emt News Desk
emt Distribution is featured in a number of channel and security publications, with vendor announcements, industry insights and cyber security specific commentary. Stay up to date with all the emt Distribution news and check in regularly.
emt distribution signs Flashpoint as new vendor
emt, News, Press Release, Uncategorizedemt Distribution survey finds 85% of MSPs see growth potential in password or privileged account management as a service
emt, News, Press ReleaseSTEALTHbits signs emt Distribution
emt, News, Press Releaseemt Distribution at AISA National Conference
NewsAISA National Conference focused on helping members navigate the security landscape
Acunetix, Flexera and Airlock at AISA National Conference 2017
emt Distribution exhibited at the AISA National Conference in Sydney in 2017 with Stand 20 dedicated to Thycotic and Privileged Account Management, and Stand 21 showcasing Acunetix, Flexera and local security firm Airlock Digital. The diversity of attendees and their breadth of knowledge was impressive. Most impressive was the overwhelming openess attendees had to discussing varying security topics and challenges and their eagerness to hear the experiences of their peers in the industry.
This year emt Distribution focused on the Top 4 with application whitelisitng, patching (and vulnerability management) and restricting and managing privileges being core to our theme.
Cyber Security Maturity in Australia
History has shown many security initiatives have been reactionary and re-prioritisation has often been post incident. This year, the general consensus seems to be that the Australian information security culture is maturing rapidly with many organisations taking a more concerted proactive approach and broadening their measures beyond traditional gateway and endpoint defences.
The NDB scheme
The Notifiable Data Breaches scheme, coming into play in February 2018 has been received with mixed feelings among the security community. Some members believe it will have a positive impact on C and board level awareness of, and involvement in, the overall security posture of their organisations. Others are taking a more cautious attitude, believing it will take some time for Australian businesses to adjust.
Threat Mitigation and the ASD’s 37
Beyond federal government and critical infrastructure, more organisations are starting to pay attention. The vast majority of people we spoke with were aware of the ASD’s top 4, Essential 8 and the 37. As always, prioritisation, business impact and mitigation effectiveness play a major factor on the decision making process of what people choose as part of their cyber security mix. The ASD, government and commercial security community should be applauded for the work they have done in promoting the efforts the ASD have gone to bring a balanced, well researched and thought out set of mitigation strategies to the Australian public and private sectors.
Cyber Security Talent
There is no question about it. Australia has some incredible talent in this space. Speaking with the many security professionals at AISA demonstrates this. There is also no question that we don’t have enough of them. Many organisations are actively looking for people suited to security roles and coming up short. The talent is there, there’s just not enough to go around. Education institutions should be paying attention to this, whilst enterprises need to invest in the talent pool available to them.
#4 in the Top 4 – Minimise Administrative Privileges
Thycotic at Stand 20 generating a lot of buzz
Thycotic does this in spades. The 2017 AISA National Conference saw Thycotic back for a second year running and the wrap was unanimously positive. The main theme of the conference was collaboration, and Thycotic managed this with dozens of in depth, security oriented conversations around the landscape and threats posed by poorly managed privileged accounts.
A number of the breakout sessions and keynotes during the three day conference directly or indirectly alluded to the core security requirement of locking down privileged access, removing local and domain levels of privilege where possible, and adopting best practice around password management and rotation. In fact, one of the most talked about speeches on the anatomy of a breach ended up being in part tied back to poorly managed Active Directory credentials. The sheer interest in this case study indicates how front-of-mind Privileged Account Management (PAM) is right now.
For Thycotic, attending AISA is an equal matter of meeting new prospective customers and also raising awareness and industry recognition. A number of large government and private organisations showed very real interest as they either did not have a full PAM solution or were struggling with their current providers implementation. For Thycotic, the enterprise level feature set matched with the industry gold standard in ease-of-use and adopt-ability made for several outstanding conversations and a chance for Thycotic to demonstrate just how successful a PAM implementation can be.
#3 & #2 – Patch Operating Systems and Patch Applications
#1 – Application Whitelisting
Airlock was built ground up around the controls the ASD specify. That in and of itself, as far as this writer knows, is unique in the app whitelisting space. The fact that the creators have extensive experience in implementing controls from the ISM, writing SANS course on whitelisting and experiencing the pain it can cause, made them take stock and create an Application Whitelisting solution that wasn’t an imposing, daunting task. Being the new kid on the block, Australian, and gathering a real following in the sec space made Airlock a real attraction for attendees. Questions focused heavily on understanding how to deploy the solution and around gaining understanding into the Airlock product workflows that make application whitelisting actually work. There were also many follow up questions on how the solution handles developers and administrator groups, a traditional pain point in whitelisiting solutions. Daniel Schell, co-founder of Airlock Digital didn’t have much time to relax with demos, barrages of questions and follow up appointments coming thick and fast. If there is a company and product to watch with keen interest through the remainder of 2017 and 2018, Airlock Digital is it.
Now to be clear, All the companies and product mentioned here may be trademarked by their respective owners, and in no way are we suggesting that the Australian Federal Government or ASD has any endorsement or affiliation with them. It just makes it a lot easier to pigeon hole solutions into mitigation strategies where it makes sense to do it to help out the end user community.
The Wrap
AISA National Conference 2017 was incredible for both members, sponsors and exhibitors. If you are not an AISA member and you work in security, you should seriously consider it.
RSA Conference 2017 Wrap Up
NewsSan Francisco, yet again, hosted another fantastic RSA Conference event. This is the fourth I have been to and the first as an attendee. Putting aside the fan fare of post event parties, the number, volume, maturity and quality of security vendors all in one place is staggering.
Some things are very clear from RSA2017 – the volume of threats are not going down, threat intelligence is gaining far greater momentum and traditional blacklist technology is making way for more dynamic defence mechanisms. And there a lot to choose from depending on need.
We had the opportunity to catch up with many of our vendors while in San Francisco and we would like to thank the folks at OPSWAT, Cybonet, Ninja, Flexera and Palamida (now Flexera), Cososys, Thycotic, and Picus Security for the time they took out of their busy schedules to go over new innovations, direction, and strategies for shared growth. Covering endpoint protection, DLP and device control, privileged account management, air gap networks, content disarm and reconstruct technology, network defence effectiveness, remote monitoring and management and so much more, was a challenge but we got through it with new insights and clear directions. For quick overviews checkout our solutions page.
Keep your eye on all of the above as there is some exciting stuff coming through this year for each of these vendors and new products launching to address market need. As a starter keep your eyes open for Cybowall, The new Opswat Kiosk, Ninja’s newest integrations, Flexera’s SVM and Thycotic Privileged Behavioural Analytics.
What is most impressive, is the overwhelming desire from all fronts to address the needs of respective markets. The breadth, depth and direction of our vendors’ solutions is more than commendable. 2017 is shaping up to be a very busy year.
As always, understand your position, understand the threatscape, analyse what’s normal and what’s not, assess your need for adjustments, make a decision, execute, test effectiveness and start again. And don’t forget to educate!
emt Distribution signs local OPSWAT representation
Newsemt Distribution are pleased to announce that we have significantly deepened our channel relationship with OPSWAT Inc, the leading provider of cyber security tools that keep critical infrastructure, government, and enterprise customers safe from malware. Our relationship with OPSWAT hails back to 2010 when we bundled Metadefender with integrated with sandboxing solutions to add AV metadata for dynamic malware analysis.
Our partners and their customers will benefit from dedicated local channel management, product support, pre-sales and marketing resources. Product training and partner certification will be provided by emt Academy while emt’s MarketMagnitude Briefings will educate our partners on the business case for OPSWAT.
Metadefender’s optimized multiple anti malware engines offer IT professionals and software engineers a way to enhance security though multi-scanning, data sanitisation, and vulnerability detection technology. Because of the flexibility of its APIs, Metadefender can be easily deployed in enterprise, telecommunication and government networks and at the same time provide diverse packaging options.
This multi-scanning anti malware technology is intended to protect an organisation from risks associated with infected files entering either through media present on peripheral devices such as USB drives and CDs/DVDs, email or web proxies.
Metadefender AV engine packages include up to 30 engines with vendors such as, AVG, Kaspersky, McAfee, Symantec, and others.
Thomas Duyrea and emt Distribution win at Global Secunia Partner Conference
Press Release, SecuniaWe’re pleased to annouce that our partner Thomas Duryea brought home the Secunia Global Partner of the Year at the Secunia Partner conference held in Prague earlier this month. “[Thomas Duryea] has demonstrated tremendous capability in achieving net new business,” announced the Danish security vendor.
Our own General Manager, Shane Mahney, also won the “Best Product Manager of the Year” award. Secunia stated that Mahney had worked “across time zones” and regularly spent “weeks on the road” on behalf of the vendor to run “partner meetings, customer meetings and workshops educating partners”.
At the partner conference in Prague. From left to right – Shane Mahney (General Manager, emt Distribution Australia), Victoria Bentham (Regional Director, UKI/APAC), Thomas Todt (Sales Engineer, Secunia), Jarrod Vassalla (National Practice Manager, Thomas Duryea), Peter Colsted (CEO, Secunia) and Glenn Mahney (Secunia Partner Manager, Australia)
Read more: http://www.crn.com.au/News/409166,thomas-duryea-brings-back-the-goods-from-prague.aspx
emt, Secunia and Auckland University of Technology: a case study
Press Release, Secunia, Uncategorized, Vulnerability ManagementWith the university’s focus on innovation, third-party applications are prevalent across its IT infrastructure, which includes a wide variety of different platforms and operating systems.
Any of these applications may include a software vulnerability, which needs to be patched with an application update. But when multiple vulnerabilities compete for attention, it can be difficult… read more
emt to distribute Acunetix
Acunetix, emt, Press ReleaseToday we are pleased to announce that emt Distribution will begin to exclusively distribute Acunetix products throughout Australia and New Zealand.
Used by IT Security Adminstrators, and penetration testers and web developers, Acunetix Vulnerability Scanner is one of the leading tools on the market for detecting vulnerabilities. It’s an easy-to-use tool which has been continuously developed for a decade; evolving with the latest vulnerabilities and cyber threats. It’s the tool of choice for customers including the US Army, the US Airforce, Barclays Bank, American Express and more.
Automated hacks such as the recent WordPress cross sight scripting (XSS) Vulnerability late last week saw many people having their public websites defaced. Acunetix Web Vulnerability Scanner can bring these types of vulnerabilities to your attention.
Acunetix Web Vulnerability Scanner is already used by major companies such as Adidas, American Express, CERN, Credit Suisse, NASA, Siemens, Skype, Sony, T-Mobile, the University of Potsdam, the U.S. Air Force and many others and is well suited to join the emt portfolio of security solutions.