What You Don’t Know Will Hurt You: Understanding Real-Time Cyber Telemetry - USX Cyber

What You Don’t Know Will Hurt You: Understanding Real-Time Cyber Telemetry

Data is the very lifeblood of businesses big or small — from the financial data that helps steer organizational decisions to the customer data you are charged with safekeeping. But data is also your best defense against cyber attackers. That is if you know how to harness it correctly.

Real-time cyber telemetry is how USX Cyber puts your data to work and helps you stay protected in today’s environment of rapidly evolving cyber threats. Simply put, real-time cyber telemetry is the collection of data across multiple points such as endpoints (individual computing device), a network, email server, and the cloud to actively aid in the detection and hunting of cyber threats.

This is the foundation for our leading-edge Guardient Extended Detection and Response (XDR) cybersecurity platform. By gathering comprehensive security data from your organization as a whole, we are able to get a much more complete picture of your network than a traditional Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) model could ever provide (more on that in a second). Guardient also brings together industry-leading tools and Analysts to provide instant, actionable insights to help defend your business against hackers and other threats. 

Let’s take a deeper look at why XDR and telemetry provide unmatched protection.

More Data is Needed

Traditional cybersecurity products have generally fallen under the umbrella of the EDR model. In this defense posture, an agent is installed locally on a system, and alerts are captured only for the endpoint that is being monitored. This is known as a Host Intrusion Detection System (HIDS) and it is a very common practice in the cybersecurity industry. And there’s nothing theoretically wrong with this methodology. HIDS has the capability of continuously monitoring a specific endpoint agent and recording various analytics to detect suspicious system behavior or block malicious activity. In this scenario, your security team would have visibility into analytics related to system behavior, contextual information, and any other activities that justifiably would produce a red flag for your IT department. And most EDR systems nowadays even offer advanced threat detection, investigation, and response capabilities. 

Again, in theory, all good stuff. But in practice, we know that cyber attackers don’t stop at one device or server. They will keep coming until they get in.

That’s why USX Cyber has developed our Guardient Extended Detection and Response (XDR) platform. It’s a new approach to cybersecurity, and it’s built on the knowledge that the more data you have, the safer you are. 

According to Palo Alto Networks, “While traditional EDR tools focus only on endpoint data, XDR solutions seek to unify siloed security tools to deliver protection, detection, and response across all data sources. An XDR platform integrates endpoint, network, cloud, and third-party data to extend protection, and uses user and entity behavior analytics (UEBA) as well as artificial intelligence (AI) to address some of the known shortcomings of SIEM tools in detecting zero-day attacks.”

XDR solutions provide greater log collection across various data points within the company’s network, giving you an edge over would-be attackers. 

The Log Jam Effect

More is good. Until it’s too much. 

XDR systems will provide you with a staggering amount of system data. However, being able to source this information in a formatted and digestible manner is one of the leading shortfalls for most cybersecurity products on the market. 

To have complete real-time cyber telemetry you need more than just the data logs made available through an XDR cybersecurity system. You need to have the data provided in a way that is digestible, actionable, and integrated into your security suite. 

Per John Oltski of CSO, “76% of security professionals say that threat detection and response is more difficult today than it was 2 years ago. Why?  Organizations must deal with the volume and sophistication of cyber threats, an increasing cybersecurity workload, and a growing attack surface.  Infosec pros also bemoan the fact that they still rely on manual processes and an army of point tools for threat detection and response.”

Guardient was designed specifically to bridge this gap for small businesses. Because the truth of the matter is the data captured by cybersecurity tools is only as good as the output. Today’s cybersecurity professionals are in a constant battle with both hackers and the clock to mitigate breaches before permanent damage is done. And the best tool in this fight for your business is having the right information, right away. Guardient XDR does that. Our state-of-the-art platform includes features like custom alerts, rule decoders and productivity enhancements to streamline your processes — saving you time, money, and damage incurred by cyber attacks.

Another critical component of our XDR cybersecurity product is the ability to capture logs created across all devices on your network and the ability to provide real understanding as to what is producing those logs in the first place. Guardient utilizes industry-leading integration tools like Wazuh that allow for simple log collection by pulling files from various endpoint sources, seamless conversion to .json formatting, and intuitive alerts on a SIEM dashboard for instant review. This process can be seen in greater detail below. 

Prove It

We don’t fault you for not being prepared for these almost invisible attacks. After all, it’s hard to believe in something you just can’t see with the untrained eye. 

But being blissfully unaware is a very dangerous place to be when it comes to your cybersecurity. At USX Cyber, we bear witness to the multitude of attacks that happen daily and hourly to the small-to-medium businesses we proudly protect. And frankly, the data we’ve been collecting proves the sophistication of modern hackers and their desire to target businesses that were previously thought safe.

Now it’s time to see it for yourself. 

We’ve created a way you can watch the Guardient XDR platform in action, gathering real-time data about the security of your network. While we firmly believe we’ve developed a security system that provides you the same level of protection that the big corporations employ, it’s important to see it working in your environment and on your devices.

Once you set up your free trial of Guardient XDR, the rest is easy. We’ll walk your IT department through our simple installation process that runs a PowerShell script on a Windows device or Bash script on a Unix/Linux based system. They will even be given the opportunity to review the code for installation to ensure you have a high level of comfort with our product. Guardient will run silently in the background, requiring no upkeep from your IT team and very low resource consumption. 

Once the software is up and running, Guardient endpoint agents will be installed — collecting logs through various sources throughout your system(s). Security is obviously paramount, so all data collected is protected in our cloud environment and will be scrubbed after the test is completed. After the trial is complete, USX Cyber’s team of expert analysts will review your data and create a report that allows you to see what Guardient has captured, and more importantly, what your current security software has missed. 

Are You Ready? Or not?

There’s no risk to you. The only risk is not knowing. Click here to schedule your completely free trial of our Guardient XDR cybersecurity platform and take the first step in securing your business from cyber threats.