The Essence of Content Filtering
The line where your firewall ends and content filtering begins is pretty blurry. Both involve scanning and blocking various websites, emails, data transfers, and stopping various web flows based on predefined rules and criteria. Most if not all firewalls do your traditional malware and threat blocking as well as filtering bad websites and other compliance behaviors.
Let’s liken your internal network to a bar or nightclub. With security being of paramount importance for both, it’s not a bad analogy. Just as a bar owner employs bouncers to check IDs and enforce bar rules, a CISO invests in defenses like content filtering, which effectively serves as the digital bouncer for your network – screening content before it gains access to your network and ensuring that only safe and authorized content is allowed through while blocking or flagging potentially harmful or malicious content.
AttackIQ Flex: The Trustworthy Validator
Now where does AttackIQ Flex enter the equation? Continuing the metaphor above, when the bar owner hires security for an event, best practice is to vet the bouncers beforehand to ensure he can trust them to keep the bar safe. For a CISO, AttackIQ Flex serves as his or her means to confirm the content filter is effectively doing its job by validating network inspection capabilities including the downloading of malicious content from internal networks.
Testing defenses is vital in safeguarding organizations and individuals from threats, yet it’s a practice that’s often neglected, leading to harmful gaps and vulnerabilities to risks that your tools should be preventing – and AttackIQ Flex helps solve these problems through an agentless test-as-a-service model.
Validating Your Defenses
In the AttackIQ Flex portal, the Content Filtering test suite includes scenarios designed to assess the effectiveness of security technologies responsible for inspecting web-based traffic originating from the internal network. In the assessment scenarios, content will be utilized to attempt the download of malware samples from hosted infrastructure. If successful, they are immediately discarded, without being saved or written to the local file system. In other words, it’s a safe way of validating that your security technologies are working without actually executing malicious behavior.
Scenarios Included in the Package
- Download CryptoLocker Ransomware to Memory
- Download Locky Sample to Memory
- Download Mischa Ransomware to Memory
- Download WannaCry Worm Sample to Memory
- Download Powerware Ransomware to Memory
- Download KeRanger Ransomware to Memory
- Download Xorist Ransomware to Memory
- Download SynoLocker Ransomware to Memory
- Download ODCODC Ransomware to Memory
- Download Linux Encoder Ransomware to Memory
- Download Rakhni Ransomware to Memory
- Download SamSam Sample to Memory
- Download SNSLock Ransomware to Memory
- Download Petya Ransomware to Memory
- Download Lechiffre Ransomware to Memory
- Download Maktub Ransomware to Memory
- Download 2020-08 CISA Fake PNG Sample to Memory
- Download 2023-01 Lockbit 3.0 Persistence Batch File to Memory
- Download 2023-01 Lockbit 3.0 Decrypt Batch File to Memory
- Download 2023-01 Lockbit 3.0 Ransomware Sample to Memory
- Download .BAT File to Memory
- Download .PS1 File to Memory
- Download .HTA File to Memory
- Download .CMD File to Memory
- Download .VBS File to Memory
- Download .BASH File to Memory
- Download .DLL File to Memory
- Download .MSI File to Memory
- Download .EXE File to Memory
Conclusion
Content filtering is your network’s digital bouncer, diligently guarding the entrance to your digital realm. When paired with AttackIQ Flex, it becomes an even more formidable protector, ensuring that your network remains impervious to potentially malicious content. Safeguard your digital assets and enhance your security posture with the duo that leaves no room for threats.
