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Nord Security | February 18, 2022
Nord Security, a family of digital privacy and security solutions, has joined the Centre for Cybersecurity, launched by the World Economic Forum. Alongside other global cybersecurity companies, Nord Security will accelerate the societal benefits of a secure digital world and participate in invaluable knowledge sharing within the sector.
The World Economic Forum's Centre for Cybersecurity is an independent and impartial global platform committed to fostering international dialogues and collaboration between the global cybersecurity community in both the public and private sectors. The focal points of the center are to build cyber resilience, strengthen global cooperation, and understand future networks and technology. Nord Security joining the Centre for Cybersecurity will not only benefit the World Economic Forum and its aims, but it will also help Nord Security to further develop into an encompassing cybersecurity suite.
As a global brand that has continuously advocated for greater online privacy and security, joining the World Economic Forum's Centre for Cybersecurity marks the natural next step for us and our products. Nord Security has accumulated extensive cybersecurity experience that could provide valuable insights to this platform. But more importantly, we hope that, together with other members of the center, we will further boost the users' trust and close cooperation between public and private stakeholders in the cybersecurity industry."
Tom Okman, one of the co-founders of Nord Security
"We are excited that Nord Security has joined the Centre for Cybersecurity. Their expertise will be a value add to ongoing projects on cyber resilience, governance and privacy," said Alexander Klimburg, head of the Centre for Cybersecurity, World Economic Forum.
About NordVPN
NordVPN — the first brand in the Nord Security family of products — was established in 2012. Throughout the years, it became the VPN solution of choice worldwide. Lately, the company has been expanding to include security solutions for businesses and advanced tools for consumers. These include the next-generation password manager NordPass, the powerful file encryption tool NordLocker, and the business solution NordLayer.
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BlastWave | February 15, 2022
BlastWave, a new challenger in the software-defined perimeter (SDP) arms race designed to protect critical infrastructure assets and applications, today announced a partnership with Knight Ink, a full-service digital brand, content and experience agency for challenger brands in cybersecurity. Through the partnership, Knight Ink and BlastWave have jointly released a whitepaper to present a new approach to secure remote access that eliminates virtual private networks (VPNs) from the now defunct edge and dissolving intranet, to a new software-defined perimeter (SDP) that can prevent Account Take Over (ATO).
According to the recently released whitepaper, "The Valley of Kings: SDP Rising and The Fall of VPNs," when the COVID-19 pandemic forced a shift to work-from-home environments, many organizations relied on VPNs and other remote access solutions as they were the only options they had. Many continue to deploy VPNs even though a recent survey shows, "93 percent of organizations surveyed have deployed some sort of VPN, yet 94 percent know that VPNs are a popular target for cybercriminals." The same report states 67 percent are looking at alternatives to the traditional VPN for remote access requirements.
"We are seeing an exodus away from legacy VPN technology towards SDP solutions. But change is not happening fast enough. How many times must we repeat the same mistakes? Legacy VPNs are dead, much like the pharaohs who once ruled over Egypt who now lie in rest in the Valley of Kings graveyard for which the namesake of our new white paper was based. We must pave the way for the zero-trust enterprise now relying on SDP solutions to protect remote and hybrid workforces," said Alissa Knight, Cybersecurity Influencer and Partner, Knight Ink. "Our partnership with BlastWave made sense because they understand the advanced threats organizations face today. BlastWave has developed an innovative SDP solution with a unified stack combining passwordless multi-factor authentication, secure remote access, and microsegmentation that cloaks critical infrastructure."
Other key findings include:
When VPNs were introduced in 1996, they promised a new, more un-hackable future. 22 years later, 557 vulnerabilities are returned with the keyword VPN in the CVE database at MITRE.
Software-defined microsegmentation allows organizations to create communities of assets and people that define who and what can talk to each other in a network. True to its foundation in zero-trust security, SDP obviates the idea that we should trust users, the assets they're using, and the data they're trying to access.
According to Gartner "By 2023, 60 percent of enterprises will phase out most of their remote access VPNs in favor of ZTNA (SDPs).
So many cyber companies are obsessed with identifying and spotting malware signatures and patterns that look anomalous. But this is a computer science focus, not a human focus. Hackers are humans who use creativity, code and tools to take over accounts, implant malware, and profit with a low risk of getting prosecuted. BlastShield shuts down the top two ways hackers go after targets, credentials and exposed web services. We also greatly reduce human error by eliminating numerous configuration steps that can create inadvertent vulnerabilities. Fundamentally, BlastWave prevents many attacks and reduces the severity of the rest through microsegmentation. Our obsession about hacking from a human perspective is what drew us to Alissa Knight in the first place, with her credentials, experience, and chutzpah badassness, she tells the story through an adversarial lens. That is the partnership origin story of why we collaborate. Together we want to challenge the way the industry thinks about secure remote access, starting with VPNs - they are not effective and must be replaced."
Tom Sego, CEO and founder, BlastWave
As part of the collaboration, Knight Ink in partnership with its sister company M&A Knight Studios, will create written and visual experiences for BlastWave in the form of whitepapers, videos, and episodic short films to demonstrate the business imperative of organizations moving to zero-trust network access (ZTNA) powered by BlastWave's SDP solution.
BlastShield integrates three innovative products into a single, patented SDP solution that combines infrastructure, cloaking and passwordless multi-factor authentication (MFA) for identity-based secure remote network access for organizations that have adopted a zero-trust security model. BlastShield enables organizations to hide on-premises and cloud workloads from outsider and insider threats, concealing an organization's infrastructure from cyberattacks through software-defined microsegmentation, without modifications to existing network fabric and hardware. BlastWave solves the problem that traditional VPNs and other complex end-point technologies have been unable to address by applying a zero-trust software-defined perimeter throughout the network architecture, not just at the endpoint, rendering the entire network invisible.
About BlastWave
Founded by former executives and technologists from Apple and Cisco, BlastWave is taking a fundamentally different approach to security aimed at protecting privacy and connected devices from cyberattacks. BlastWave's patented product, BlastShield™️, is an integrated, zero-trust stack that combines state-of-the-art passwordless multi-factor authentication with high-performance, resilient encrypted connectivity and built-in microsegmentation. BlastWave is backed by Rocket Strategies, Lucas Venture Group, and Millennium Investments. The company is headquartered in Palo Alto, California.
About Knight Ink
Knight Ink is a content strategy, content creation, and influencer marketing agency founded for category leaders and challenger brands in cybersecurity to fill current gaps in content marketing. We will help you create and distribute your stories to the market in the form of written and visual storytelling drawn from 20+ years of experience working with global brands in cybersecurity. We are trusted advisers to cybersecurity marketing leaders to help them find their blue ocean strategy; develop their content strategy; and create the content that tells their unique story through the lens of an adversary. The content we create for our clients tells that story of efficacy through the lens of the adversary that their product protects their customers against.
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Edgecore Networks | February 15, 2022
Edgecore Networks, a leading provider of traditional and open network solutions for enterprises, data centers, and telecommunication service providers, announced the launch of the Pocket WFA (Work-from-Anywhere) solution that is composed of two phenomenal Edgecore products – the EWS5203 WLAN gateway-controller and the SP-W2M-AC1200-WFH wireless access point. The solution aims to provide a plug-and-play, secure, agile, reliable mechanism to support businesses through the pandemic crisis and beyond.
In-Pocket Agility
In a world full of uncertainty, everything is about efficiency and agility. The zero-touch configuration feature of the Pocket WFA solution reduces the deployment time from days to only minutes. Enterprises can swiftly roll out remote offices, minimizing business downtime at a friendly price. Plus, the SP-W2M-AC1200-WFH access point is just palm-size and weighs only 82g, so remote workers can easily carry it wherever they work to further ensure business productivity.
On top of that, to deliver a seamless working environment, the solution allows remote workers to connect to the same SSID as they would in the office for automatic connection to the company VPN, extending enterprise services to anywhere. Taking security on board, the solution supports various user authentication methods that can be easily enforced across all deployment scenarios, such as 802.1X authentication, local authentication, and two-factor authentication, ensuring the proper identification of network users before granting access to the network.
Out-of-Box Possibilities
The Pocket WFA solution can be deployed in various scenarios in a number of ways, such as mobile taskforce teams, branch sites, remote classrooms, and so on. The agility and affordable price enable new services and new business models that are not bound by infrastructure limitations and can embrace limitless possibilities.
Organizations globally are experiencing unprecedented workforce disruption. Virtually all companies are still determining how they will work in the short and long term. The Pocket WFA solution is rising to the challenge, helping enterprises and organizations navigate workforce shifts, such as the urgent need to shift to a remote workforce to protect and empower employees, serve customers, and establish business continuity.”
Teng Tai Hsu, Vice President of Edgecore Networks
The Pocket WFA solution not only assists businesses to emerge from the pandemic stronger, but also opens the door to innovative business and service opportunities in the post-pandemic era.
About Edgecore
Edgecore Networks Corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary of Accton Technology Corporation, the leading networking ODM. Edgecore Networks delivers wired and wireless networking products and solutions through channel partners and system integrators worldwide for data center, service provider, enterprise, and SMB customers. Edgecore Networks is the leader in open networking, providing a full line of open 1G-400G Ethernet OCP-Accepted switches, core routers, cell site gateways, virtual PON OLTs, optical packet transponders, and Wi-Fi access points that offer choice of commercial and open source NOS and SDN software.
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