Varonis has announced that through solutions partner Technica Corporation it is now able to sell its products to the US Government Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and General Services Administration (GSA).
The deal means that Varonis is now a supplier to the DHS and GSA under the Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) and Continuous Monitoring as a Service (CMaaS) Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA).
What this means for Technica is that they can incorporate Varonis products and in particular the Varonis Metadata Framework into services that they supply to the DHS/GSA.
Varonis to deliver cyber security improvements
Part of the on-going challenge for the DHS has been updating its CDM programme to deal with the latest generation of cybersecurity threats. It has traditionally relied on a compliance and reporting approach which means that it is slow to respond to real-time threats. This is not just a problem for DHS but also for other parts of the US Government as shown by the recent Office of Personnel Management (OPM) data breach.
The Varonis Metadata Framework will enable the DHS CDM programme to do real-time monitoring of all structured and unstructured data irrespective of where it is stored. One goal is to spot behavioural changes of both users and applications in how they access and consume data.
This use of profiling is similar to that being promoted by very large security organisations such as IBM and HP. Profiling not only identifies unexpected access patterns which are often key indicators of breached credentials but can also help to identify where a user has excess access privileges. This is something that all organisations are trying to eliminate as it makes it easier for hackers to steal data when a user is hacked.
Another goal here is to help identify sensitive information and where it is being stored. This enables IT security teams to track the movement and storage of data to ensure that it meets the organisations needs.
According to Anthony Munno, Director of Federal Sales at Varonis, “In the wake of the government’s recent breach incidents, the need to finally take a proactive approach to cybersecurity is more evident than ever.
“Hackers are getting excellent at their jobs, and we need to start operating under the assumption that someone or something malicious is already inside our networks. Effective ongoing auditing of file activity and access can make it much harder for cyber criminals to find and steal data once they are inside a network.”
Conclusion
If there is one good thing to come out of the OPM breach it has to be the US Government beginning to address its cybersecurity risk. Varonis will be hoping that a successful engagement through their partner Technica will give them an opportunity to win business with other departments.
This is good news for Varonis as it enables them to compete with the very large government suppliers around cybersecurity such as IBM and HP.
