In the modern day, developing security for Cloud network systems demand innovation and in order to come up with modern solutions to protect cloud networks against modern security threats, organizations are more and more showing an inclination towards security solutions that works based on user behavior analytics (UBA).
How does UBA help us?
With user behavior analytics, it is possible to determine what is normal behavior in a cloud networking system so if anything abnormal is flagged off with the help cloud security solutions based on UBA, it is possible to notify IT officials about an impending threat or about deviations that are occurring in the system.
Why innovative ways are required to protect data:
- Security not designed for modern threats – Most organizations these days have security measures in place which are considered to be traditional security measures. These traditional measures are in turn based on protocol analysis and virus signatures. It must be noted that the traditional security measures are much more suitable for and more applicable to handling legacy threats, which brings us to the threats that currently plague an organization’s security.
- Rising ineffectiveness of traditional security – Threats in the modern day are designed to target particular organizations. Since the rise in target specific attacks it is considered that the traditional solutions when deployed solitarily cannot put up a secure enough defense for an organization against modern day hackers who have changed their ways specifically to exploit the weaknesses of such systems.
- Non-user friendly – The more important reason why it is absolutely necessary to bring about innovation in security measures is because security measures against legacy threats are mired with non-user friendly technicalities which most users want to bypass for the sake of productivity and to save precious time.
- Oblivious to internal threat – Organizations are becoming increasingly paranoid at the inability if traditional security systems to deal with internal threats. Varied sources of cyberattack means that internal threats are also a source of concern now-a-days for organizations as a result of which organizations are skeptical of solely relying on traditional security measures.
It is safe to conclude that there is an essential need to drastically improve measures to protect cloud services as well as traditional IT infrastructure and networking environment. To do so organizations are turning towards implementing security solutions that runs on UBA. UBA solutions don’t focus solely on identifying attack quickly or aren’t solely dependent on discovering vulnerabilities at an early stage in operating systems or browsers. UBA solutions work based on analyzing actions that are being performed by particular users in real time or otherwise and forming a guideline standard for normal behavior and continuously monitoring for deviations and anomalies from the prevalent standards.
Importance of User Behavior Analytics
More and more companies are shifting their networking asset and infrastructure to the clouds. In spite of being around for years User Behavior Analytics or UBA is slowly taking the centre stage now and we will look into the importance of it.
- Behavioral patterns of modern day cyber-threats – Unique signatures are often used to identify legacy viruses and malwares. To identify some attacks communication signatures are looked into, communication signals like which are more commonly used in command-and-control malwares. Modern day hackers have also become innovative with their attacks, they get past the security measures that are in place by either creating a backup privileged account first or by using an account which is already compromised from a security perspective and granting additional privileges to that account. The hacker then uses these additional privileges to perform various operations which are harmful to organizations without raising any suspicion or getting flagged throughout the process.
Example – A hacker gained access to an organization’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) environment and then created a backup privileged account, this however tipped off the IT officials but rendered their efforts fruitless. As the organization tried to freeze out the hacker after a ransom demand was made, the hacker used the backup account to delete the company’s cloud environment entirely.
Solution – A security solution which works based on UBA could have avoided the aforementioned case. The system would have sent alerts to IT security administrator and notified them of suspicious activities which includes conducting activities such as account privilege changes or the creating privileged accounts without any prior authorization.
- Targeting pattern of modern day cyber-threats – High profile executives of an organization fall under the purview of traditional security measures. Finance and sales team are the ones who have easy access to valuable data and are more commonly prone to attacks where sensitive data about both the organization and its clients is usually divulged. In the modern day the hackers have become much more sophisticated and devise their attacks meticulously. In order to gain access to a company’s networking environment a hacker tries to get in through a lower profile. Once the hacker successfully penetrates into a company infrastructure, navigating around becomes a cakewalk for them.
Example – In an attack on a national retailer which was well-publicized, the hacker infiltrated the system by starting to work on breaching in on a low profile user’s system. After gaining access to the network, the hacker was able to get past numerous security measures which were in without much difficulty and was successfully able to steal millions worth of credit cards and other valuable and sensitive information which can have damaging effects on the organization.
Solution – A security solution leveraging UBA majorly puts focus on internal threats and as a result would have detected a low profile user trying to gain access to the network infrastructure and with it confidential information from within the networking environment. Dynamic and robust UBA solutions are tipped to bring forward predictive security as it will notify security officials of users who are at risk and can be prone to attacks.
- Little scope for segregated access – IT administrators who are responsible for on-premises security often indulge in the practice of restricting access to the security appliance configurations. A need often arises to keep administrative access segregated from other networks which has unique requirements such as direct appliance connection or needs to connect to a VPN. With the migration to cloud services, many of these security precautions are lost as there remains no perceived network separation, any scope for physical separation or any system for unique login procedures. The security structure gets filled with numerous loopholes once the IT officials loses significant control.
Solutions – UBA solutions can be used to holistically fortify the security structure as it acts as another layer of security which works beyond simple credentials. UBA solutions provide the scope for continuous assessment of behavioral patterns. Any anomalous activity or deviation from the standard pattern which includes upgrading user privileges, gaining access sensitive security settings and unauthorized changing of security settings alerts the IT administrator in real time.
Prime Infoserv’s User Behavior Analytics services and solutions:
Prime Infoserv’s cloud service prioritizes and mainly focus on the various security issues that organizations come across in cloud service environments such on various platforms like AWS, Salesforce, MS Office 365, and Google Apps. UBA capabilities are a major part of any Prime Infoserv cloud security solution. At Prime Infoserv we encourage the use of UBA for the purpose of analyzing occurrences that take place in individual as well as critical business cloud applications. Prime Infoserv’s UBA solutions let organizations get an in-depth and comprehensive view of behavioral patterns of users and at the same time lets security officials analyze activities that take place across the whole of the cloud environment and all of this from a single user interface.