Gartner Recognizes CyberSecOp - Ranked 2nd for Security Consulting Worldwide.

CyberSecOp receives the highest overall score on Gartner Peer Insights for Security Consulting Services, Worldwide in 2022.  

June 8, 2022 - CyberSecOp today announced that its Security Consulting Services received a 4.9 out of 5 overall rating from Gartner Peer Insights, placing CyberSecOp in the top two on Gartner’s Security Consulting Services Worldwide category.

"Peer reviews are extremely valuable for evaluating any purchase decision," said Josh Bauer, Executive Director at Loxo Oncology/Lilly.  “CyberSecOp appears to actively and continuously listen to us as a customer to ensure they deliver innovative solutions and a valuable user experience."

“CyberSecOp is honored to receive our current ranking status and client feedback, and we will continue to prioritize customer satisfaction across the board."  Vincent LaRocca, CEO & Co-Founder.

2022 Gartner Peer Insight

Gartner Peer Insights is the firm's platform for rating and reviewing enterprise technology solutions by end-user professionals for end-user professionals. Through user-contributed reviews from people who have actually used the services, the rating system combines expert opinions and peer insights. Peer Insights User Reviews offers a suite of interactive features for technology buyers, including the ability to customize evaluation criteria to create a quadrant view tailored to the user's goals and priorities. The platform employs rigorous methodologies, processes, and quality standards to deliver unbiased research and authentic peer reviews.

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CEO Letter - Cyber Security Operations Consulting (CyberSecOp)

Vinny La Rocca

Chief Executive Officer

We believe the foundation of our success is grounded in our vision to uplift enterprise security while ensuring confidentiality, integrity, and availability beyond best practices. That purpose is a virtuous circle. We create long-term value by empowering our people to deliver for our customers and communities. CyberSecOp helps organizations with security consulting, incident response and ransomware negotiation, payment, and recovery.  

Our vital role to the community can be found in our mission statement. Our mission is to make the world a better place by defending and protecting our clients and partners from the theft of sensitive data through rapid incident response, cyber security programs, threat hunting, and the deployment of protective measures. 

Sustainability and Growth

Our sustainability is rooted in our vision and mission statement. We believe this is an integral part of our growth and the reason we can keep our promises to our clients and partners.

Growth - Expectations for 2022 are higher than 2021, a year with 85% growth. Cyber risks currently rank as one of the top global threats to businesses and custodians of data, along with an ever-increasing number of data privacy and protection laws. These factors, combined with CyberSecOp’s ability to respond both proactively and reactively, put the company in a very favorable position.

Partnerships - CyberSecOp continues to develop, encourage and align an increasing number of strategic partnerships, allowing our teams to continually improve upon our Service Level Agreements (SLA’s) and expand our portfolio and breadth of services.

Culture - CyberSecOp has built a culture of people passionate about Cybersecurity and Professional Services. Uniting around a common goal brings our team together and ensures everyone is working to assist our clients with Cyber Security and compliance. We are a diverse workforce with an open and collaborative culture. Our goal is to be a leading security consulting company by empowering our employees to provide top-quality services measured against best-in-class industry benchmarks.

Customer Success - Customer satisfaction and success continue to be CyberSecOp’s highest priority, measured by retention and the increase in recurring services. Our success is a direct result of the success of our clients.

Our commitment to our mission, staff, clients and partners will continue to fuel our fast growth, creating long-term value for all stakeholders. 

Cyber Security Breach Defense & Ransomware Risk Reduction

Cyber Security Breach Defense and Ransomware Risk Reduction by 98%, As ransomware evolves, so does CyberSecOp defense technologies.

Ransomware is the fastest growing attack-vector targeting all sorts of companies, institutions and organizations. No organization is immune to cyber attack. Cyber attackers can demand money from companies and institutions of all sizes and industries including nonprofit, enterprises and startups.

Ransomware Protection Solutions

• Managed Detection & Respond - Managed advanced endpoint protection, this is basically monitoring an advanced antivirus, which have the following features: Antivius, Firewall, Host Inturstion Prevention, Auto Malware Containment, and Malicious URL filtering services.

• SOC as a Service - Secure Operations Center 24/ monitoring- starts with a SIEM which correlated all logs into a central system, but SIEM can ingest data from multiple solution in the client environment, for example: Network Traffic, Intrusion Prevention, Cloud Assess Security Broker, Data Loss Prevention, Mircosoft Active Directory, Antivirus, Authentication System, Access Management, and other security logs.

• Cyber Security Threat Hunting - Treat Hunting is not tied to any one a solution, and it is a service provided by a team utilizing multiple tools to understand if the client has been compromised, also call a compromised assessment, which may include the following but not limited to: Advanced Endpoint Protection (AEM), Security Information and Event Management (SIEM), Network Traffic, Intrusion Prevention, Cloud Assess Security Broker, Data Loss Prevention, Microsoft Active Directory, antivirus, Authentication System, Access Management, and others.

• Data Loss Prevention (DLP) - Data loss prevention software (Common Terms data loss, data leak) detects potential data breaches/data ex-filtration transmissions and prevents them by monitoring, detecting and blocking sensitive data. It is a standalone document, but its log data can be ingested by a SIEM correlation.

Preventing and Mitigating

• Disable or remove remote services whenever possible; If not possible, use MFA/IP address restriction.

• Do not allow remote access directly from the internet. Instead, enforce the use of remote access gateways along with a VPN that requires multi-factor authentication;

• Require separate credentials for any remote access services; and administrative accounts.

• Allow only VPN IP addresses to connect via RDP so that only trusted machines can connect;

• Application whitelisting is critical to identify risks and unsanctioned application within your organization;

• Network and domain segregation, isolation critical system from none critical system';

• Deploy password lockout provisions to prevent brute-forcing attempts;

• Implement awareness security training programs for employees;

• Phishing simulation to identify employees who a susectiable to phishing emails;

• Monthly external vulnerability testing;

• Daily backup to a cloud provider, or take a copy of the backup offline Daily, Monthly, or Weekly depending on your business risk;

The best defense against ransomware is to outwit attackers by not being vulnerable to their threats in the first place. Ransomware penetrates organizations in multiple ways, so fighting it requires more than one product. CyberSecOp Ransomware Defense products provide ransomware protection from the network, DNS layer to email to the endpoint. As ransomware evolves, so does CyberSecOp defense technologies.

CyberSecOp is an ISO 27001 Certified Cyber Security Consulting Firm

CyberSecOp is proud ISO 27001 Certified Organization

The team at CyberSecOp is ISO/IEC 27001:2013 (ISO 27001) certified.
International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is an internationally recognized standard that ensures that firms such as CyberSecOp, meet best practices for information security management systems and vigorous risk-based framework approach.

We are committed to following a high-quality and consistent security management system. A-lign, an independent, third-party auditor, found CyberSecOp to have technical controls in place and formalized IT Security policies and procedures. A-lign is an ISO / IEC 27001 certification body accredited by the ANSI-ASQ National Accreditation Board (ANAB) to perform ISMS 27001 certifications. Therefore, through ISO 27001, we have developed and implemented processes and procedures in order to provide requirements for establishing, implementing, maintaining, and continually improving an information security management system. The entire certification leads us to the appropriate requirements for an Information Security Management System (ISMS) in our company — a systematic approach to managing sensitive company information so that it remains secure. It includes people, processes, and IT systems by applying a risk management processes.

Achieving the ISO 27001 certification is the result of a great amount of effort, dedication, and involvement from every member of the CyberSecOp team. We are constantly challenging ourselves to improve our service and provide the highest security and privacy standards to meet or exceed the needs and expectations of our customers.

Author: Carlos Neto

Information Security Officer

Cybersecurity Risks in a Pandemic: What you need to know

The COVID-19 pandemic has alerted many organizations to gaps in their information security infrastructure heretofore unrealized. Most of these deficiencies have been revealed as a direct outcome of the shift from a workforce-in-place physical environment centered around a fixed and determinable worksite location to a distributed, unstructured environment where most employees and individuals are working remotely.

At CyberSecOp, we can help your organization address these, as well as other concerns related not only to the current operating environment but also pertaining to any and all operating challenges you may face as part of your ongoing operations.

The lack of a centralized workspace raises a multiplicity of information security concerns, including but not limited to the following:

1.      Does the company have an established Work-From-Home (WFH) information security policy, and if not, how is remote worker security managed?

2.      Are employees adequately trained to work remotely, and do they have the appropriate tools at their disposal to ensure the preservation of the security environment?

3.      How does the organization manage mobile device and laptop security, including encryption?

4.      Control and testing of the commercial VPN?

5.      Does the organization maintain a comprehensive data loss protection policy?

6.      How, if at all does the organization address data loss protection?

7.      Does the organization have a breach response plan for mobile and remote WFH employees?

At CyberSecOp, we can help your organization address these, as well as other concerns related not only to the current operating environment but also pertaining to any and all operating challenges you may face as part of your ongoing operations. Our skilled team of information security professionals can provide a comprehensive assessment of your information security framework and suggest remediation and complementary additions to your existing framework, as the case may be.

There are several things to consider if and when the time comes for firms to return to the office. CyberSecOp recommends:

• Third-Party network risk assessment

•   Operational Responses to Security Incidents

• Work from Home Security

• Virtual Meeting Applications

• Updates and Patches

•   A full virus scan on workstations returning to the office

• Full Windows/Mac updates

• Review Wi-Fi connections on returning devices: Some people may come back and still connect to Optimum Wi-Fi (This can be very risky)

• Delete any accounts not for company use

• Provisioning devices employees may have bought in haste (Hardening AV adding to the domain)

• Mobile device management strategy for new mobiles, or devices that employees are using more

• Pandemic Policy, Cybersecurity Policy Wireless policy

It is important for organizations to foresee possible consequences transitioning from working remotely to returning to the office. CyberSecOp can help facilitate this transition.

AUTHOR: Michael Young

Achieve an Effective Security Awareness Program

For any company, especially technology-oriented ones, being aware about the cyberthreat landscape is critical. There is often the mindset that most cyberattacks can be warded off by procuring and implementing the latest security technologies, and relying on consultants and internal resources to police implementation.

While this passive strategy may yield a certain level of effectiveness, it also takes a high level of active, participatory security awareness on part of both employees and management in order to 100% fortify the lines of defense around the business or corporation.

STEPS TO ACHIEVE AN EFFECTIVE SECURITY AWARENESS PROGRAM

1.     The Major Orienting Components – A comprehensive, participatory information security awareness program should have as its three foundational pillars the principles of confidentiality, integrity, and availability.  While the first two terms speak for themselves, the third is often misapprehended.  Here, it refers to the organization maintaining a comprehensive system of controls over information security such that employees can be assured of having access to all information necessary to perform their roles without risk of breach.

2.     The Protection of Corporate Resources - “Corporate resources” does not just refer to digital assets — it also refers to physical assets, such as paper documents. A security awareness checklist should include the proper usage of document-shredding machines and how the shredded documents should be disposed of.

3.     Protection of Corporate Facilities - Employees should be trained not only in how to look for suspicious behavior from the outside, but from the inside as well.  This will ensure against unauthorized personnel gaining access to the premises for purposes of mounting internal attacks against the information infrastructure.

4.     The Formal Security Awareness Training Program – The corporation should maintain a comprehensive security awareness training program and all employees, irrespective of position with the organization and/or function, should regularly participate.

5.     Determining Levels of Responsibility and Segregation of Duties – All employees involved in the day to day management of security over the corporation’s digital and physical information assets should have their roles clearly defined and responsibilities enumerated and documented in a comprehensive ‘R & R’ policy.

CyberSecOp Security Awareness Courses specializes in helping employees understand the mechanisms of spam, phishing, spear-phishing, malware, and social engineering and are able to apply this knowledge in their day-to-day job. Our Security Awareness training solutions effect meaningful, sustainable changes in any workforce. With CyberSecOp Security Awareness Training, employees are not just aware of the dangers presented by an ever-changing threat landscape: they’re empowered to protect your organization from them.

AUTHOR: RICH FIORE

Comodo and CyberSecOp Announce Strategic Partnership

Comodo and CyberSecOp Announce Strategic Partnership

after Award-Winning MSSP Dropped Leading Competitor

Clifton, NJ – June 30, 2020 – Comodo and CyberSecOp today announced their strategic partnership. CyberSecOp, an award-winning, independent security consulting firm providing a range of information security consulting services, has partnered with Comodo to expand its security services offering for its customers. Comodo displaced a leading competitor.  

 “We focus on the customer experience—delivering what our customers want when they want it. That is our commitment and we take it seriously” said Jeffrey Walker, Chief Information Security Officer at CyberSecOp. “We needed to expand our security operations to fit the growing demand from our customers. Once we saw Comodo's complete SOC as a platform (SOCaaP) offering for MSSP partners and its ingenious auto containment technology, we knew they were the right partner for us. Occasionally, we have a partnership that our firm can't survive without, and we are confident that this is the relationship we are building with Comodo.”

CyberSecOp chose Comodo because it’s the world’s only complete, next-gen SOC-as-a platform offering — which includes people, process, and technology. The patent-pending auto containment technology is the world’s only active breach protection that renders ransomware, malware or cyber-attacks useless.  In addition, the platform saves MSSP partners time and money, without zero capital outlay.

“Our partners and the channel are in our DNA. Comodo is a partner-centric company and our goal is to make sure our MSSP partners and their clients are secure and happy,” said Alan Knepfer, President and Chief Revenue Officer at Comodo. “We are proud that such a respected MSSP has selected us. Our partners expect the best from us, and this allows us both to take our high standards to the next level.”

About CyberSecOp

CyberSecOp cybersecurity consulting services was founded by two information security professionals, and a managed services IT firm. They recognized the need for cyber security consulting services for small and medium-sized companies, and that small and medium businesses need to be secured with an information cyber security program. We provide Managed Security Services, Cyber Security Consulting, Security Consulting VISO Services, and Security Staffing. 

Mission: To redefine customer business equity with best-of-breed transformation, technology, and talent.

Vision: Empower our customers to focus on core business competence through innovative and competitive IT and secure business process outsourcing.

About Comodo Security Solutions, Inc.

Comodo delivers next generation cybersecurity solutions to protect businesses, schools, and government organizations in today’s risk-filled business environment. Headquartered in Clifton NJ, Comodo’s global development team and threat intelligence laboratories deliver innovative, category-leading, solutions for a company’s endpoints, network boundary, and internal network security.

Thousands of companies and organizations rely on Comodo’s technology to authenticate, validate, and secure their most precious asset—information—and to combat constant cyberattacks and threats like ransomware from wreaking havoc on a global scale.

www.comodo.com
sales@comodo.com
+1 888 551 1531

So, What Exactly Is the Dark Web, Anyway?

The first time I heard the term ‘Dark Web’ was in the context of a case of misappropriated identity.  A close relative of mine had begun receiving all sorts of communications from credit card companies and debt collectors concerning delinquencies that they were completely unfamiliar with.  One even included an attempt at collecting back premises rent for an apartment in Dallas, Texas where my relative had never visited in their life.  After spending months fighting off financial claims and trying to repair their credit history, my relative contracted a computer security professional to perform a forensic investigation of their home PCs.  It was ultimately discovered that some or all of the data breach enabling the identity theft had been the outcome of a fairly sophisticated spear-phishing attack combined with the installation of a key logger agent.  The forensics also revealed that much of their Personal Identifying Information had migrated to the Dark Web and was presently freely available to whomever-or whichever entity-might be interested.

Dark Web and how it functions

Dark Web, I thought.  Huh.  I’ve heard of the Dark Web but don’t know much about what it is or more specifically, how it functioned.  Heretofore I’d (wrongly) believed it was composed of a bunch of gamers sharing logins to cloud gaming services along with the ever-present and always thriving market for pornography.  My investigatory efforts yielded that the Dark Web is so, so much more, however; and I thought it was important to share my findings to clear up any popular misconceptions of which there is legion.  Therefore, I’ve decided to put together a brief post that provides the nuts and bolts of what’s become an increasingly important cog in the global economy for ill-gotten bits and pieces of data and information.  It turns out, the Dark Web wasn’t nearly as elemental as I’d initially suspected.

The Dark Web is a collection of thousands of websites that use anonymity tools to hide their IP addresses. While it's most famously been used for black market drug sales and even child pornography, the Dark Web also enables anonymous whistleblowing and protects users from surveillance and censorship.  Readers will recall that the Dark Web played an intermediary role in WikiLeaks dissemination of certain confidential U.S. Department of Defense documents related to the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Who created the Dark Web and how can it be assessed?

The majority of Dark Web sites use the anonymity software Tor with was created by the U.S. Department of Defense, though a smaller number also uses a similar tool called I2P. Both of those systems encrypt web traffic in layers and bounce it through randomly-chosen computers around the world, each of which removes a single layer of encryption before passing the data on to its next hop in the network. In theory, that prevents any spy—even one who controls one of those computers in the encrypted chain—from matching the traffic’s origin with its destination.  In layman’s terms-traffic on the Dark Web is untraceable.

Though the Dark Web is most commonly associated with the sale of drugs, weapons, counterfeit documents, and child pornography, not everything on the Dark Web is quite so “dark.” One of the first high profile Dark Web sites was the Tor hidden service WikiLeaks created to accept leaks from anonymous sources.  Even Facebook has launched a Dark Web site aimed at better catering to users who visit the site using Tor to evade surveillance and censorship. The Dark Web is also a vehicle for hackers to buy and sell personal information such as names, addresses, social security numbers, credit card information, etc. The more information they obtain from the unsuspecting victim, the higher the price.

Can Dark Web provide privacy

Just how completely Dark Web users can evade the surveillance of highly-resourced law enforcement and intelligence agencies, however, remains an open question. The FBI and EUROPOL have both launched successful Dark Web investigations aimed at stopping human trafficking, identity theft, and drug smuggling, and in most cases, the agencies were able to identify the threat actor by setting up relays and scripts on websites they frequently visit.  It's also possible that the agencies employed sophisticated DNS attacks on TOR servers or used other exploits; then again, it’s also possible they were able to rely on good old Human Intelligence-informants.  Everyone seems to have a price. 

So in summary, we know that the Dark Web exists, it’s a marketplace for all sorts of data and information exchange, not all of it legal or voluntarily disclosed.  The best way to ensure you don’t wind up on the wrong side of information exchange?  Secure your information systems, be very, very judicious in responding to emails and if you have any questions or concerns, contact a licensed information technology security professional.  The stakes are high, and only getting higher.

Author: Rich Fiore

Cyber Security: Information Data Protection

CyberSecOp assist clients with managing privacy risk while keeping thier existing controls as effective and efficient as possible to withstand a complex privacy risk environment. We focus on testing, and training based on common employee mistakes and remediate gaps in the process, eeping your systems in line with current regulations,

The revolution that has taken place over the past 20 years has had an impact on both consumers and enterprises. The devices and applications that millions of individuals use on a daily basis contain increasingly more complex information, within a constantly evolving technological environment. The growing digital innovation trends such as cloud computing, big data and the IoT create new opportunities to communicate and exchange information. However, this massive amount of confidential data must consequently be managed and secured efficiently and continuously.

How can a company guarantee the security of its data and of its users' data? What solutions are currently available on the market that can help enterprises optimize the management of information while maintaining their privacy?

CyberSecOp, an american base market leader in the Managed Security Service Provider industry, responds to the companies' need for security, offering a range of solutions and services designed to help customers identify cyber security risks in order to mitigate and monitor them over time.

Through its diverse solutions portfolio, CyberSecOp provides the right mix of technology, processes and sector-specific knowledge, supporting customers during the initial planning phase, from design to implementation, in order to identify the best solutions both in terms of process, as well as technology. The company’s strategic partnerships with key suppliers and expertise with market technologies guarantee customers a solution that provides effective operational coverage, on-premise or remote, with vertical expertise throughout the duration of the project and during the delivery of services.

Moreover, thanks to a Cyber Security Operations Center (CSOC), the delivery of timely services and continuous security monitoring are seamlessly integrated to reduce cyber security-related risks. The service is designed to offer the customer a growth-oriented path aimed at improving the company’s overall security position and risk level awareness.

The Industry 4.0 evolution and the arrival of the IoT have significantly increased the complexity and the level of risk to which all enterprises are subject, necessitating an efficient management of corporate security. In a changing environment characterized by increasing opportunities, while at the same time offset by an exponential increase in associated risks, the availability of CSOC services represents an essential guarantee of security.