By Ben Turner | Managing Principal Security Consultant at Nettitude  

We're pleased to announce that Nettitude has been listed as the first STAR-FS accredited company that are able to deliver both ‘Threat Intelligence’ and ‘Intelligence-Led Penetration Testing’ Services.

STAR-FS is a new regulatory tool used to assess the effectiveness of a firm’s cyber capability and risk profile. This assessment created by CREST is designed to be delivered by the Threat Intelligence (TI) and Penetration Testing (PT) providers. STAR-FS was designed to deliver similar outcomes to that of CBEST while being less onerous and resource intensive on the regulatory services that back it up.

So what does this mean for our customers within the financial services sector? In the following blog post, we'll discuss the details of the STAR-FS accreditation and how this will impact on our future business within the financial sector. 

As more organisations begin to understand the importance of maturing their cybersecurity strategy, the focus is shifting away from a more ‘compliance-based’ plan and is logically developing towards a reactive security posture with a more modern, proactive and continual assurance approach. Infrastructure penetration testing is a crucial part of an ongoing security assurance programme, as well as being a distinct step in the journey. 

In the following blog post, we’ll cover the reasons why an organisation would need an infrastructure penetration test, as well as the key as well as the key considerations that need to be made in advance of one.

By Mike Buckley | Pre-Sales Consultant at Nettitude  

Firewalls have been around for what seems a very long time now. Firstly, they were considered in theory at the end of the 80s as a simple packet filter, but they soon progressed within a decade to a stateful offering, pioneered by the likes of Check Point with a usable front end.  It seems remarkable now that a Firewall that previously only inspected the first few packets of a connection to allow or deny was considered “next-gen”, but that’s just a measure of how far cybersecurity has moved on in the last twenty years. 

Whilst Check Point and Cisco ruled the market for a while, until Palo Alto came in and disrupted the marketplace with their application-based policies; there has been a big shift in how the Firewalls inspect traffic, and how policies have moved from traditional IP based rules to being able to allow particular users access to particular applications, enabling much more granularity and control.  Many more features have come (and in some cases gone) since then and of course now there’s an argument that there’s no perimeter any more, so what does that mean for the Firewall?

In this blog post, we’ll look at the function of modern firewalls and what’s in store for the future of firewall development and functionality.

By Nettitude  

At Nettitude we have the great advantage of seeing first-hand how organisations of all shapes and sizes approach cybersecurity. And like all good consultants, we are magpies; borrowing the best and worst of what we see and absorbing it into our accumulated knowledge. This approach means that when we advise our customers, we’re able to draw on a vast body of knowledge and experience, saving our customers’ time by avoiding the mistakes we have observed within other organisations.

In this blog post, we'll look at why the NCSC 10 Steps guidelines are a good place to start when evaluating your cybersecurity posture, as well as advice on how to implement these guidelines. 

By Nettitude  

Are your email habits putting you at risk? Email is one of the most common means of communication but is also an easily and widely abused system for providing entry points for attackers into our organisations. In particular, during the recent pandemic, we have seen a significant rise in the amount of Phishing attacks carried out by email, meaning organisations need to be even more vigilant.

Nettitude uncovered a recent Maritime campaign focused on manipulating behaviours and common industry practices to deliver malicious payloads and compromise networks. In the following blog post, we’ll go over our findings on a recent attack, as well as how to spot this type of attack and the best methods for responding.

By Craig Boyle |Senior Security Consultant at Nettitude  

An Introduction to Cloud Services

Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud Platform (GCP) are the current leaders in Cloud Computing, and offer hundreds of services between them. The continuous expansion of features, inherent flexibility, and broad access offered by Cloud Computing are compelling reasons for its adoption, and organisations of all sizes are looking to migrate their workloads.

By Mike Buckley | Pre-Sales Consultant at Nettitude  

Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) Services have matured hugely in the last ten years. Moving from a compliance driven requirement, to becoming security best practice, SIEM Services are now recognised by various Security Frameworks. As the marketplace has developed, so too have the Managed Service offerings that protect SIEM technologies. As a result, it is no longer enough to deploy a SIEM technology with reliance on only the most basic of filtering to detect a potential threat.

This blog post will look at the development of Security Information and Event Management Services and will consider what additional security measures are now needed.

By Elisa Cassi | Cyber Product and Services Manager 

Nettitude and Lloyd's Register have released the LR Cybersecurity Framework (CSF) for the Marine and Offshore sector, to complement the Cybersecurity Strategy paper that was previously published. The two documents are part of a suite of marine specific documents to support shipping organisations defining and implementing a robust and appropriate Cybersecurity Strategy.

This post focuses on the LR Cybersecurity Framework and provides an overview of how to use it effectively to deliver relevant and pragmatic cyber capability within your organisation for addressing cyber-threats.

By Joel Snape | Security Researcher at Nettitude

One of the key enablers of business modernisation and efficiency in the Maritime Industry has been the availability and adoption of VSAT satellite connectivity. This has allowed vessels to stay connected to shore-based networks throughout their voyage: providing internet and corporate network access for crews and passengers; increasing the amount of administration which can be carried out at sea to save time in port and enabling remote monitoring and management of on-board systems.

By Adrian Shaw | Senior Incident Response Consultant at Nettitude

Incident Response, in line with Information Security, is generally a challenge for a lot of organisations. Despite this, the good news is that cybersecurity is now being recognised as more of a crucial component of a business plan within organisations; many of which now have a programme in place to implement Incident Response capability. Whilst this is a step in the right direction, it should be ensured that these programmes should be iterative in order to facilitate the maturing of their capabilities.