When you think of cybersecurity, you probably think of large organizations and high-tech companies like Amazon. Small businesses and individuals don’t need to worry…or do they? 

Long story short, yes – they do. Any computer can fall victim to one of the 1 million new malware variants that attack computer systems every day. According to a 2019 report from the Ponemon Institute, 72% of small businesses have experienced at least one cyberattack. These attacks can severely disrupt your business and leave sensitive information vulnerable to hackers. 

Traditional cybersecurity solutions may seem costly and cumbersome. We believe that keeping your data safe should be easy and accessible, so we created AppGuard; Designed specifically for individuals and small to midsize teams, our AppGuard solutions prevent every type of attack with a simple, elegant solution that just works.

Endpoint breach prevention software protects Windows laptop and desktop computers for personal and small business users. Its highly effective “set and forget” protection makes it ideal to efficiently and affordably prevent breaches from ransomware, phishing, and other forms of cybersecurity attacks. It can run for months or even years without security policy updates, ensuring maximum peace of mind. 

With such an easy and convenient way to protect your computer system from ransomware, phishing, and other attacks, you can spend less time and resources worrying about threats and more time working on the things that really matter.

Happy New Year! Time to take stock, reassess and come up with a game plan for 2022 on business issues that matter — like cybersecurity.

If you’re responsible for protecting your organization from cyber threats, many experts will tell you to kick off this new year by taking a fresh look at what you’ve got to protect; to surface the weaknesses and potential blind spots and figure out how to address them. They will advise you to develop “incident response plans,” detailed instructions for staff in the event of a breach or other cyber security event, and to test those response plans to make sure everyone knows the drill.

That’s a lot of work. Businesses can spend a ton of time and money on cybersecurity technologies and platforms, they can have all the right cybersecurity policies in place, and still get attacked. Happens all the time.

The events of the past year exposed increasing vulnerabilities all too well. They showed us that the bad guys have the advantage. Hackers are continuously devising new and creative ways to infiltrate networks and systems, exploiting vulnerabilities known and unknown. There is no realistic way to keep up.

Tracking incidents, patching systems and bringing systems into compliance with the latest security standards, processes and frameworks are still valid security strategies, and should be continued, by all means. But the traditional detect-and-respond approach is no longer enough.

At Blue Ridge, we believe it is better to be proactive, not reactive. We believe in stopping breaches from happening in the first place.

For our managed services customers, we do all the groundwork those other experts advise. We take inventory of critical assets and infrastructure; we map data flows and communications, both internal and external; we catalog systems and prioritize resources. And then we secure your assets by rendering them undiscoverable.

Our patented, field-tested solutions — including LinkGuard, a zero-trust network access (ZTNA) breach prevention solution that securely “cloaks” assets and data-in-transit; EdgeGuard, a zero-breach network access virtual gateway solution that delivers secure virtual network access for a distributed workforce; and AppGuard, a zero-breach endpoint solution that autonomously isolates and contains critical endpoint processes from malicious exploits — deploy easily and compatibly with existing and future IT and OT infrastructure, reducing integration complexity and costs. And they can be tailored to a wide range of use cases without disruption to critical operations. 

Going forward, given the current digital landscape, resilience will be key. There is no calm in this storm. The question is, are you ready?

Zero Breach for Zero Trust. Blue Ridge Networks. 

As we reach the end of a tumultuous and ever-changing 2021, we reflect on the lessons we have learned. With cybersecurity rising in notoriety as a result of several high-profile events, including the SolarWinds Dec 2021, Keystone Pipeline attacks May 2021, Kaseya in July 2021, and the current Log4Shell vulnerability, it’s clear that ensuring the safety of US networks is of paramount importance.

Looking ahead to the new year, there are several insights and trends we predict will be influential in the cybersecurity scope.

1. Increased Ransomware Threats

As technological advancements continue to modernize our world, so does ransomware. In 2021 alone, we saw ransomware wreak havoc on businesses both large and small, domestically and internationally. We predict that ransomware will continue to pose challenges for global enterprises, and that the role of cybersecurity will increase in terms of safeguarding everyday life.

2. More Connection Needs More Protection

Humanity constantly seeks to improve itself, and the technology we use in our daily lives is no exception. From automated medical devices, to self-driving cars, the world around us is increasingly computerized. But what happens when the tech we rely on becomes compromised? We feel that as our world gets smarter, we must also put in place protections to ensure that attacks do not take place on the devices we rely on.

3. Planning for the Future

The term “cybersecurity” is not a word brought up in average, everyday conversations. However, we believe that individuals and businesses of all sizes should be having conversations and including cybersecurity in future planning and strategizing.

4. Supply Chain Concerns

In a mid-pandemic 2021, we have all become aware of the global supply chain in a more acute manner. This newfound appreciation for a healthy supply chain brings the necessity of cybersecurity to maintain the flow of goods and commerce. At Blue Ridge Networks, we are aware of the need to strengthen networks across all industries, and predict that the supply chain will continue to be an important issue for many.

While this round-up is not intended to be pessimistic, we strive to raise awareness amongst the community so that solutions can be found and implemented. Being aware of potential threats shouldn’t make anyone worried – it inspires us at Blue Ridge Networks to be an active force for positive change.

A zero-day vulnerability (CVE-2021-44228) has been discovered in Apache Log4j which could permit a remote attacker to exploit vulnerable systems. An exploit code for this vulnerability exists, known as “Log4Shell”. It is publicly available on the dark web and multiple attack attempts are already underway.

Blue Ridge Networks solutions, including LinkGuard, EdgeGuard, and AppGuard do not use the Log4j library and are not vulnerable to those attack vectors.

BREACH PREVENTION FOR VULNERABLE SYSTEMS:

LinkGuard: For any system using the Apache software, LinkGuard and EdgeGuard can be used to logically isolate and contain existing/ongoing attacks and prevent future threats from external/remote threat vectors, including zero-day vulnerability including CVE-2021-44228.

AppGuard: AppGuard should be used on Windows or Linux based systems that run software that is affected by CVE-2021-44228 to prevent malware exploits from taking advantage of that attack vector.

Starting May 1, 2022, banks will be required to report ‘computer security incidents’ within 36 hours that are deemed ‘significant’ — meaning disruptive to the business or otherwise damaging, according to new rules from federal regulators.

The rules include incidents like a large-scale distributed denial of service attack or a computer hacking incident that disables banking operations. It is believed that notifying regulators will help “promote early awareness” of emerging threats to individual organizations and the broader system and also help speed response time before the issue turns systemic. (Rules requiring banks to develop and implement response plans in cases of unauthorized access to sensitive customer information have been in place since 2005.)

The new rules will likely benefit government watchdogs seeking a better handle on cyber threats as they evolve and grow. In theory, they’ll be able to leverage the information to protect other banks and the broader financial system. And that’s not a bad thing. 

But it won’t help the individual bank or similar business much, at least in the short term, because the problem here is not lack of attention. Like every other sector operating in the modern digital world, banks are already on high alert. 

And while that 36-hour time frame sounds speedy, consider this: it takes businesses and other organizations an average of 197 days to even detect a security breach, according to IBM — and another 69 days on average to contain it. The longer a breach goes unaddressed, the bigger the impact — and the more it costs to recover. 

Not surprisingly, the average cost of a data breach has continued to climb, and is now estimated at $4.24 million — the highest average cost in 17 years. For the financial sector, the average is considerably higher, at $5.72 million. And that doesn’t include what it costs a firm in terms of reputation and customer trust, which are difficult to quantify. Breaches are a PR nightmare, no matter how strong the contingency plan. 

The upshot is this: the detect-and-respond approach to cyber security is failing — and not for lack of trying. All the more reason to prevent breaches in the first place.  To avoid the whole mess entirely. 

At Blue Ridge, our motto is protect, don’t detect. Our AppGuard and LinkGuard solutions essentially cloak network assets and data-in-transit to eliminate the risk of breach and also protection lag from unknown vulnerabilities. 

Gartner projects that by 2025, 30% of critical infrastructure organizations will experience a security breach that will bring their operations to a halt. Organizations that embrace an integrated ‘cyber-physical’ approach will be better protected than those that continue to approach their cyber security piecemeal as they expand their security measures. 

Blue Ridge is all about IT/OT convergence. With our solutions, you are fully protected from external discovery and data exfiltration “pre-incident” — eliminating dependency on discovery or response to a network compromise after the fact. Our solutions deploy easily and compatibly with existing and future IT and OT infrastructure, reducing integration complexity and costs. They can be easily tailored to resiliently protect a wide range of use cases without disruption to critical operations. 

Banks, like every modern business, have both physical and digital assets to protect and that share bandwidth. Blue Ridge’s approach is to isolate, say, a bank’s security cameras from the rest of the bank’s network to prevent a lateral attack. By segmenting, OT and IT systems are protected in separate enclaves. 

In well over 20 years of service to our customers, there have been no reported breaches of our solutions — ever. 

Learn more about what Blue Ridge can do for you and your business at BlueRidgeNetworks.com.

Zero Breach for Zero Trust. Blue Ridge Networks.

“Espionage” – a term one may associate closely with James Bond. However, espionage is more than action-filled stunt sequences. With today’s increasingly advanced technology, computers and software systems are used as a tool for spies to hack their way to sensitive information.

In a recent cyberattack, hackers attempted to steal sensitive data from several key sectors, including United States defense contractors. Over the course of several weeks, foreign hackers targeted the US and other countries, attacking the defense and energy sectors among other important areas. While the goal of this attack does not appear to have been related to the disruption of activity, the true purpose may be related to espionage. 

These hackers scan the Internet for vulnerable software and pick out targets from the vulnerable pool that may grant them access to sensitive data and information, as well as intellectual property valuable to competitors. In this instance, hackers stole passwords with the intention of maintaining long-term access. Once access has been gained, hackers then dig deeper into the system, looking for pieces of information and communication including emails. 

This type of cyber-surveillance poses a serious threat to businesses and governments alike. Security agencies with bipartisan support have worked to spread public awareness and warn similarly vulnerable corporations in an attempt to combat the rise of cyber espionage attacks of this nature. 

These prominent cyber-spying attacks serve as a potent and timely reminder of the importance of cybersecurity for organizations at every level. The damage from these attacks can be catastrophic and irreparable, no matter what sector or industry an organization is involved in. Sensitive data in the wrong hands can be used to significantly disrupt the lives of everyday citizens. 

You can protect yourself. At Blue Ridge Networks, we know how important cybersecurity is to ensuring the safety of your private and sensitive information. Our unique, patented approach means that breaches are prevented before they have a chance to occur. We offer a wide variety of cybersecurity solutions perfectly tailored to the exact needs of your organization, business, or enterprise.

Rising cybercrime has everyone on high alert these days. The news stories just keep coming about hackers infecting systems with ransomware seeking a big payoff.

What some people may not realize is that these attacks could be putting actual lives at risk. When a hospital or healthcare system is hacked, it can delay or disrupt medical care services in potentially serious ways — turning malware into ‘killware’. U.S. government officials have grown increasingly worried.

This should come as no surprise to anyone who has been tracking the swiftly-evolving digital landscape. As Gartner analyst Wam Voster observes, the era of potentially lethal cybercrime has been upon us for some time. Last summer, USA Today reported a surge in hacking attacks on hospitals for patient data during the COVID-19 pandemic, citing a national survey that found over 80 percent of medical practices had been hit. In September 2020, Universal Health Services, one of the largest U.S. health care providers, suffered a crippling attack that forced providers to divert patients and cancel or defer critical surgeries, tests and other medical procedures. In a recent survey of nearly 600 U.S. healthcare organizations conducted by the Ponemon Institute, 40 percent reported that they had been the victim of a ransomware attack in the last two years — with over a third of those saying they noted an increase in complications from medical procedures and even death rates following the attacks. An analysis by the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency showed hospitals in Vermont affected by ransomware attacks reached capacity levels linked with excess deaths faster than hospitals that weren’t hacked. 

Attacks on critical infrastructure outside healthcare can also have consequences for human health and safety, of course. Consider the attack on the water system in Oldsmar, Florida, which officials later described as an attempt to distribute dangerously contaminated water to area residents. (The attempt was thwarted.) Other potentially troublesome targets include critical infrastructure related to oil and gas manufacturing, transportation and aviation. Gartner analysts project that by 2025, cyber attackers will have weaponized operational technology (OT) environments to successfully harm or kill humans.

The Biden Administration has responded by directing all federal agencies to address vulnerabilities — and giving them a strict deadline to patch security holes. “Organizations of all sizes … must protect against malicious cyber actors who seek to infiltrate our systems, compromise our data, and endanger American lives,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a Nov. 3 statement in which he called cybersecurity threats “among the greatest challenges facing the nation.” 

Mid-sized organizations — medical or otherwise — should be paying particularly close attention to these developments, experts say, because they represent the so-called “sweet spot” for cybercriminals: big enough to be worthy targets, and with ample resources to make ransom payments, and more likely than larger firms to lack adequate protection against cyberthreats.

Let Blue Ridge Networks design and implement a custom security solution for your business or enterprise. For over 20 years, we’ve been protecting our clients’ critical assets and operations in today’s inherently untrustable digital ecosystem. Blue Ridge rejects the traditional detect-and-respond approach. Our patented technologies use network segmentation, isolation and containment to stop breaches before they occur — before they can disrupt your operations and put anyone in harm’s way. 

Learn more about our Zero Breach solutions at BlueRidgeNetworks.com. 

Blue Ridge. Blue Ridge. Zero Breach for Zero Trust Network Access. 

Mark J. Ferrer Joins Blue Ridge Networks Board of Directors
Former SAP and Citrix cybersecurity industry leader will actively support the company’s growing Zero Breach™ business

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

October 25, 2021—Chantilly, VA.  Blue Ridge Networks, Inc., today announced that Mark J. Ferrer has joined its Board of Directors following his recent retirement as Executive Vice President and Chief Revenue Officer of Citrix Corporation. Prior to his successful tenure at Citrix, Mr. Ferrer served as the Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of SAP Global Customer Operations.

“Blue Ridge is delighted to welcome Mark to our team”, commented John Higginbotham, Chairman and CEO of Blue Ridge.  “We are excited to have his assistance in serving our growing customer base. Our resilient breach prevention solutions directly address the urgent need to protect critical IT/OT operations from the escalating cybersecurity threat environment.  Our solutions are field proven to compatibly and efficiently protect network access, a distributed workforce, and endpoint systems from breaches without disruption to operations.”

 “I am excited to work with Blue Ridge to support its rapid growth”, stated Mr. Ferrer.  “With the continued escalation of malicious threats, particularly for critical infrastructure, coupled with the persistent vulnerabilities in enterprise networks, the utility of Blue Ridge solutions has never been greater. Deploying Blue Ridge’s Zero Breach^™ solutions are a responsible decision for any enterprise seeking to immediately address its zero trust cybersecurity needs.”

About Blue Ridge^® Networks, Inc. (trivision.blueridgenetworks.com).  Blue Ridge’s goal is to serve its customers to help them achieve their goal – Zero Breach^™.  The company’s patented breach prevention cybersecurity solutions “cyber-cloak” critical assets, data-in-transit, and processes to provide “pre” incident protection eliminating protection lag and risk of breach from known and unknown persistent vulnerabilities in a zero trust ecosystem.  LinkGuard^® network access virtual and cyber-physical solutions protect network assets and data-in-transit.  EdgeGuard^® user access solutions deliver secure virtual network access for a distributed workforce.  AppGuard^® endpoint and server autonomous “pre” detection software protects computing processes from ransomware and other malicious zero day exploits.  In 20+ years of successfully delivering resilient, compatible, and efficient protection of critical IT/OT operations for government and industry customers there has been no reported breach of the company’s solutions – ever.  For more information, please visit trivision.blueridgenetworks.com, or contact  sales@blueridgenetworks.com.

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Did you know that October is National Cybersecurity Month? There are currently an estimated 5.2 billion Internet users – that’s a lot of people online! With over 65% of the world’s population using the Internet on a daily basis to connect, share, and conduct business, safety and security are of paramount importance. 

According to Srini Miramira, President of Blue Ridge Networks, “cybersecurity starts with you, and is everyone’s responsibility.” 

Cybersecurity matters, whether you’re an individual, a small to medium company, or a large enterprise. Over time, the gravity of taking appropriate cybersecurity actions has increased. Major cyber attacks have become more and more frequent, and losses can be significant. 

While the term “cyber attack” or “hack” may conjure an image of an individual lurking in a dark basement, the modern reality is much different. Cybersecurity breaches today have raised the stakes by introducing increasingly sophisticated technology and raising the stakes with the involvement of nation-state parties. The consequences of a cyber attack can have broad ramifications, including but not limited to reputation damage, financial losses, and in dire circumstances, loss of life. 

In our increasingly digital world, the realities of breaches and attacks must be addressed. At Blue Ridge Networks, we believe that breach prevention and breach protection is possible. Through our Zero Breach for Zero Trust approach, we ensure that our communities are safe and protected. Maureen Gray, Chief Operations Officer of Blue Ridge Networks notes “throughout its history the Blue Ridge products have never been breached.” We developed LinkGuard and AppGuard with the revolutionary intention of preventing breaches before they can even occur, abandoning the standard detect-and-react protocols.

Mark Webber, Vice President of Sales of Blue Ridge Networks, notes that our online world is, “where most of our assets are these days, and it’s also an area where the threat landscape is growing tremendously.” Webber goes on to note that over the last year and a half, some statistics indicate that cybercrime rates are up by over 600%, partially due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Up to 1 million new malware variants are released every day. With our patented LinkGuard and AppGuard technology, cybersecurity breach prevention is possible. Designed to integrate seamlessly and truly protect what matters, endpoints and servers are protected so you can live life without fear or risk. 

For over two decades, Blue Ridge Network has provided zero-trust solutions to the U.S. intelligence community and the Department of Defense.

The need for government agencies and departments to be able to safely share information — highly classified information — had become painfully evident following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. At that time, Blue Ridge already had a solution that was being accredited for individual use by intelligence agencies. That solution, called BorderGuard — a core component of the company’s flagship LinkGuard system — secured the information to be shared while also segmenting it, isolating it from other parts of the network. With BorderGuard, each agency could compartmentalize, sharing only certain information without revealing what else they had that they were holding back, and from whom, which can be just as sensitive, if not more so, as the information itself. 

This ‘cloaking’ aspect was considered critical. By the early to mid 2000s, Blue Ridge technology was being used across the entire intelligence community specifically to safeguard the sharing of classified information. It was also deployed to support coalition warfare operations, protecting tactical communications in Afghanistan and elsewhere. 

Today, BorderGuard technology remains a core component of LinkGuard, a broader bucket of solutions that Blue Ridge offers to commercial customers. What BorderGuard did for the intelligence community — without a single breach ever reported — LinkGuard can do for companies that are seeking a secure way to selectively share information across different divisions and/or with partners and others they do business with.

As an added benefit, LinkGuard enables cross-domain info sharing without third-party certificate authorities. This enhances overall efficiency by eliminating the need for external infrastructure. Instead, a LinkGuard setup that includes the BorderGuard component — the only cybersecurity product of its type to do this — uses a direct peer-to-peer trust mechanism for zero-trust access verification.  

Because of the way LinkGuard is designed, each setup creates a private, custom, walled network — one that is separate from every other LinkGuard protected system. Each customer’s cryptographic identity, or key, is unique. This prevents what hackers call a “class break” — exploiting a vulnerability to get at every customer who uses that solution. This extra layer of protection has been baked into our solution since the beginning, and is another reason our system was so widely deployed by the U.S. government all those years ago.

We’ve done a lot with BorderGuard in the many years since it was first introduced. We’ve continued to develop the product, focusing our engineering work on making the product simpler to use and more flexible so that it can be customized according to the user’s needs. We’ve also lowered the costs to deploy, making it more cost-effective. With competing products, operating costs tend to be higher, mainly because those other products tend to favor a detect-and-respond approach, which eats up resources. 

Find out more about how LinkGuard can enable safe, effective, efficient information sharing without compromising network security by visiting BlueRidgeNetworks.com. 

Blue Ridge. Zero Breach for Zero Trust Network Access.