SecurityBrief Asia - Technology news for CISOs & cybersecurity decision-makers
Story image
Virsec launches Deterministic Protection Platform to protect software workloads
Fri, 28th Jan 2022
FYI, this story is more than a year old

Virsec has released its Deterministic Protection Platform (DPP), designed to provide better protection against all known and unknown threats to software workloads, and reduce threat actor dwell time and ensure runtime observability.

DPP by Virsec protects server workloads across the entire runtime stack, eliminating false positives, when deployed on bare metal, virtual machines (VMs), containers, or in the cloud, the company states.

DPP by Virsec is the next evolution of the company's flagship Virsec Security Platform (VSP). The solution makes security response obsolete by improving the protection that conventional, probabilistic solutions aren't able to.

It enables full application stack protection at runtime, automatically protecting vulnerable workloads covering all facets including applications, files, processes and memory space that are typically targeted by attackers.

Only trusted execution is allowed, ensuring zero adversary dwell time and stopping an attacker's malicious actions against both known and unknown threats.

According to the company, it specifically protects against ransomware, remote code execution, supply chain poisoning and memory-based attacks.

It also uniquely detects advanced attacks at the web, host, and memory levels that bypass Extended/Endpoint Detection and Response (X/EDR), Web Application Firewall (WAF), Intrusion Detection and Prevention System (IDPS), Endpoint Protection Platforms (EPP), and Antivirus (AV) solutions.

Finally, it can reduce, or entirely negate, the need for patching. With its read-only approach to mapping the software workload, DPP by Virsec does not harm applications while providing true protection. This unique approach also allows for fast deployment, performance maintenance, and automation at scale.

Virsec cofounder and CEO Dave Furneaux says, “Security practitioners are exhausted at the failed promise of ‘protection' when many vendors merely offer alerts after an attack on their applications.

"As we've seen with Log4j, PrintNightmare, and other recent attacks, this approach is not working. When we founded Virsec, we took a ‘first principles' approach to protect software, regardless of the attacker's preferred exploit or attack method.

"Now, the name of our platform says it all – we can determine what your software is supposed to do and immediately stop any attack.

Attacks continue to increase exponentially. In 2020, the FBI saw more than 2,000 ransomware incidents, and more than a 200% jump in ransom demands in 2021.

Software vulnerabilities continue to plague legacy and modern systems and the commonality among these events is that they target, and in many cases hide within, software at its fundamental levels on hosts and in memory.

In addition, attackers are constantly changing their techniques. EDR and other traditional tools don't protect against the latest attacks.

To combat these issues, DPP by Virsec secures the full-application stack – web, host, and memory – at runtime, regardless of application type or environment.

This deterministic approach to security is designed to ensure precision protection for legacy unpatched workloads, consolidated VMs and containers, and provides runtime web application protection and application control.

The platform's coverage for all of these use cases helps organisations achieve better protection, reduce the cost of operations, and ensures continual compliance.

Virsec has public sector and commercial customers around the world, including the healthcare, financial services, retail, energy, and insurance sectors.