Justin Chiah (Aruba)
Aruba and Microsoft have combined technology capabilities to enhance cyber security offerings at enterprise level, paving the way for customer adoption in Southeast Asia.
The sync up centres around the integration of Aruba ClearPass Policy Manager with Microsoft endpoint protection platforms, spanning devices, applications, operational technology (OT) and the Internet of Things, among other areas of IT.
Specifically, the collaboration allows ClearPass to control access to critical network resources based on endpoint security intelligence provided by Microsoft, with the aim of reducing the risk posed by compromised network connections.
“This partnership comes at a volatile time where cyber threats are escalating exponentially across the globe,” said Justin Chiah, senior director of Southeast Asia, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau and Product Category across Asia Pacific and Japan at Aruba.
Aruba has completed integration, testing and verification of ClearPass Policy Manager with Microsoft Endpoint Manager, a unified management platform that includes Configuration Manager and Microsoft Intune.
ClearPass has also been integrated with Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection (ATP), a unified endpoint security platform designed to help enterprises "prevent, detect, investigate and respond" to advanced threats.
“Aruba’s ClearPass provides policy management on network infrastructure from any vendor, while Microsoft Endpoint Manager provides secure, integrated management of devices and applications from any source,” Chiah added.
“ClearPass and Microsoft Endpoint Manager work in tandem to address endpoint security for a very broad range of IT, IoT, bring your own device [BYOD] and OT devices and applications used in different vertical markets, poising our customers for success against cyber threats in Southeast Asia and beyond.”
Aruba has also collaborated with Microsoft to improve the "efficiency and security" of access control communications through the development of a standardised approach to support multiple authentication methods and identity types in a single authentication request.
The solution uses the Tunnelled EAP (TEAP) protocol to combine both machine and user identities in a single request.
“Combining network access control with endpoint security, such as risk or exposure scores, yields synergies for both technologies, ensuring businesses that the right devices have access to the right network resources,” said Moti Gindi, corporate vice president of Threat Protection at Microsoft. “This integration allows our joint customers to simplify their security infrastructure, and enables both solutions to provide higher levels of security.”
A five-year cyber espionage campaign targeting government agencies and owned businesses across Southeast Asia was recently uncovered following the re-emergence of hacker group Naikon.
According to Check Point findings, the advanced persistent threat (APT) specialists are “persistently targeting” countries in the same geographical region, which includes Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar and Brunei.
In addition to Australia-based attacks, the group directly targets government ministries of foreign affairs, science and technology, as well as government-owned companies with the alleged motive of gathering of geo-political intelligence.
First revealed in 2015, the group was responsible for attacks against top-level government agencies and related organisations in countries around the South China Sea, in search of political intelligence. Naikon then slipped off the radar, with no new evidence or reports of activities found until now.
