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A Singapore-based joint venture between Ensign InfoSecurity (Ensign) and IronNet Cybersecurity (IronNet) has been formed leading to the creation of a cyber analytics centre of excellence with three strategic thrusts.
The new centre of excellence has been set up with the intention of equipping government entities and organisations operating in Singapore and across Asia Pacific (APAC) with the latest cyber security and collective defence solutions to protect critical infrastructure against sophisticated and coordinated attacks.
“Data is the critical ingredient for cyber defence today,” said Yeoh Keat Chuan, CEO of Ensign InfoSecurity. “Without advanced cyber analytics, organisations are blind to emerging threat vectors and can only be reactive to cyberattacks.
“The cyber analytics centre for excellence brings together two world-class cyber security industry leaders to co-create new data analytics techniques and best practices, and ultimately, help uncover new cyber threat vectors in this digital world."
The three strategic thrusts include enhancing the capabilities of local cyber security talents; joint research and development efforts to create advanced cyber security solutions; and strengthening cyber threat intelligence sharing to enable collective defence between enterprises, industries, and governments.
“Today’s advanced threat actors are sophisticated, well-funded adversaries who can rapidly change their tactics, techniques and procedures to avoid detection,” said Keith Alexander, founder and co-CEO of IronNet Cybersecurity.
“Defending against these threats require enterprises, their industry and their governments to work together to build a collective defence framework that strengthens the security posture for all members.
“The three strategic focuses that we have devised with Ensign for the Cyber Analytics Centre of Excellence will help build a joint defence framework to accomplish exactly those goals."
To boost the local expertise of cyber security professionals, Ensign’s 500-strong security team will have cross training and secondment opportunities with IronNet Cybersecurity.
This will give local talent the required exposure to the latest cyber analytical detection methods, as well as the chance to learn from offensive and defensive cyber security experts from IronNet, with experience working for military, government, and commercial sectors in the US.
The second key thrust is targeted at research and development and the creation of new cyber security solutions. For this, the joint venture provides a knowledge and intellectual property (IP) exchange platform for the two companies’ team of data scientists, engineers and researchers.
For instance, Ensign InfoSecurity has developed threat detection models based on the deep network security, data science, and cyber intelligence tradecraft expertise of their team to develop AI techniques that detect unknown threats in network protocols.
These models can be further augmented by IronNet’s IronDefense solution which is a scalable network traffic analysis platform that uses advanced behavioural analytics, machine learning, and AI techniques to identify known and unknown threats at each phase of the attack lifecycle.
The cross-pollination of capabilities will enable the centre to perform deep research into areas such as cyber analytics and advanced detection methodologies that will result in the creation of new custom security solutions and services for Singapore and the wider APAC region.
The final key thrust is the strengthening cyber threat intelligence sharing, which the new centre is designed to facilitate.
For instance, IronNet’s IronDome solution, which aggregates and analyses behavioural anomalies in real time, combined with Ensign’s access to the metadata from Starhub’s telco network and analytics capabilities, enable the centre to provide complete visibility on imminent threats across an industry or geographic region.
This also enables the centre to identify stealthy, sophisticated cyber campaigns that would otherwise be challenging for an individual organisation to detect and stop.
Ensign InfoSecurity is headquartered Singapore and is the result of a partnership between Singaporean telco, StarHub, and Leone Investments, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Temasek Holdings.
The new entity was born in 2018, when StarHub merged its cyber security centre of excellence with its subsidiary Accel Systems and Technologies and Temasek-owned Quann, forming one of the largest pure-play cyber security companies in Asia.
The firm has 500 certified security professionals across its three core offices in Singapore, Malaysia, and Hong Kong.
The firm is also the exclusive distributor in Singapore and select APAC markets for IronNet’s IronDefense and IronDome solutions.
