Dell Partners with Lastline on Malware Detection

Security Trends 2015: Developments in Exploits and Evasion

With more IT organizations coming to the conclusion that it’s virtually impossible to keep malware from infecting their systems, the focus of the IT security battle is shifting to containing the damage that malware might inflict.

With that goal in mind, Dell SecureWorks, a unit of Dell that focuses on managed security services, announced today a partnership with Lastline through which Dell will provide advanced malware detection services.

Lastline makes a threat detection appliance that emulates all the functions on a processor. When the software detects malware, it then sends an alert to the Big Data analytics application to assess the seriousness of the threat. Retired Col. Barry Hensley, executive director of the Counter Threat Unit at Dell SecureWorks, says under the terms of the agreement with Dell SecureWorks, that alert information will now be sent directly to a Threat Intelligence Management System (TIMS) that Dell manages on behalf of its customers.

Dell will then either share that information with customers that have their own IT remediation systems in place or use it to inform the remediation systems it manages on behalf of customers. Using the Lastline application programming interfaces (APIs), for example, even allows Dell SecureWorks to examine the contents of thumb drives that might have been just attached to a system, says Hensley.

In general, there has been an increase in the amount of malware these days, but it’s a lot smarter in terms of the techniques it can employ to evade detection. Hensley says that rather than focusing all IT security efforts on the network perimeter, Dell SecureWorks provides a more comprehensive approach that leverages the expertise of Dell security professionals at a time when such expertise is in very short supply.

It remains to be seen just how many IT organizations opt to outsource IT security in the months and years ahead. But given all the technology and expertise that hackers can now regularly access, it may be the only way to level an IT security playing field that is decidedly tilted in one direction.