Cybersecurity Roundup: Splunk, SonicWall, Bugcrowd, Exabeam

… technical ecosystems side are. But we also work with a lot of other partners who are delivering the value to the customer. Cisco is not only a technology partner, but they also are bundling our solution with what they take to their users, and we work with SIs like Accenture and Deloitte because they will help customers transform their security operations and building new capabilities with the world becoming more digitized. So the partners are such a strategic part of our go to market and our very existence to a certain extent.

CF: What is Splunk working on beyond what’s been announced this week in cybersecurity?

HS: We believe security strategy has to start with the data strategy, and that trend has been there and it’s just getting stronger. We believe automation is going to become even more important and essential, and we also see cloud, even though it’s not a new thing, but it has certainly in the last couple of years given us a new challenge because it has fundamentally changed the paradigm of compute, how software gets developed and deployed, and we cannot just protect cloud in the same way we protect on premises.

And we talk about AI and ML, and that’s a big challenge because we’re not the only ones investing in that. Our adversaries are doing that, too. So we will continue to really help customers with adoption of automation. Not only does it bring machine speed and efficiency, but it really helps us to generate that codifying of that data so AI can really be applied. One of the challenges is the adversaries probably have an upper hand because it’s not symmetric. They can get access to a lot of data, they have no regulations, they have no privacy concerns and they have no lawyers. And if they do something wrong, there are really no consequences, and they only have to be right once. And for what we do, we have to be pretty much, hopefully, right all the time.

Newer, Targeted Attacks on the Rise

New data from SonicWall Capture Labs shows a sharp decline in ransomware year over year, but that definitely does’t mean cybercriminals are backing off.

Some 7.2 billion malware attacks were launched in the first three quarters of 2019 as well as 151.9 million ransomware attacks, marking 15% and 5% year-over-year declines, respectively.

However, IoT malware jumped to 25 million, a staggering 33% increase; encrypted threats spiked 58% through the first three quarters; and web app attacks are on the rise, showing a 37% increase over the same period last year.

While attacks may be trending down, the reality is the number of attacks is still very high and more nefarious than ever, even evading traditional sandbox technology, according to SonicWall. The SonicWall Capture Threat Network has recorded an increase in targeted geographic attacks beyond the United States to include the United Kingdom and Germany.

Bill Conner, SonicWall’s CEO, tells us the year-over-year decline in ransomware is because attacks have become more sophisticated and targeted at …