Adversary simulation: Another unique F-Secure value proposition in addition to the Elements platform

Adversary simulation is a unique F-Secure Corporation value proposition that places the company above most of its competitors.

In an interview with Business Today, F-Secure regional director Yong Meng Hong (pic) said that organisations today need to adopt capabilities needed to build and maintain operational resilience.

“Due to increasing cyberthreats, organisations need to identify high-priority development areas, measure improvement over time, and demonstrate capability uplift across different aspects of the organisation’s security posture,” said Yong, adding that this is where adversary simulation comes in, coupled with detection and response.

“Even if organisations think that they have fine-tuned controls and believe they have strong defensive capabilities, it would be wise to further test overall security against adversaries – and in a safe environment,” added Yong. “Delivered as part of a broader, continuous cyber development programme, adversarial simulation is an essential step towards cyber resilience.”

He further explained that, although penetration testing remains an important element for organisations to uncover vulnerabilities and weaknesses in their systems, discrete and silo-ed activities fail to address a key question: “How vulnerable are organisations business processes and key assets to a sophisticated and motivated adversary?”

Hence, there arises the need to detect and respond accordingly to sophisticated and well-resourced adversaries once a breach has been successful.

“This capability to detect and respond is increasingly being recognised as being as important as preventing adversaries, when considering organisational resilience,” said Yong, explaining that financial institutions, in particular, are constantly looking at more innovative and comprehensive ways to stress and enhance overall defensive capabilities – including through the usage of adversarial simulations, or ‘Red Teaming’.

“Adversarial simulation exercises take a holistic approach, when compared to traditional penetration testing exercises,” said Yong.

“Where penetration testing focuses on validating technical controls or identifying technical weaknesses in specific assets, adversary simulation exercises place emphasis on the target organisation’s ability to prevent, detect and respond to adversaries targeting critical functions, across multiple technical and non-technical domains.

“These assessments look to stress the defensive capabilities of an organisation, with the view to ultimately identifying areas for enhancement and strengthening within these capabilities.”

Adversarial simulation is a key area of F-Secure’s Consulting division, which is committed to helping organisations solve their most complex security challenges.

“Our multi-disciplinary teams come with a rich heritage in both offensive and defensive security and the skills to deliver bespoke, outcome-led consultancy,” shared Yong, adding that the company’s consultants have comprehensive understanding of how real attackers think and act and who they target.

Its threat hunting platform called F-Secure Countercept is one of the most advanced in the market and provides extensive proactive attack detection.

“Our combination of man and machine approach uniquely positions us to support organisations in battling advanced attacks.”

F-Secure Consulting is also known for security strategies and risk management, such as in improving governance and building a security strategy that attracts buy-in from the rest of the organisation.

The company’s two other main divisions are Business, which Yong oversees for the Asia-Pacific region, and Consumer.

The business cloud-based Elements platform has been gaining momentum since its launch mid last year.

“F-Secure Elements empowers enterprises with the clarity, flexibility and technology to adapt to changing threats and business needs,” said Yong. “The platform also offers unified endpoint protection across devices, clouds and servers.”

The platform delivers everything from vulnerability management and collaboration protection to endpoint protection and detection and response, all clearly visible and easily managed from a single security console.

“F-Secure Elements streamlines how enterprises provision cybersecurity services. Its centralised management capabilities mean that IT managers now have a single view for greater reassurance that all is well within the enterprises IT infrastructure,” said Yong, adding that enterprises may opt for either fixed-term license subscriptions or usage-based billing for greater flexibility.

“At F-Secure, our customers continuous safety is our top priority, and they are also in a position to choose cybersecurity services on terms that accommodate their needs,” concluded Yong.

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