Posts Tagged ‘Q1 Labs’
Posted by Michael Applebaum in Cybersecurity, Q1 Labs, Security Intelligence, SIEM, Threat Management
Today, IBM announced the first major deliverable from the acquisition of Q1 Labs back in October – a new and dramatically enhanced QRadar Security Intelligence Platform. The new release combines deep analytic capabilities with real-time data feeds from hundreds of different sources to give organizations the ability to help proactively protect themselves from increasingly sophisticated and complex security threats and attacks.
This is exciting news for many reasons, including that QRadar continues to define the frontier of security intelligence, offering new capabilities for instant search, massive scalability and intelligent data policy management. In addition, QRadar will tap security analytics and threat intelligence from more than 400 sources. IBM X-Force, one of the world’s largest repositories of threat and vulnerability insights, provides an intelligence feed to QRadar based on the real-time monitoring of 13 billion security events per day. This insight can flag behavior that may be associated with new and emerging threats, all in real-time. Whether it’s the newest strain of malware or an advanced exploit technique first being seen halfway around the world, QRadar will monitor this intelligence and correlate it with what’s happening in your own environment, large or small.
To provide one example of how we’re bridging silos, consider the following scenario: An external attacker (or even an insider) compromises a number of user accounts, seeking access to a sensitive corporate database. After failing to login to the database with the first four accounts, he successfully logs in with the fifth account (a privileged user), downloads the organization’s customer list and emails it from the compromised account to a suspicious domain. Most organizations would struggle to piece together these actions into a cohesive picture of the attack and the impact, and almost certainly would not see it in real-time.
But with the combination of QRadar, IBM Guardium Database Security and IBM X-Force threat intelligence, the attack is detected and impact identified immediately. Guardium provides the continuous database monitoring and sends alerts to QRadar SIEM, which enriches the view of the incident with network flows and logs it has collected. It then observes activity involving an IP address (the receiving domain) that IBM X-Force has identified as suspicious. QRadar QFlow also provides insight into the content actually sent by the attacker, via deep packet inspection. And if the organization wanted to apply automated remediation to prevent the data exfiltration, it could even use QRadar to have the perimeter security devices block the data transmission. In sum, the incident is detected in real-time and the impact understood – or even prevented.
We view this as an important step forward in bridging security silos and applying greater intelligence and automation. What do you think?
For more information on today’s announcement, please see the press release here.
Posted by Melissa Stevens in Cybersecurity, In the Industry
As a part of IBM’s new Security Systems Division, Q1 Labs now has the privilege of working with some of the key thought leaders in information security today. One such benefit is our new relationship with the experts running the Institute for Advanced Security (IAS), a community that was designed to bring together leading experts, including researchers, executives, government officials, and policy experts, to collaborate and share their knowledge on security topics in order to facilitate the protection of key assets and critical infrastructure using next-generation security solutions.
One of these leaders is Jack Danahy, Director of Advanced Security at IBM. Jack is a national speaker and writer on network and data security, and holds patents in a variety of security technologies. He is also the founder and CEO/CTO of several security companies including Ounce Labs, a source code security analysis company that was acquired by IBM in 2009. Jack has also contributed to legislation on cybersecurity in both the US House and Senate, served on the board of the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Vendor Alliance, was the Vice Chair of the Vehicle Electrical System Security Committee for the Society of Automotive Engineers, and is a distinguished fellow at the Ponemon Institute.
Below is an excerpt from one of his recent posts on the IAS Expert Blog.
The Rising Role and Responsibility of the CISO
As technology and internetworking become intertwined in an increasingly complex mesh of enterprise projects, personnel, and partners, the security of the enterprise is becoming elevated to a new level of strategic importance as well.
IBM’s own VP of IT Risk, Kris Lovejoy, has taken the time to describe the impacts of these changing security pressures on the perceptions and practices of the CIO in a paper titled, “Security Essentials for CIOs” that you should read and share. While targeting the concerned CIO with a very consumable framework for considering security in a new and strategic light, I think that Kris’s articulation of the changing dynamics, responsibilities, and opportunities in play could very well be the manifesto of the next generation of CISO…
Click here to read the full post, and don’t forget to bookmark the site so you can stay up to date on the latest posts from our colleagues at the Institute for Advanced Security.
Posted by Melissa Stevens in Cybersecurity, Federal, In the Industry, Q1 Labs
Everyone likes recognition, especially when it comes directly from senior IT executives from across the federal government.
Yesterday it was announced that the Government Technology Research Alliance (GTRA) has named Q1 Labs the “Best Info Security Solution.” This special recognition is notable as it was the senior IT executives, deputy directors, CIOs and CTOs of major government agencies in attendance at their semi-annual council meeting that voted. These executives are tasked with improving their cyber security posture and better managing costs to do so.
This award also makes us eligible for another honor, the GovTek Award. Winners of this award will be announced on February 2, 2012, and will be selected by members of the government IT community.
Why were we chosen for this honor? GTRA explains, “Q1 Labs won the ‘Best Info Security Solution’ award for their collaboration with government in their boardroom, ‘Security Intelligence for Government Agencies,’ discussing cost-effective solutions using existing platforms in addition to integrating new applications allowing the visibility of potential vulnerabilities.”
Read more details in the GTRA announcement. Click here to learn about other ways Q1 Labs is working with government agencies to defend their infrastructure against theft, breach and vulnerabilities.
Posted by Melissa Stevens in Q1 Labs
For a lot of us, when we think about New Brunswick, Canada, it’s not as a technology hot-bed. You probably picture hectares of forests, miles of shoreline and farmlands. In fact, nearly 85% of the land is covered in trees!
But residents of the province are ready for that image to change. Since the late 1980’s, technology has been a slow-growth market in the province, beginning with a focus on access to information and distance learning type technologies, and maturing into the home of technology brands we’re more familiar with like Caris, Aliant, Radian6, and as of now, IBM.
Dwight Spencer has been with Q1 Labs since the very beginning. This post is based off a conversation I had with him about his home town and what it’s been like in Fredericton since news of the IBM acquisition.
Q: How did Q1 Labs start?
Back in November 2000, when Chris Newton first came to Sandy and me, he was still working in ITS at the University of New Brunswick (UNB) , Sandy worked at the University of New Brunswick (UNB) Libraries, and I was working with TeleEducation NB, part of the Department of Education within the provincial government. Chris came to us with this idea he had been working on for about a year. At the recommendation of his managers at the time, he had presented his new idea at a few Atlantic University conferences, showing the project to other institutions. Getting very positive feedback and immediate requests for access to the software, he knew he was on to something. He came to us asking if we would be interested in working with him to get it off the ground. Little did we know what we were getting into!
At about the same time, UNB was working to foster relationships with entrepreneurs, hoping to take ideas from UNB staff to market. It was about this same time, December 2000, that Chris met Brian Flood at one of these presentations. Brian came to us with an amazing amount of energy, and a passion to get things going in New Brunswick. After that, the business grew, and for about a year and a half, the team worked to get a marketable product. The three of us, Chris, Sandy and myself wrote code while Brian and his team worked to get it to market. We split our time between our day jobs and working nights, doing what we needed to do to get the business side of things figured out. Finally, the three of us decided to leave our full time jobs and join Q1 Labs full time in February, 2002.
Q: Today, you’re a part of the Customer Support organization. Can you describe your role over the years?
Like I said, back in the beginning, we did everything. We developed everything… even our own website; we financed early hardware purchases when needed, booked our own hotels, flights. We had to figure out where we were going. Who would work with us? Brian Flood was a lucky find. Once we had the business side going, Chris Newton and Brian were on the road and Sandy and I were back in the office doing development, building our website, managing the code production. As we brought on early customer evaluations, I would often visit the customers getting the system up, running, and collecting data, then supporting them with their questions once installed.
This early exposure to both pre and post-sales support was what lead me to develop our support organization, to ensure that customers were happy with the product and got what they needed to be successful.
Q: Sounds like things have changed a lot since the early days! What’s stayed the same?
As the team has grown, we’ve been lucky to work with really amazing people. These people are dedicated to success and have a real passion for this company. It’s been said before, but not enough. We really do work with a great team of people, and that remains constant.
Q: What benefits do you think a start up like Q1 Labs gained by “growing up” in Fredericton?
The university (UNB) was phenomenal in helping us out early on. Chris and Sandy were still working there fulltime, and had been taking their own holidays off to go on work trips, customer visits, etc., for Q1 Labs. After they ran out of holidays, their managers said that as long as nothing was in crisis, let them do what they needed to do: take days off, go to meetings and then make up time later when they could. They were truly interested and invested in our success- and Chris still tells that story.
Chris’s idea was one of the first to come in from the staff side. In fact, UNB uses our product, and just recently completed a major upgrade. UNB has been a partner from the start.
Q: Is the relationship with UNB still a source of strength for Q1 Labs?
Absolutely. We have a very close relationship with the staff at the university. In 2007 we launched an official partnership with them to form the Information Security Centre of Excellence. Through this relationship and other research relationships that Sandy still works on, we’ve developed new products like QRadar Risk Manager and gained access to research that has been crucial in our roadmaps. We also have access to incredible talent coming out of the university, so it’s a great source of strength for us.
Q: How has news of the IBM acquisition been received in Fredericton?
We’re really excited about our new relationship with IBM because it opens up so much possibility for people interested in pursuing technology careers in Fredericton. With the strength of the IBM brand, awareness of Q1 Labs is really growing. Not only does this allow us to attract more people to continue growth on what Q1 Labs has created, it now also brings opportunities for people from Fredericton and New Brunswick to consider working for IBM, and not need to move away to do it.
Overall, this acquisition means great things to people in Fredericton. Historically, buyouts haven’t been a good thing. Companies were closed down and jobs were lost. Much of New Brunswick’s economic history has been through natural resources – forestry, fisheries, agriculture, various forms of mining, etc. Today, our local industries are struggling. I hear about mill shutdowns, fisheries cutbacks, mining reductions, all resulting in the loss of countless jobs. What this news shows is that new fields are opening and there is still opportunity in New Brunswick.
Q1 Labs being purchased by a company like IBM, who has shown dedication to our vision and promise to continue growing our business by creating the Security Systems Division with our team at the helm, just opens up so much possibility. In the province, this means that people who live here will have potential to develop careers in technology. And that’s a good thing.
Read up on more news about the IBM acquisition and what it means to New Brunswick, Canada.
- Acquisition: Fredericton Startup company second New Brunswick firm purchased by multinational this year
- Q1 Labs sale validates innovation in the province
- High-tech deals spawn new generation of tycoons, new image for New Brunswick
- Q1 Labs deal shows strength of N.B. education, investment
Posted by Melissa Stevens in Q1 Labs, Security Intelligence
Earlier this week, we were notified that the Q1 Blog was selected to receive a special honor among B2B blogs. As an acknowledgement of the growing interest in the topics we talk about here, Eloqua, a marketing automation company focusing on Revenue Performance Management, chose to include our blog as a leaf on their updated “Blog Tree,” which recognizes the “freshest voices on the web.” We are listed along with 60 other B2B Blog sites who were launched after January 1, 2009.
While this might not seem like much of a bragging point, it really is a mark of achievement, and we wanted to share this with you. The path to getting listed was a combination of a bit of luck and alot of science. As Eloqua’s blog explains,
“Last year’s version looked only at Web traffic, and we received a bit of pushback on that ranking model. So we turned to one of the world’s most reliable sources of trust and influence: Edelman. We used Edelman’s BlogLevel tool as our sole data supplier because it gave us the most holistic view of each blog’s relative influence, popularity, engagement and trustworthiness.”
So that said, we want to send a special thanks to our loyal readers who helped get us on Eloqua’s radar as a company with influence- a B2B blog who is leading a conversation in their corner of the market. As interest in Security Intelligence continues to grow, we appreciate those who have shared our posts and have participated in this conversation over the years.
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