Ensign and IronNet partner to create cyber analytics capabilities

Cybersecurity firm Ensign InfoSecurity (Ensign) and US cybersecurity specialist IronNet Cybersecurity (IronNet) have announced three strategic thrusts to their joint venture (JV) Cyber Analytics Centre for Excellence (COE).

They are enhancing the capabilities of local cybersecurity talents; joint research and development efforts to create advanced cybersecurity solutions; and strengthening cyber threat intelligence sharing to enable collective defence between enterprises, industries, and governments.

This marks a milestone in the partnership between both companies.

The Singapore-based centre aims to equip government entities and organizations operating in Singapore and across Asia-Pacific with collective defence solutions to secure infrastructure against coordinated attacks.

Ensign InfoSecurity CEO Yeoh Keat Chuan says, "Data is the critical ingredient for cyber defence today.

"Without advanced cyber analytics, organizations are blind to emerging threat vectors and can only be reactive to cyber-attacks.

"The Cyber Analytics Centre for Excellence brings together two companies to co-create new data analytics techniques and best practices, and ultimately, help uncover new cyber threat vectors in this digital world.

IronNet Cybersecurity founder and co-CEO Keith Alexander says, "Today's advanced threat actors are sophisticated, well-funded adversaries who can rapidly change their tactics, techniques and procedures to avoid detection.

"Defending against these threats require enterprises, their industry and their governments to work together to build a collective defense framework that strengthens the security posture for all members.

"The three strategic focuses that we have devised with Ensign for the Cyber Analytics COE will help build a joint defense framework to accomplish those goals."

The three strategic thrusts of the Cyber Analytics COE are:

Elevating the capabilities of Asia's homegrown cybersecurity talents

The first strategic focus of the COE will be to strengthen the expertise of cybersecurity professionals in Singapore.

Ensign's security team, which currently comprises 500 cybersecurity professionals, will have cross-training and secondment opportunities with IronNet Cybersecurity.

This exposes local talents to cyber analytical detection methods and the chance to learn from offensive and defensive cybersecurity experts from IronNet who possess deep experience working for military, government, and commercial sectors in the United States.

Developing innovative, best-of-breed cybersecurity solutions

The JV also provides a knowledge and intellectual property (IP) exchange platform for the two companies' team of data scientists, engineers and researchers.

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 Cybersecurity's patented 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 center 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 Asia-Pacific.

Collective defense cyber intelligence sharing

The centre will facilitate secure and strong industry sector and cross-sector cyber intelligence sharing between the two partners.

IronNet's IronDome solution aggregates and analyses behavioural anomalies in real time and at machine-speed across public and private sector organizations at scale to identify cyber threat targeting an industry or geography.

Combined with Ensign InfoSecurity's access to the metadata from Starhub's telco network and analytics capabilities, the COE will be able to connect the dots and provide complete visibility on imminent threats across an industry or geographic region and identify stealthy, sophisticated cyber campaigns that would otherwise be challenging for an individual organization to detect and stop.

Ensign is the exclusive distributor in Singapore and select Asia-Pacific markets for IronNet's IronDefense and IronDome solutions.