press release that pushes the idea that networks need to be more intuitive. One element of that intuition is for networks to be more secure without requiring a lot of heavy lifting by local network security professionals.

Learn how Vectra AI detects and responds to WannaCry ransomware and its variants using behavioral analysis and continuous monitoring.

A ransomware attack is spreading very rapidly among unpatched Windows systems worldwide. This morning, the attack was initially believed to target the UK National Health Service, but throughout the day, it has become apparent this is a global attack.

It seems like a new variant or victim of ransomware is in the news every day. It's newsworthy because it works so well and causes widespread destruction. So when the recent wave of stories hit about PetrWrap, a variation of the widely known Petya ransomware strain, it was easy to miss the significance. The "no-honor-among-thieves" narrative crowded out its true importance.

Integration decreases cost and increases effectiveness. For this reason, Vectra is adaptive by design. Everything we do considers how to help our customers be more efficient and faster at fighting attacks. Sometimes it involves determining where to deliver sophisticated threat intelligence beyond the Vectra. Working with Splunk is a great example of this integration.

As long as I can recall, enterprises have always relied on prevention and policy-based controls for security, deploying products such as antivirus software, IDS/IPS and firewalls. But as we now know, and industry research firms have stated, they aren't enough to adequately deal with today's threat environment, which is flooded by a dizzy array of advanced and targeted attacks.

In the Information Security (InfoSec) community, AI is commonly seen as a savior-an application of technology that will allow businesses to more rapidly identify and mitigate threats, without having to add more humans. That human factor is commonly seen as a business inhibitor as the necessary skills and experience are both costly and difficult to obtain.

Security researchers with Vectra Threat Labs recently uncovered a critical vulnerability affecting all versions of <a href="https://www.vectra.ai/news/vectra-networks-discovers-critical-microsoft-windows-vulnerability-that-allows-printer-watering-hole-attacks-to-spread-malware">Microsoft Windows</a> reaching all the way back to Windows 95. The vulnerability allows an attacker to execute code at system level either over a local network or the Internet. As a result, attackers could use this vulnerability both to infect an end-user from the Internet, and then spread through the internal network.

Printers present an interesting case in the world of IoT (Internet of Things), as they are very powerful hardware compared to most IoT devices, yet are not typically thought of as a "real" computer by most administrators. In this case, we investigate how to use the special role that printers have within most networks to actually infect end-user devices and extend the footprint of their attack within the network.

Ransomware is clearly the scourge of 2016. Every week there is a new and notable enterprise-level outbreak of this insidious class of malware-crippling and extorting an ever widening array of organizations.

In light of Apple's response to the FBI's request to gain access to San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook's iPhone, it appears that there is some confusion in the connection of this request from the FBI with the bigger government debate on providing backdoors and encryption.

Attackers hijack connected devices for persistence. Learn to identify behaviors that expose hidden access on your network

The need to block threats within milliseconds locks IDS/IPS into using signatures for detections. While signatures can detect a wide variety of threats, they rely on the fast-pattern-matching of known threats.

Not all breaches come from external malicious actors. Learn all about insider threats, the common indicators and useful prevention strategies in our blog post.

While the insider threat in government agencies and big companies is a known problem with somewhat implemented mitigation strategies, less is known about the insider threat to critical US infrastructure, such as water purification or nuclear power plants.

On June 6th, Forbes reporter Kashmir Hill wrote about an NSF researcher who misused NSF-funded supercomputing resources to mine Bitcoin valued between $8,000 and $10,000. The article points to a student at London Imperial College and a researcher at Harvard University who are also alleged to have used their University's computers to mine a similar virtual currency called Dogecoin.

Explore the risks of the Heartbleed vulnerability within internal networks and how to mitigate these threats.