Enabling New Security Capabilities

CyCognito was the first solution that offered the kind of attack surface discovery and risk assessment the CISO had been searching for and that exceeded what he was able to do using legacy solutions supplemented by a couple of team members. “The CyCognito platform applies automated technology to solve problems that people, legacy tools and processes alone aren’t solving,” he says.

“We tried a variety of approaches, including attack surface discovery products, vulnerability scanners, pen tests, breach and attack simulation products, and staff,” he says. “Some could solve parts of the problem, but not automatically or continuously. CyCognito cuts across product categories.”

Why CyCognito?

The CISO’s appreciation of the capabilities of the CyCognito platform began with the initial proof-of-concept meeting. “I was really astonished with the attack surface context I could see,” he says. “The CyCognito platform found something in one of our joint ventures that we were not aware of; a partner was operating an intranet server that was — unintentionally — externally accessible on the internet. This is the kind of back-door risk we are looking to eliminate.”

“The CyCognito platform helps us tremendously in our goal to meet ever-increasing security challenges,” he says. “It always provides relevant and actionable information about our attack surface and potential risks. The platform also helps us efficiently understand the risk posture of each of our subsidiaries.”

Results

The CyCognito platform increases the efficiency of the security operations team and gives the investment management company a greater return on investment from their security efforts.

• CyCognito platform benefits for this enterprise to-date include:
• Automatically providing comprehensive visibility to their entire attack surface
• Ongoing visibility to new vulnerabilities and new assets in their attack surface with continuous discovery and monitoring
• Helping the team quickly identify, prioritize and remediate critical risks
• Allowing them to eliminate two pen tests a year for an annual savings of $80,000

In future, the CISO says the CyCognito platform will enable:

• Real-time intelligence about risks on assets tied into business workflows. Business analysts will get notified of new risks. The CyCognito platform can provide actionable security information for business owners.
• Integration with the organization’s managed security services provider (MSSP) so that the threat and risk level for every asset is correlated between the platform and the MSSP.
• Full use and integration of the platform alerts about new assets and new risks. This process will focus on the company’s highest-value assets, so that a medium alert on a high-value asset gets more attention than a medium alert on a low-value asset.

“The CyCognito platform enables us to do things we’ve never done before,” says the CISO, “that’s a huge capability.”