SlashNext, a provider of third-generation Internet security solutions, today announced the company's broad market release of the SlashNext Internet Access Protection System to protect organizations from cross platform social engineering and phishing, malware, exploits and callback attacks. The system goes beyond first generation signature-based and second generation sandbox-based technologies and deploys human-like intelligence and cognitive thinking to stop these Internet attacks targeting unsuspecting employees as their entry points.

Today, automatic software updates and enhanced security offered in modern browsers prevent most software exploits such as buffer overruns and privilege escalations, but social engineering and phishing attacks exploit human vulnerabilities by deceiving victims into taking actions that will breach their company and their connected client's networks. In fact, social engineering and phishing attacks are the fastest growing security threat for organizations today, representing 43% of all Internet access threats, nearly double that of malware and viruses, according to the Verizon Data Breach Digest.  

"Social engineering and phishing attacks are becoming the prime attack vector since cyber-criminals realize unsuspecting people create the easiest way to bypass traditional anti-virus and sandbox technologies," said Fran Howarth, Senior Analyst with Bloor Research. "A new approach to Internet threat detection is needed. SlashNext answers that need, using cognitive computing technologies that mirror human learning to enable systems to stop Internet threats targeting a variety of operating systems such as Windows, Linux, OSX, Android and iOS."

"For years, we've relied on a well-defined boundary to protect our assets, but things are changing. With the rapid pace of change in modern advanced threats, employees cannot be expected to evaluate a particular threat's risk, and information security teams are hard-pressed to stay abreast of all new threat information and rethink their security approach," said Raun Nohavitza, vice president of IT at Centrify. "To address this challenge, we deployed the SlashNext Internet Access Protection System. It allows us to apply broad threat intelligence and the cumulative expertise of seasoned security experts to automatically block malicious activity that would otherwise reach our employees."

In a recent review of more than 50 deployments, SlashNext identified dozens of instances of zero-day social engineering and phishing, exploits and malware attacks that had gone undetected by the customers' existing firewalls, sandbox, data-exfiltration prevention tools and next gen anti-virus software.

"The ever-changing threat landscape we face today requires a revolutionary approach to security -- one that is built upon an entirely new mindset that is beyond and independent of existing technologies that we've seen," said Promod Haque, Senior Managing Partner of Norwest Venture Partners. "SlashNext represents the next generation of security through its unique ability to think outside the sandbox."

The SlashNext solution is deployed via a simple, 20-minute installation process that requires zero policy configuration or ongoing maintenance. Once installed, the system employs a patent pending threat protection technology that includes:

• A cross platform protocol analysis engine that processes gigabits of Internet bound traffic in real-time to extract a complex set of artifacts. These artifacts are essentially the telltale signs of a malicious attack.
• The artifacts are further processed by a cognitive computing machine that uses massive cloud computing power to convert these features into clear Indicators of Compromise (IOCs).
• The IOCs are then handed over to hundreds of reasoning engines that behave like a team of decision-makers working together to reach a single verdict, "100% Malicious" or "Not Malicious."
• Once a decision is made, the final outcome is shared back with all the decision makers as part of a peer feedback mechanism that gives the system its unique self-learning capability. This process is a huge contrast to machine learning based systems that need to be manually trained repeatedly by data scientists and an exact replication of a team of human threat researchers who process raw data, compile evidence, analyze using cognition, discuss and then collectively reach a decision.
  

"The last few years have seen an explosion of social engineering and phishing attacks that don't rely on malware or exploits to penetrate defenses. That's left businesses urgently in need of an innovative new approach to security that goes far beyond the sandbox," said Gaurav Garg, Founding Partner of Wing Venture Capital. "By harnessing the power of cognitive computing in its system, SlashNext is taking cyber defense to a completely new level."

Availability:

The SlashNext Internet Access Protection System is available immediately in North America via a subscription-as-a-service model that includes product support and built in threat intelligence.