The Top 10 AI Security Risks Every Business Should Know

By: Trend Micro
July 08, 2024
Read time: 4 min (1104 words)

With every week bringing news of another AI advance, it’s becoming increasingly important for organizations to understand the risks before adopting AI tools. This look at 10 key areas of concern identified by the Open Worldwide Application Security Project (OWASP) flags risks enterprises should keep in mind through the back half of the year.

For more than 20 years, Open Worldwide Application Security Project (OWASP) top 10 risk lists has have been go-to references in the fight to make software more secure. In 2023, OWASP brought forward a new addition: a rundown of risks specific to AI. Two draft versions of the AI risk list were published in spring/summer of that year, with a formal version 1 released in October.

Since then, LLMs have only become more entrenched as business productivity tools. Most companies are either using or exploring the use of AI, and while some liabilities are well known—such as the need to always check an LLM’s work—others remain under the radar.

We did some analysis and found the vulnerabilities identified by OWASP fall broadly into three categories:

  1. Access risks associated with exploited privileges and unauthorized actions.
  2. Data risks such as data manipulation or loss of services.
  3. Reputational and business risks resulting from bad AI outputs or actions.

In this blog, we take a closer look at the specific risks in each case and offer some suggestions about how to handle them.

1. Access risks with AI

Of the 10 vulnerabilities listed by OWASP, three are specific to access and misuse of privileges: insecure plugin design, insecure output handling, and excessive agency.

According to OWASP, an LLM using that uses insecure could lose access control, opening them up to malicious requests or the execution of unauthorized remote code. On the flipside, plugins or applications that handle large language model outputs insecurely—without evaluating them—could expose backend systems be susceptible to XSS, CSRF, and SSRF attacks that execute unwanted actions, and to unauthorized privilege escalations, and remote code execution.

And because AI chatbots are ‘actors’ able to make and implement decisions, it matters how much free reign (i.e., agency) they’re given. As OWASP explains, “Excessive Agency is the vulnerability that enables damaging actions to be performed in response to unexpected/ambiguous outputs from an LLM (regardless of what is causing the LLM to malfunction; be it hallucination/confabulation, direct/indirect prompt injection, malicious plugin, poorly-engineered benign prompts, or just a poorly-performing model).”

For example, a personal mail reader assistant with message-sending capabilitiess could be exploited by a malicious email to propagate spam from a user’s account.

In all these cases, the large language model becomes a conduit for bad actors to infiltrate systems.

2. AI and data risks

Poisoned training datasupply chain vulnerabilitiessensitive information disclosuresprompt injection vulnerabilities , and denials of service are all data-specific AI risks.

Data can be poisoned deliberately by bad actors and inadvertently when an AI system learns from unreliable or unvetted sources. Both types of poisoning can occur within an active AI chatbot application or emerge from the LLM supply chain, where reliance on pre-trained models, crowdsourced data, and insecure plugin extensions may produce biased data outputs, security breaches, or system failures.

Poisoned data and the supply chain are input concerns. Allowing private, confidential, personally identifying information and the like into model training data can also result in unwanted disclosures of sensitive information.

With prompt injections, ill-meaning inputs may cause a large language model AI chatbot to expose data that should be kept private or perform other actions that lead to data compromises.

AI denial of service attacks are similar to classic DOS attacks. They may aim to overwhelm a large language model and deprive users of access to data and apps, or—because many AI chatbots rely on pay-as-you-go IT infrastructure—force the system to consume excessive resources and rack up massive costs.

3. Reputational and business risks associated with AI

The final two OWASP vulnerabilities relate to model theft and overreliance on AI. The first applies when an organization has its own proprietary LLM model. If that model is accessed, copied, or exfiltrated by unauthorized users, it could be exploited to harm the performance of a business, disadvantage it competitively, and potentially cause a leak of sensitive information.

Overreliance on AI is already having consequences around the world today. There’s no shortage of stories about large language models generating false or inappropriate outputs from fabricated citations and legal precedents to racist and sexist language.

OWASP points out that depending on AI chatbots without proper oversight can make organizations vulnerable to publishing misinformation or offensive content that results in reputational damage or even legal action.


Given all these various risks, the question becomes, “What can we do about it?” Fortunately, there are some protective steps organizations can take. 

What enterprises can do about AI vulnerabilities

From our perspective at Trend Micro, defending against AI access risks requires a zero-trust security stance with disciplined separation of systems (sandboxing). Even though generative AI can challenge zero-trust defenses in ways that other IT systems don’t—because it can mimic trusted entities—a zero-trust posture still adds checks and balances that make it easier to identify and contain unwanted activity. OWASP also advises that large language models “should not self-police” and calls for controls to be embedded in application programming interfaces (APIs).

Sandboxing is also key to protecting data privacy and integrity: keeping confidential information fully separated from shareable data and making it inaccessible to AI chatbots and other public-facing systems.

Good separation of data prevents large language models from including private or personally identifiable information in public outputs, and from being publicly prompted to interact with secure applications such as payment systems in inappropriate ways.

On the reputational front, the simplest remedies are to not rely solely on AI-generated content or code, and to never publish or use AI outputs without first verifying they are true, accurate, and reliable.

Many of these defensive measures can—and should—be embedded in corporate policies. Once an appropriate policy foundation is in place, security technologies such as endpoint detection and response (EDR), extended detection and response (XDR), and security information and event management (SIEM) can be used for enforcement and to monitor for potentially harmful activity.

Large language model AI chatbots are here to stay

OWASP’s catalogue of AI risks proves that concerns about the rush to embrace AI are well justified. At the same time, AI clearly isn’t going anywhere, so understanding the risks and taking responsible steps to mitigate them is critically important.

Setting up the right policies to manage AI use and implementing those policies with the help of cybersecurity solutions is a good first step. So is staying informed. The way we see it at Trend Micro, OWASP’s top 10 AI risk list is bound to become as much of an annual must-read as its original application security list has been since 2003.

Source :
https://www.trendmicro.com/en_us/research/24/g/top-ai-security-risks.html

The Potential Impact of the OpenSSH Vulnerabilities CVE-2024–6387 and CVE-2024-6409

By: Jagir Shastri
July 17, 2024
Read time: 5 min (1331 words)

We check the OpenSSH vulnerabilities CVE-2024–6387 and CVE-2024-6409, examining their potential real-world impact and the possibility of exploitation for CVE-2024–6387 in x64 systems.

Introduction

CVE-2024–6387, also known as “regreSSHion,” is a vulnerability that exists in OpenSSH, a widely-used suite of secure networking utilities based on the SSH protocol. This vulnerability, which was discovered in July 2024, allows for remote unauthenticated code execution, potentially providing attackers root privileges on affected systems. The Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS) has rated this vulnerability with a score of 9.8

The OpenSSH vendor advisory mentions that the successful exploitation of CVE-2024-6387 has been demonstrated on 32-bit Linux and GNU C Library systems with (ASLR). It also mentions that exploitation on 64-bit systems might be possible but this has not been demonstrated at the time of publishing.

On July 8, another similar vulnerability, the signal handler race condition CVE-2024-6409 was discovered. This flaw occurs when a client fails to authenticate within the LoginGraceTime period, which is 120 seconds by default, and 600 seconds in older OpenSSH versions. Consequently, this can lead to a signal handler race condition in the cleanup_exit() function within the child process of the SSHD server.

Figure 1. How the exploit works
Figure 1. How the exploit works

The “regreSSHion” vulnerability arises from the unsafe handling of the SIGALRM signal during SSH authentication. When the LoginGraceTime expires, the SIGALRM signal is raised, and the corresponding handler performs certain actions, including calling non-async-signal-safe functions like syslog(). This can create a race condition, where the timing of operations could lead to memory corruption or other unexpected behaviors.

SIGALRM
SIGALRM is a signal in Unix-like operating systems that indicates an alarm or timer expiration. When a process sets and a function triggers, it schedules a SIGALRM signal to be sent to the process after a specified number of seconds. This signal is commonly used for timing operations, such as implementing timeouts for network requests or scheduling periodic tasks. Processes can define custom signal handlers to respond to SIGALRM, allowing them to perform actions such as terminating processes, resetting timers, or managing execution time limits. Overall, SIGALRM facilitates time-sensitive operations within Unix processes by providing a mechanism to handle scheduled alarms and timing events.

Exploiting CVE-2024–6387 requires an attacker to initiate thousands of connection attempts to trigger the race condition accurately. The process involves repeatedly setting and resetting LoginGraceTime, causing the server to invoke the SIGALRM signal handler. This requires precise timing and proper inputs to manipulate the server’s memory layout, leading to heap corruption and code execution.

Signal handlers
Signal handlers are special functions that get called in response to specific signals sent to a program. These signals can be generated, either by the operating system or by the program itself. However, not all functions are safe to call from within a signal handler since they may not be reentrant, therefore cannot safely be interrupted and called again (“async-signal-safe”). For instance, syslog() is a function used to log messages to the system logger and is not considered async-signal-safe.

Researchers have found that approximately 10,000 attempts are needed to successfully exploit this vulnerability. While the exploit could take days to complete, it is still not guaranteed that the attempt would be successful . The presence of modern security mechanisms such as Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR) and No-eXecute (NX) bits further complicate the exploitation process but do not entirely mitigate the risk.

CVE-2024-6409 technical details

Like CVE-2024-6387, this vulnerability occurs when the SSHD’s SIGALRM handler is called asynchronously, which in turn calls various functions that are not async-signal-safe.

The race condition in grace_alarm_handler() calls cleanup_exit() from the privsep child process. However, cleanup_exit() is not designed to be called from a signal handler, potentially invoking unsafe functions. Cleanup function calls can be interrupted by signals, causing unsafe state changes and potential remote code execution (RCE).

As a privsep child process run’s with reduced privileges, there is less reason to worry about the vulnerability. In addition, working exploits for the CVE-2024-6409 have not been yet discovered, therefore proof of its actual exploitation has not been established at the time of publishing.

Exploitability of CVE-2024-6387 in x64 Systems

The OpenSSH vendor advisory mentions that the successful exploitation of CVE-2024-6387 has been demonstrated on 32-bit Linux and GNU C Library (glibc) systems with (ASLR). It also mentions that exploitation on 64-bit systems might be possible. However, certain characteristics of X64 systems make this exploitation much more difficult, which we’ll expound on in this section.

In x64 systems, ASLR plays a crucial role by randomizing memory addresses, including those of the GNU C Library (glibc), with each program execution. This randomness makes it very difficult for attackers to predict the location of the glibc base address, thus mitigating exploits that depend on precise memory targeting. The x64 architecture’s expansive address space further complicates exploitation, as attackers have to guess an exponentially greater amount of addresses. Combined with security measures such as stack canaries and NX bits, exploiting vulnerabilities such as CVE-2024-6387 becomes highly impractical on x64 systems.

While theoretically possible under specific conditions, the effective implementation of ASLR and the inherent complexities of the x64 environment significantly reduce real-world exploitability, highlighting the robust security benefits of these architectural safeguards.

Potential impact

Our As per our internal telemetry we did not notice any trend change for CVE-2024–6387, which could be considered a known exploited vulnerability (KEV)that is being exploited in wild. .

While CVE-2024–6387 presents a critical security risk, its real-world impact is mitigated by several factors. The technical complexity of the exploit and the extensive time required to execute it make large-scale attacks impractical. Each attack attempt resets the login timer, requiring precise timing and substantial effort from the attacker.

Moreover, the vulnerability affects specific versions of OpenSSH (up to 4.4p1 and 8.5p1 to 9.7p1) running on Linux systems using the GNU C Library. Systems with additional protections against brute force attacks and distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) are less likely to be successfully exploited. Therefore, while targeted attacks are possible, mass exploitation is unlikely due to the unavailability of working exploits and the time required to exploit these vulnerabilities.

Mitigation

To mitigate the risks associated with CVE-2024–6387, administrators should immediately update OpenSSH to version 9.8 or later. If immediate updating is not feasible, reducing the LoginGraceTime can provide temporary mitigation against this vulnerability.

Additionally, organizations can consider implementing the following best practices for general vulnerability exploit protection:

Patch management
Regularly updating and patching software, operating systems, and applications is the most straightforward method for organizations to avoid the exploitation of vulnerabilities within their systems.

Network segmentation
Separating critical network segments from the larger network can minimize the impact of a potential vulnerability exploitation.

Regular security audits
Performing security audits and vulnerability assessments can identify and remediate potential weaknesses within the infrastructure before they can be exploited.

Security awareness training
Educating employees about the common tactics used by attackers can help them avoid falling victim to social engineering attacks that might precede vulnerability exploitation.

Incident response plan
Developing, testing, and maintaining an incident response plan can help organizations quickly and effectively respond to security breaches and vulnerability exploitations.

Additionally, employing network-based access controls, intrusion prevention systems such as Trend Vision One™, and regular vulnerability scanning can further enhance security.
For Trend customers, the following IPS smart rules can detect the attack on a surface level:

  • 1003593 Detected SSH Server Traffic (ATT&CK T1021.004)
  • 1005748 Multiple SSH Connection Detected (ATT&CK T1499.002, T1110)

Conclusion

According to other researchers, there could be non-functional exploits in circulation that claim to be working proofs-of-concept (POCs) for CVE-2024-6387. These fake exploits contain payloads that download files from remote servers and establish persistence on the systems of security researchers. Assuming they are testing a legitimate POC for the vulnerability, the security features of their systems might be disabled, making them vulnerable to malicious activities.

Overall, while CVE-2024–6387 and CVE-2024-6409 is a critical vulnerability, it does not pose a widespread threat to the internet due to its exploitation complexity and existing mitigations. However, administrators should remain vigilant, apply patches promptly, and implement recommended security practices to protect their systems.

Source :
https://www.trendmicro.com/en_us/research/24/g/cve-2024-6387-and-cve-2024-6409.html

SANS’s 2024 Threat-Hunting Survey Review

By: Trend Micro
June 04, 2024
Read time: 3 min (709 words)

In its ninth year, the annual SANS Threat Hunting Survey delves into global organizational practices in threat hunting, shedding light on the challenges and adaptations in the landscape over the past year.

The 2024 survey highlights a growing maturity in threat-hunting methodologies, with a significant increase in organizations adopting formal processes.

This marks a shift towards a more standardized approach in cybersecurity strategies despite challenges such as skill shortages and tool limitations. Additionally, the survey reveals evolving practices in sourcing intelligence and an increase in outsourcing threat hunting, raising questions about the efficiency and alignment with organizational goals. This summary encapsulates the essential findings and trends, emphasizing the critical role of threat hunting in contemporary cybersecurity frameworks.

Participants

survey demographics
Figure 1: Survey demographics

This year’s survey attracted participants from a wide array of industries, with cybersecurity leading at 15% and 9% of respondents from the manufacturing sector, which has recently faced significant challenges from ransomware attacks. The survey participants varied in organization size, too, ranging from those working in small entities with less than 100 employees (24%) to large corporations with over 100,000 employees (9%).

The respondents play diverse roles within their organizations, highlighting the multidisciplinary nature of threat hunting. Twenty-two percent are security administrators or analysts, while 11% hold business manager positions, showcasing a balance between technical, financial, and personnel perspectives in threat-hunting practices.

However, the survey does note a geographical bias, with 65% of participants coming from organizations based in the United States, which could influence the findings related to staffing and organizational practices, though it’s believed not to affect the technical aspects of threat hunting.

Significant findings and implications

The survey examines the dynamic landscape of cyber threats and the strategies deployed by threat hunters to identify and counteract these risks. Notably, it sheds light on the prevalent types of attacks encountered:

  • Business email compromise (BEC): BEC emerges as the foremost concern, with approximately 68% of respondents reporting its detection. BEC involves malicious actors infiltrating legitimate email accounts to coerce individuals into transferring funds through social engineering tactics.
  • Ransomware: Following closely behind is ransomware, detected by 64% of participants. Ransomware operations encrypt data and demand payment for decryption, constituting a significant threat in the cybersecurity landscape.
  • Tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs): The survey found that TTPS are employed in different attack scenarios. In ransomware incidents, threat actors often deploy custom malware, target specific data for exfiltration, utilize off-the-shelf tools like Cobalt Strike, attempt to delete traces, and sometimes resort to physical intrusion into target companies.

Evolving threat-hunting practices

SANS also found that organizations have significantly evolved their threat-hunting practices, with changes in methodologies occurring as needed, monthly, quarterly, or annually.

Outsourced threat hunting is now used by 37% of organizations, and over half have adopted clearly defined methodologies for threat hunting, marking a notable advancement.

Additionally, 64% of organizations formally evaluate the effectiveness of their threat-hunting efforts, showing a decrease in those without formal methodologies from 7% to 2%. The selection of methods is increasingly influenced by available human resources, recognized by 47% of organizations.

The chief information security officer (CISO) plays a key role in developing threat-hunting methodologies, with significant involvement in 40% of cases.

Benefits of better threat-hunting efforts

Significant benefits from threat hunting include improved attack surface and endpoint security, more accurate detections with fewer false positives, and reduced remediation resources.

About 30% of organizations use vendor information as supplemental threat intelligence, with 14% depending solely on it. Incident response teams’ involvement in developing threat-hunting methodologies rose to 33% in 2024, indicating better integration within security functions.

Challenges such as data quality and standardization issues are increasing, underscoring the complexities of managing expanding cybersecurity data.

Final thoughts

The SANS 2024 Threat Hunting Survey highlights the cybersecurity industry’s evolution and focuses on improving cyber defense capabilities. Organizations aim to enhance threat hunting with better contextual awareness and data tools, with 51% looking to improve response to nuanced threats.

Nearly half (47%) plan to implement AI and ML to tackle the increasing complexity and volume of threats. There’s a significant planned investment in both staff and tools, with some organizations intending to increase their investment by over 10% or even 25% in the next 24 months, emphasizing threat hunting’s strategic importance.

However, a small minority anticipate reducing their investment, hinting at a potential shift in security strategy.

Source :
https://www.trendmicro.com/en_us/research/24/f/sans-2024-threat-hunting-survey-review.html

Not Just Another 100% Score: MITRE ENGENUITY ATT&CK

By: Trend Micro
June 18, 2024
Read time: 4 min (1135 words)

The latest MITRE Engenuity ATT&CK Evaluations pitted leading managed detection and response (MDR) services against threats modeled on the menuPass and BlackCat/AlphV adversary groups. Trend Micro achieved 100% detection across all 15 major attack steps with an 86% actionable rate for those steps— balancing detections and business priorities including operational continuity and minimized disruption.

Trend took part in the MITRE Engenuity ATT&CK Evaluations for managed detection and response (MDR) services—building on a history of strong performance in other MITRE Engenuity tests. Key to that ongoing success is our platform approach, which provides high-fidelity detection of early- and mid-chain tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) enabling quick and decisive counteractions before exfiltration or encryption can occur. Of course, we know real-world outcomes matter more than lab results. That’s why we’re proud to support thousands of customers worldwide with MDR that brings the most native extended detection and response (XDR) telemetry, leading threat intelligence from Trend™ Research and our Trend Micro™ Zero-Day Initiative™ (ZDI) under a single service to bridge real-time threat protection and cyber risk management. 

The evaluation focused on our Trend Service One™ offering, powered by Trend Vision One, which included XDR, endpoint and network security capabilities. The results proved Trend Micro MDR is a great alternative to managed services that rely on open XDR platforms or managed SIEM platforms.

Our detection of adversarial activity early in the attack chain combined with our platform’s deeply integrated native response capabilities enables rapid mean-time-to-detect (MTTD) and mean-time-to-respond (MTTR). At the same time, comprehensive visibility and protection gives security teams greater confidence.

MITRE ENGENUITY ATTACK EVALUATIONS Managed Services Badge

Full detection across all major steps

This most recent MITRE Engenuity ATT&CK Evaluations for Managed Services featured attacks modeled on the real-world adversaries menuPass and BlackCat/AlphV. These took the form of advanced persistent threats (APTs) designed to dwell in the network post-breach and execute harmful activity over time.

Trend MDR achieved full detection coverage, reflecting and reinforcing our achievements in cybersecurity:

  • 100% across all  major attack steps
  • 100% for enriched detail on TTPs
  • 86% actionable rate for major steps

How Trend MDR delivers

To put its MDR evaluation in context, MITRE Engenuity conducted a survey prior to testing, gaining insights into market perceptions and expectations of managed cybersecurity services. More than half (58%) of respondents said they rely on managed services either to complement their in-house SOC or as their main line of defense. For companies with fewer than 5,000 employees, that tally increased to 68%.

Our MDR service at Trend helps meet those needs by combining AI techniques with human threat expertise and analysis. We correlate data and detect threats that might otherwise slip by as lower severity alerts. Our experts prioritize threats by severity, determine the root cause of attacks, and develop detailed response plans.

XDR is a key technology to achieve these security outcomes, extending visibility beyond endpoints to other parts of the environment where threats can otherwise go undetected: servers, email, identities, mobile devices, cloud workloads, networks, and operational technologies (OT). 

Integrated with native XDR insights is deep, global threat intelligence. Native telemetry enables high-fidelity detections, strong correlations and rich context; global threat intelligence brings highly relevant context to detect threats faster and more precisely. Combined with a broad third-party integration ecosystem and response automation across vectors, Trend Vision One introduces a full-spectrum SOC platform for security teams to speed up investigations and frees up time to focus on high-value, proactive security work including threat hunting and detection engineering. In some cases, smaller teams rely on our MDR service completely for their security operations.

With Trend Vision One, teams have access to a continuously updated and growing library of detection models—with the ability to build custom detection models to fit their unique threat models.

Proven strength in delivering higher-confidence alerts

Security and security operations center (SOC) teams are inundated with detection alerts and noise. Our visibility and analytics performance achieves a finely tuned balance between providing early alerts of critical adversarial tactics and techniques and managing alert fatigue to improve the analyst experience. Our MDR operations team takes advantage of the platform advantage and knows only to alert customers when critical.

In each simulation during the MITRE Engenuity ATT&CK Evaluations, there was no scenario where menuPass and BlackCat/AlphV attack attempts successfully breached the environment without being detected or disrupted.

It’s important to note that MITRE Engenuity doesn’t rank products or solutions. It provides objective measures but no scores. Instead, since every service and solution functions differently, the evaluation reveals areas of strength and opportunities for improvement within each offering. 

About the attacks

The menuPass threat group has been active since at least 2006. Some of its members have been associated with the Tianjin State Security Bureau of the Chinese Ministry of State Security and with the Huaying Haitai Science and Technology Development Company. It has targeted healthcare, defense, aerospace, finance, maritime, biotechnology, energy, and government targets—and in 2016–17 went after managed IT service providers. BlackCat is Rust-based ransomware offered as a service and first observed in November 2021. It has been used to target organizations across Africa, the Americas, Asia, Australia, and Europe in a range of sectors. 

Putting our service to the test

In cybersecurity, actions speak louder than words. Our significant investment in research and development extend to our MDR service offering to support thousands of enterprises around the world.

We’re dedicated to continuous iteration and improvement to equip security teams with cutting-edge solutions to keep their organizations safe. As we evolve our solutions, MITRE Engenuity continues to evolve its evaluation approach as well. The category of “actionability” was new in this evaluation, determining if each alert provided enough context for the security analyst to act on. The actionability testing category is an area we’re investing in heavily from a process and technology standpoint to ensure contextual awareness, prioritization, and intelligent guidance are included while maintaining manageable communication cadences and minimizing false positive alerts.

Overall, areas for improvement surfaced through the test scenarios have been resourced with dedicated engineering and development efforts to match the high standard we hold ourselves to-and that our users expect. We are pleased to see our MDR service demonstrated a strong balance of detection capabilities across the entire attack chain, both within the service itself and embedded in the underlying Trend Vision One platform.

We invite all our MDR customers to take a look at the MITRE Engenuity ATT&CK Evaluations for Managed Services to better understand the strength of their defensive posture, and to come to us with any questions or thoughts.

Next steps

For more on Trend MDR, XDR, and other related topics, check out these additional resources:

Forward vision

At Trend, we are dedicated to continuous iteration and improvement to equip security teams with cutting-edge solutions to keep their organizations safe. These relevant areas of improvement surfaced through the scenarios have been resourced with dedicated engineering and development efforts to match the high standard we hold ourselves to and which our users expect.

Source :
https://www.trendmicro.com/en_us/research/24/f/mitre-enginuity-attack-evaluations.html

How to Make Your Employees Your First Line of Cyber Defense

May 01, 2024
The Hacker News

There’s a natural human desire to avoid threatening scenarios. The irony, of course, is if you hope to attain any semblance of security, you’ve got to remain prepared to confront those very same threats.

As a decision-maker for your organization, you know this well. But no matter how many experts or trusted cybersecurity tools your organization has a standing guard, you’re only as secure as your weakest link. There’s still one group that can inadvertently open the gates to unwanted threat actors—your own people.

Security must be second nature for your first line of defense #

For your organization to thrive, you need capable employees. After all, they’re your source for great ideas, innovation, and ingenuity. However, they’re also human. And humans are fallible. Hackers understand no one is perfect, and that’s precisely what they seek to exploit.

This is why your people must become your first line of defense against cyber threats. But to do so, they need to learn how to defend themselves against the treachery of hackers. That’s where security awareness training (SAT) comes in.

What is Security Awareness Training (SAT)? #

The overall objective of an SAT program is to keep your employees and organization secure. The underlying benefit, however, is demonstrating compliance. While content may differ from program to program, most are generally similar, requiring your employees to watch scripted videos, study generic presentations, and take tests on cyber “hygiene.” At their core, SAT programs are designed to help you:

  • Educate your employees on recognizing cybersecurity risks such as phishing and ransomware
  • Minimize your organization’s exposure to cyber threats
  • Maintain regulatory compliance with cyber insurance stipulations

These are all worthwhile goals in helping your organization thrive amidst ever-evolving cyber threats. However, attaining these outcomes can feel like a pipe dream. That’s because of one unfortunate truth about most SAT programs: they don’t work.

Age-Old Challenges of Old-School SATs#

Traditional SAT programs have long been scrutinized for their inability to drive meaningful behavioral changes. In fact, 69% of employees admit to “intentionally bypassing” their enterprise’s cybersecurity guidance.

If you oversee cybersecurity for an organization, then you’re likely familiar with the pain that comes with implementing one, managing it, and encouraging its usage. Given their complexities, traditional SAT solutions practically force non-technical employees to become full-on technologists.

Challenges for AdministratorsChallenges for EmployeesChallenges for Your Organization
Complex, ongoing management is frustrating. Plus, through it all they just find poor results.They’re bored. Unengaging content is detrimental, as it doesn’t lead to knowledge retention. Boring, unengaging content doesn’t help with knowledge retention.Most SATs aren’t effective because they’re created by generalists, not real cybersecurity experts And many are designed with little reporting capabilities, leading to limited visibility into success rates

Because most SAT programs are complex to manage, they’re usually dismissed as a means to an end. Just check a box for compliance and move on. But when done right, SAT can be a potent tool to help your employees make more intelligent, more instinctive, security-conscious decisions.

Ask the Right Questions Before Choosing Your SAT Solution#

When it comes to choosing the right solution for your organization, there are some questions you should first ask yourself. By assessing the following, you’ll be better equipped to select the option that best fits your specific needs.

Learning-Based Questions

  • Are the topics covered in this SAT relevant to my organization’s security and compliance concerns?
  • Are episodes updated regularly to reflect current threats and scenarios?
  • Does this SAT engage users in a unique, meaningful manner?
  • Is this SAT built and supported by cybersecurity practitioners?
  • Is the teaching methodology proven to increase knowledge retention?

Management-Based Questions

  • Can someone outside of my organization manage the SAT for me?
  • Can it be deployed quickly?
  • Does it automatically enroll new users and automate management?
  • Is it smart enough to skip non-human identities so I don’t assign training to, say, our copy machine?
  • Is it simple and intuitive enough for anyone across my organization to use?

Your ideal SAT will allow you to answer a resounding “Yes” to all of the above.

Essential Features of an Effective SAT#

A SAT solution that’s easy to deploy, manage, and use can have a substantial positive impact. That’s because a solution that delivers “ease” has considered all of your organization’s cybersecurity needs in advance. In other words, an effective SAT does all the heavy lifting on your behalf, as it features:

Relevant topics
…based on real threats you might encounter.
What to look for:

To avoid canned, outdated training, choose a SAT solution that’s backed by experts. Cybersecurity practitioners should be the ones regularly creating and updating episodes based on the latest trends they see hackers leveraging in the wild. Additionally, every episode should cover a unique cybersecurity topic that reflects the most recent real-world tradecraft.
Full management by real experts
…so you don’t have to waste time creating, managing, and assigning training.
What to look for:

Ideally, you want a SAT solution that can manage all necessary tasks for you. Seek a SAT solution that’s backed by real cybersecurity experts who can create, curate, and deploy your learning programs and phishing scenarios on your behalf.
Memorable episodes
…with fun, story-driven lessons that are relatable and easy to comprehend.
What to look for:

Strive for a SAT solution that features character-based narratives. This indicates the SAT is carefully designed to engage learners of all attention spans. Remember, if the episodes are intentionally entertaining and whimsical, you’re more likely to find your employees conversing about inside jokes, recurring characters, and, of course, what they’ve learned. As a result, these ongoing discussions only serve to fortify your culture of security.
Continual enhancements …so episodes are updated regularly in response to real-world threats.
What to look for:
Seek out a SAT solution that provides monthly episodes, as this will keep your learners up to date. Regular encounters with simulated cybersecurity scenarios can help enhance their abilities to spot and defend against risks, such as phishing attempts. These simulations should also be dispersed at unpredictable time intervals (i.e. morning, night, weekends, early in the month, later in the month, etc.), keeping learners on their toes and allowing them to put their security knowledge into practice.
Minimal time commitment
…so you don’t have to invest countless hours managing it all.
What to look for:
For your learners, choose a SAT solution that doesn’t feel like an arduous chore. Look for solutions that specialize in engaging episodes that are designed to be completed in shorter periods of time.
For your own administrative needs, select a SAT that can sync regularly with your most popular platforms, such as Microsoft 365, Google, Okta, or Slack. It should also sync your employee directories with ease, so whenever you activate or deactivate users, it’ll automatically update the information. Finally, make sure it’s intelligent enough to decipher between human and non-human identities, so you’re only charged for accounts linked to real individuals.
Real results …through episodes that instill meaningful security-focused behaviors and habits.
What to look for:
An impactful SAT should deliver monthly training that’s rooted in science-backed teaching methodologies proven to help your employees internalize and retain lessons better. Your SAT should feature engaging videos, text, and short quizzes that showcase realistic cyber threats you and your employees are likely to encounter in the wild, such as:PhishingSocial engineeringPhysical device securityand more
Measurable data …with easy-to-read reports on usage and success rates.
What to look for:
An impactful SAT program should provide robust reporting. Comprehensible summaries should highlight those learners who haven’t taken their training or those whom a phishing simulation has compromised. Additionally, detailed reports should give you all the data you need to help prove business, insurance, and regulatory compliance.
Easy adoption
….that makes it easy to deploy and easy to scale with your organization.
What to look for:
Choose a SAT solution that’s specially built to accommodate organizations with limited time and resources. A solution that’s easy to implement can be deployed across your organization in a matter of minutes.
Compliance …with a range of standards and regulations
What to look for:
While compliance is the bare minimum of what a SAT should offer your organization, it shouldn’t be understated. Whether to meet insurance check boxes or critical industry regulations, every business has its own compliance demands. At the very least, your SAT solution should cover the requirements of:
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI)Service Organization Control Type 2 (SOC 2)EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

The Threat Landscape is Changing. Your SAT Should Change With It. #

Cybercriminals think they’re smart, maliciously targeting individuals across organizations like yours. That’s why you need to ensure your employees are smarter. If they’re aware of the ever-changing tactics hackers employ, they can stand as your first line of defense. But first, you need to deploy a training solution you can trust, backed by real cybersecurity experts who understand emerging real-world threats.

Huntress Security Awareness Training is an easy, effective, and enjoyable solution that helps:

  • Minimize time-consuming maintenance and management tasks
  • Improve knowledge retention through neuroscience-based learning principles
  • Update you and your employees on the current threat landscape
  • Establish a culture that values cybersecurity
  • Inspire meaningful behavioral habits to improve security awareness
  • Engage you and your employees in a creative, impactful manner
  • Assure regulatory compliance
  • Keep cyber criminals out of your organization

Discover how a fully managed SAT can free up your time and resources, all while empowering your employees with smarter habits that better protect your organization from cyber threats.

Say goodbye to ineffective, outdated training. Say hello to Huntress SAT.

Start your free trial of Huntress SAT today.

Found this article interesting? This article is a contributed piece from one of our valued partners. Follow us on Twitter  and LinkedIn to read more exclusive content we post.

Source :
https://thehackernews.com/2024/05/everyones-expert-how-to-empower-your.html

Empowering Cybersecurity with AI: The Future of Cisco XDR

May 7, 2024
Siddhant Dash

In 2007, there was a study from the University of Maryland proving that internet-connected systems were attacked every 39 seconds on average. Today, that number has grown more than 60%. Cisco sees 64 attempts to connect to ransomware infrastructure every second. The world is becoming digitized, and hybrid, which creates an environment that criminals target with increasing sophistication. It’s too much for human-scale, and so a hybrid world requires a hybrid approach that sits between humans and machines.

Envision an AI Assistant that serves as a reliable partner for incident responders, offering precise, real-time guidance on the subsequent steps to take, tailored to the specific state of the incident at hand and allowing SOC (Security Operations Center) teams to respond faster and do more with less. I am pleased to announce the launch of the AI Assistant in XDR as a part of our Breach Protection Suite.

In our RSAC 2023 announcement, we introduced a vision of our Cisco SOC Assistant, designed to expedite threat detection and response. Today, this vision is realized and available in private preview. It enhances our Breach Protection Suite which is powered by Cisco XDR’s capabilities. It significantly speeds up investigations and responses, enabling security teams to safeguard their environments more efficiently and cost-effectively.

Assist with Information Discovery

In 2024, the global shortfall of 3.5 million security professionals, as reported by ISC2, underscores the importance of retaining and recruiting skilled personnel to counter increasingly sophisticated cyber threats and safeguard enterprises. Moreover, the lack of appropriate tools often leads to ineffective cyber risk management and professional burnout, adversely affecting staff retention and the SOC’s capacity to thwart attacks.

The AI Assistant in XDR acts as a potent enhancer, empowering SOC teams to maximize their efficiency and effectively close the personnel and skill gap. When an incident occurs, the assistant will contextualize events across email, the web, endpoints, and the network to tell the SOC analyst exactly what happened and its impact on their environment. It presents a short description of the incident that quickly answers what, when and how an incident happened. It also provides a long description of the incident which explains the timeline of events that have happened in this active incident.

Figure 1: Short Description of Incident Details generated by the AI Assistant
Figure 2: Long Description of Incident Details and Events Timeline

Moreover, our AI Assistant utilizes XDR’s patented ability to prioritize critical incidents, reducing alert fatigue for the SOC team and enhancing their efficiency in handling active incidents.

Figure 3: Targeted Prioritization of Incidents by AI Assistant that Need Immediate Attention

Augment and Elevate SOC Teams with Best Practice Recommendations

Today’s SOCs often struggle with a fragmented technology stack, making it difficult to respond effectively to cyber threats. Alert fatigue is a major hurdle for modern SOC teams, hindering proactive threat hunting and leading to overlooked alerts and burnout. The Cisco AI Assistant comes to the rescue and jumpstarts the incident response process for a modern SOC team.

Our AI Assistant, powered by Cisco XDR the platform for Cisco’s Breach Protection Suite, synthesizes data from email, web, processes, endpoints, cloud, and network domains, offering precise action recommendations to effectively contain ongoing cyber-attacks. It works at machine scale to identify patterns and potential attacks that humans might miss because of alert fatigue, if a defender is only looking at one domain in isolation, or while trying to manually correlate data. The AI Assistant is context aware, meaning it tracks the state of the incident in real-time and generates tailored recommendations specific to that incident.

Figure 4: Tailored Recommendations for an Incident by the AI Assistant

Mean Time to Detection (MTTD) and Mean Time to Respond (MTTR) are two primary metrics that SOC teams want to optimize for. Cisco XDR with our AI Assistant enables security teams to reduce these metrics by jumpstarting investigations and incident response by providing tailored recommendations for that specific incident.

Enable Seamless Collaboration Across Security Teams

The Cisco AI Assistant, embedded within XDR, facilitates team collaboration using Webex, Teams, or Slack. This empowers security teams to swiftly assemble the right experts for an active incident, thereby speeding up the MTTR. The AI Assistant unifies the team by setting up WAR rooms, summarizing messages, and logging them in XDR for instant audit-readiness.

Figure 5: AI Assistant creates a Webex WAR Room and brings the right experts together for Incident Response

Automate Workflows to Neutralize Threats Across the Enterprise

Today’s SOCs often lack a cohesive technology stack to respond to cyber threats efficiently and consistently. As the IT environment grows beyond the on-premises data center to cloud, hybrid-cloud and multi-cloud country specific data centers, organizations accumulate point solutions to monitor and protect pieces of the environment. As a result, SOC analysts must do a lot of the heavy lifting required to detect and respond to an attack. This includes logging into different tools to execute workflows that contain an attack.

Our AI Assistant taps into advanced workflows and atomics with Cisco XDR’s 90+ integrations. Our AI assistant enables the execution of workflows at a single click, guided by the AI Assistant’s personalized recommendations that consider the incident’s playbook and current state in real-time.

Figure 6: Execution of Automated Workflows by the AI Assistant to Contain an Incident

Gone are the days when security teams had to juggle multiple isolated products and execute workflows in each to mitigate an attack. With Cisco Breach Protection Suite, billions of security events can be correlated and recommended actions can be generated and executed all in one place. This is the transformative power of the Cisco XDR combined with Cisco’s AI Assistant revolutionizing enterprise security.

Conclusion

By leveraging comprehensive telemetry data from various sources in Cisco XDR and combining that with our AI Assistant, we enable SOC teams to rapidly respond to active incidents and fortify defenses against complex threats. The AI Assistant amplifies the SOC’s existing knowledge, streamlines routine tasks, and empowers analysts to focus on strategic initiatives. This boosts analyst productivity and job satisfaction, leading to improved staff retention and SOC effectiveness, ultimately resulting in precise, consistent, and accurate security outcomes.

Learn how Cisco Breach Protection SuiteCisco XDR and our AI Assistant can simplify your security operations.


We’d love to hear what you think. Ask a Question, Comment Below, and Stay Connected with Cisco Security on social!

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Source :
https://blogs.cisco.com/security/empowering-cybersecurity-with-ai-the-future-of-cisco-xdr

NIST Launches Cybersecurity Framework (CSF) 2.0

By: Shannon Murphy, Greg Young
March 20, 2024
Read time: 2 min (589 words)

On February 26, 2024, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) released the official 2.0 version of the Cyber Security Framework (CSF).

What is the NIST CSF?

The NIST CSF is a series of guidelines and best practices to reduce cyber risk and improve security posture. The framework is divided into pillars or “functions” and each function is subdivided into “categories” which outline specific outcomes.

As titled, it is a framework. Although it was published by a standards body, it is not a technical standard.

https://www.nist.gov/cyberframework

What Is the CSF Really Used For?

Unlike some very prescriptive NIST standards (for example, crypto standards like FIPS-140-2), the CSF framework is similar to the ISO 27001 certification guidance. It aims to set out general requirements to inventory security risk, design and implement compensating controls, and adopt an overarching process to ensure continuous improvement to meet shifting security needs.

It’s a high-level map for security leaders to identify categories of protection that are not being serviced well. Think of the CSF as a series of buckets with labels. You metaphorically put all the actions, technology deployments, and processes you do in cybersecurity into these buckets, and then look for buckets with too little activity in them or have too much activity — or repetitive activity — and not enough of other requirements in them.

The CSF hierarchy is that Functions contain many Categories — or in other words, there are big buckets that contain smaller buckets.

What Is New in CSF 2.0?

The most noteworthy change is the introduction of Governance as a sixth pillar in the CSF Framework. This shift sees governance being given significantly more importance from just a mention within the previous five Categories to now being its owna separate Function.

According to NIST the Govern function refers to how an organization’s, “cybersecurity risk management strategy, expectations, and policy are established, communicated, and monitored.”  This is a positive and needed evolution, as when governance is weak, it often isn’t restricted to a single function (e.g. IAM) and can be systemic.

Governance aligns to a broader paradigm shift where we see cybersecurity becoming highly relevant within the business context as an operational risk. The Govern expectation is cybersecurity is integrated into the broader enterprise risk management strategy and requires dedicated accountability and oversight.

There are some other reassignments and minor changes in the remaining five Categories. CSF version 1.0 was published in 2014, and 1.1 in 2018. A lot has changed in security since then. The 2.0 update acknowledges that a review has been conducted.

As a framework, the CISO domain has not radically changed. Yes, the technology has radically evolved, but the greatest evolution in the CISO role really has been around governance: greater interaction with C-suite and board, while some activities have been handed off to operations.

NIST Cybersecurity Framework

So How Will This Impact Me in the Short Term?

The update to the NIST CSF provides a fresh opportunity to security leaders to start or reopen conversations with business leaders on evolving needs.

  • The greatest impact will be to auditors and consultants who will need to make formatting changes to their templates and work products to align with version 2.0.
  • CISOs and security leaders will have to make some similar changes to how they track and report compliance.
  • But overall, the greatest impact (aside from some extra billable cybersecurity consulting fees) will be a boost of relevance to the CSF that could attract new adherents both through security leaders choosing to look at themselves through the CSF lens and management asking the same of CISOs.
Category

Source :
https://www.trendmicro.com/it_it/research/24/c/nist-cybersecurity-framework-2024.html

Lineage OS Changelog 28 – Fantastic Fourteen, Amazing Applications, Undeniable User-Experience

WRITTEN ON FEBRUARY 14, 2024 BY NOLEN JOHNSON (NPJOHNSON)

21 – Finally old enough to drink (at least in the US)!

Hey y’all! Welcome back!

We’re a bit ahead of schedule this year, we know normally you don’t expect to hear from us until April-ish.

This was largely thanks to some new faces around the scene, some old faces stepping up to the plate, and several newly appointed Project Directors!

With all that said, we have been working extremely hard since Android 14’s release last October to port our features to this new version of Android. Thanks to our hard work adapting to Google’s largely UI-based changes in Android 12/13, and Android 14’s dead-simple device bring-up requirements, we were able to rebase our changes onto Android 14 much more efficiently.

This lets us spend some much overdue time on our apps suite! Applications such as Aperture had their features and UX improved significantly, while many of our aging apps such as Jelly, Dialer, Contacts, Messaging, LatinIME (Keyboard), and Calculator got near full redesigns that bring them into the Material You era!

…and last but not least, yet another new app landed in our apps suite! Don’t get used to it though, or maybe do, we’re not sure yet.

Now, let’s remind everyone about versioning conventions – To match AOSP’s versioning conventions, and due to the fact it added no notable value to the end-user, we dropped our subversion from a branding perspective.

As Android has moved onto the quarterly maintenance release model, this release will be “LineageOS 21”, not 21.0 or 21.1 – though worry not – we are based on the latest and greatest Android 14 version, QPR1.

Additionally, to you developers out there – any repository that is not core-platform, or isn’t expected to change in quarterly maintenance releases will use branches without subversions – e.g., lineage-21 instead of lineage-21.0.

New Features!

  • Security patches from January 2023 to February 2024 have been merged to LineageOS 18.1 through 21.
  • Glimpse of Us: We now have a shining new app, Glimpse! It will become the default gallery app starting from LineageOS 21
  • An extensive list of applications were heavily improved or redesigned:
    • Aperture: A touch of Material You, new video features, and more!
    • Calculator: Complete Material You redesign
    • Contacts: Design adjustments for Material You
    • Dialer: Large cleanups and code updates, Material You and bugfixes
    • Eleven: Some Material You design updates
    • Jelly: Refreshed interface, Material You and per-website location permissions
    • LatinIME: Material You enhancements, spacebar trackpad, fixed number row
    • Messaging: Design adjustments for Material You
  • A brand new boot animation by our awesome designer Vazguard!
  • SeedVault and Etar have both been updated to their newest respective upstream version.
  • WebView has been updated to Chromium 120.0.6099.144.
  • We have further developed our side pop-out expanding volume panel.
  • Our Updater app should now install A/B updates much faster (thank Google!)
  • We have contributed even more changes and improvements back upstream to the FOSS Etar calendar app we integrated some time back!
  • We have contributed even more changes and improvements back upstream to the Seedvault backup app.
  • Android TV builds still ship with an ad-free Android TV launcher, unlike Google’s ad-enabled launcher – most Android TV Google Apps packages now have options to use the Google ad-enabled launcher or our ad-restricted version.
  • Our merge scripts have been largely overhauled, greatly simplifying the Android Security Bulletin merge process, as well as making supporting devices like Pixel devices that have full source releases much more streamlined.
  • Our extract utilities can now extract from OTA images and factory images directly, further simplifying monthly security updates for maintainers on devices that receive security patches regularly.
  • LLVM has been fully embraced, with builds now defaulting to using LLVM bin-utils and optionally, the LLVM integrated assembler. For those of you with older kernels, worry not, you can always opt-out.
  • A global Quick Settings light mode has been developed so that this UI element matches the device’s theme.
  • Our Setup Wizard has seen adaptation for Android 14, with improved styling, more seamless transitions, and significant amounts of legacy code being stripped out.
  • The developer-kit (e.g. Radxa 0, Banana Pi B5, ODROID C4, Jetson X1) experience has been heavily improved, with UI elements and settings that aren’t related to their more restricted hardware feature-set being hidden or tailored!

Amazing Applications!

Calculator

calculator

Our Calculator app has received a UI refresh, bringing it in sync with the rest of our app suite, as well as a few new features:

  • Code cleanup
  • Reworked UI components to look more modern
  • Added support for Material You
  • Fixed some bugs

Glimpse

glimpse

We’ve been working on a new gallery app, called Glimpse, which will replace Gallery2, the AOSP default gallery app.

Thanks to developers SebaUbuntu, luca020400 and LuK1337 who started the development, together with the help of designer Vazguard.

We focused on a clean, simple and modern-looking UI, designed around Material You’s guidelines, making sure all the features that you would expect from a gallery app are there.

It’ll be available on all devices starting from LineageOS 21.

Aperture

This has been the first year for this new application and we feel it has been received well by the community. As promised, we have continued to improve it and add new features, while keeping up with Google’s changes to the CameraX library (even helping them fix some bugs found on some of our maintained devices). We’d like to also thank the community for their work on translations, especially since Aperture strings changed quite often this year.

Here’s a quick list of some of the new features and improvements since the last update:

  • Added a better dialog UI to ask the user for location permissions when needed
  • UI will now rotate to follow the device orientation
  • Added Material You support
  • Improved QR code scanner, now with support for Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi Easy Connect™ QR codes
  • Added support for Google Assistant voice actions
  • Added photo and video mirroring (flipping) options
  • Audio can be muted while recording a video
  • Better error handling, including when no camera is available
  • Added configurable volume button gestures
  • The app will now warn you if the device overheats and is now able to automatically stop recording if the device temperature is too high
  • Added an information chip on top of the viewfinder to show some useful information, like low battery or disabled microphone
  • Added some advanced video processing settings (noise reduction, sharpening, etc.)
  • You can now set the flash to torch mode in photo mode by long-pressing the flash button
  • Added support for HDR video recording

Jelly

jelly

Our browser app has received a UI refresh, bringing it in sync with the rest of our app suite, as well as a few new features:

  • Code cleanup
  • Reworked UI components to look more modern
  • Added support for Material You
  • Fixed some bugs regarding downloading files
  • Added Brave as a search engine and suggestions provider
  • Dropped Google encrypted search engine, as Google defaults to HSTS now
  • Baidu suggestion provider now uses HTTPS
  • Implemented per-website location permissions

Dialer, Messaging, and Contacts

Dialer

Since AOSP abandoned deprecated the Dialer, we have taken over the code base and did heavy cleanups, updating to newer standards (AndroidX) and redesigning:

  • Code cleanup
  • Changed to using Material You design
  • Proper dark and light themes
  • Several bugfixes, specifically with number lookups and the contact list

While Messaging was also deprecated by AOSP, at least the Contacts app was not. Nonetheless we gave both of them an overhaul and made them also follow the system colors and look more integrated.

Careful Commonization

Several of our developers have worked hard on SoC-specific common kernels to base on that can be merged on a somewhat regular basis to pull in the latest features/security patches to save maintainers additional effort.

Go check them out and consider basing your device kernels on them!

Supported SoCs right now are:

SoC (system-on-chip)Kernel VersionAndroid Version 
Qualcomm MSM89963.1811 
Qualcomm MSM8998/MSM89964.413 
Qualcomm SDM8454.913 
Qualcomm SM81504.1413 
Qualcomm SDM6604.1913 
Qualcomm SM82504.1913 
Qualcomm SM83505.413 
Qualcomm SM84505.1013– Coming soon!
Qualcomm SM85505.1513 

Additionally, many legacy devices require interpolating libraries that we colloquially refer to as “shims” – these have long been device and maintainer managed, but this cycle we have decided to commonize them to make the effort easier on everyone and not duplicate effort!

You can check it out here and contribute shims that you think other devices may need or add additional components to additional shims and compatibility layers provided via Gerrit!

Deprecations

Overall, we feel that the 21 branch has reached feature and stability parity with 20 and is ready for initial release.

For the first time in many cycles, all devices that shipped LineageOS 19.1 were either promoted or dropped by the maintainer by the time of this blog post, so LineageOS 19.1 was retired naturally. As such, no new device submissions targeting the 19.1 branch will be able to ship builds (you can still apply and fork your work to the organization, though!).

LineageOS 18.1 builds were still not deprecated this year, as Google’s somewhat harsh requirements of BPF support in all Android 12+ device’s kernels meant that a significant amount of our legacy devices on the build-roster would have died.

LineageOS 18.1, is still on a feature freeze, and building each device monthly, shortly after the Android Security Bulletin is merged for that month.

We will allow new LineageOS 18.1 submissions to be forked to the organization, but we no longer will allow newly submitted LineageOS 18.1 devices to ship.

LineageOS 21 will launch building for a decent selection of devices, with additional devices to come as they are marked as both Charter compliant and ready for builds by their maintainer.

Upgrading to LineageOS 21

To upgrade, please follow the upgrade guide for your device by clicking on it here and then on “Upgrade to a higher version of LineageOS”.

If you’re coming from an unofficial build, you need to follow the good ole’ install guide for your device, just like anyone else looking to install LineageOS for the first time. These can be found at the same place here by clicking on your device and then on “Installation”.

Please note that if you’re currently on an official build, you DO NOT need to wipe your device, unless your device’s wiki page specifically dictates otherwise, as is needed for some devices with massive changes, such as a repartition.

Download portal

While it has been in the making for quite a while and already released a year ago, it’s still news in regards to this blog post. Our download portal has been redesigned and also gained a few functional improvements:

  • Dark mode
  • Downloads of additional images (shown for all devices but not used on all of them, read the instructions to know which ones you need for your device’s installation!)
  • Verifying downloaded files (see here) – if you go with any download not obtained from us, you can still verify it was originally signed by us and thus untampered with

Wiki

The LineageOS Wiki has also been expanded throughout the year and now offers, in addition to the known and tested instructions for all supported devices, some improvements:

  • The device overview allows filtering for various attributes you might be interested in a device (please note: choosing a device only based on that list still does not guarantee any device support beyond the point of when you chose it)
  • The device overview now lists variants of a device and other known marketing names in a more visible way, also allowing for different device information and instructions per variant to be shown
  • The installation instructions have been paginated, giving users less chance to skip a section involuntarily

In addition to that we’d like to take this time to remind users to follow instructions on their device’s respective Wiki Page given the complexity introduced by AOSP changes like System-As-Root, A/B Partition Scheme, Dynamic Partitions, and most recently Virtual A/B found on the Pixel 5 and other devices launching with Android 11, the instructions many of you are used to following from memory are either no longer valid or are missing very critical steps. As of 16.0, maintainers have been expected to run through the full instructions and verify they work on their devices. The LineageOS Wiki was recently further extended, and maintainers were given significantly more options to customize their device’s specific installation, update, and upgrade instructions.

Developers, Developers, Developers

Or, in this case, maintainers, maintainers, maintainers. We want your device submissions!

If you’re a developer and would like to submit your device for officials, it’s easier than ever. Just follow the instructions here.

The above also applies to people looking to bring back devices that were at one point official but are no longer supported – seriously – even if it’s not yet completely compliant, submit it! Maybe we can help you complete it.

After you submit, within generally a few weeks, but in most cases a week, you’ll receive some feedback on your device submission; and if it’s up to par, you’ll be invited to our communications instances and your device will be forked to LineageOS’s official repositories.

Don’t have the knowledge to maintain a device, but want to contribute to the platform? We have lots of other things you can contribute to. For instance, our apps suite is always looking for new people to help improve them, or you can contribute to the wiki by adding more useful information & documentation. Gerrit is always open for submissions! Once you’ve contributed a few things, send an email to devrel(at)lineageos.org detailing them, and we’ll get you in the loop.

Also, if you sent a submission via Gmail over the last few months, due to infrastructural issues, some of them didn’t make it to us, so please resend them!

Generic Targets

We’ve talked about these before, but these are important, so we will cover them again.

Though we’ve had buildable generic targets since 2019, to make LineageOS more accessible to developers, and really anyone interested in giving LineageOS a try, we’ve documented how to use them in conjunction with the Android Emulator/Android Studio!

Additionally, similar targets can now be used to build GSI in mobile, Android TV configurations, and Android Automotive (we’ll talk more about this later) making LineageOS more accessible than ever to devices using Google’s Project Treble. We won’t be providing official builds for these targets, due to the fact the user experience varies entirely based on how well the device manufacturer complied with Treble’s requirements, but feel free to go build them yourself and give it a shot!

Please note that Android 12 (and by proxy Android 13/14) diverged GSI and Emulator targets. Emulator targets reside in lineage_sdk_$arch, while GSI targets reside in lineage_gsi_$arch.

Translations

Bilingual? Trilingual? Anything-lingual?

If you think you can help translate LineageOS to a different language, jump over to our wiki and have a go! If your language is not supported natively in Android, reach out to us on Crowdin and we’ll take the necessary steps to include your language. For instance, LineageOS is the first Android custom distribution that has complete support for the Welsh (Cymraeg) language thanks to its community of translators.

Please, contribute to translations only if you are reasonably literate in the target language; poor translations waste both our time and yours.

Build roster

Added 21 devices

Device nameWikiMaintainersMoved from
ASUS Zenfone 5Z (ZS620KL)Z01Rrohanpurohit, Jackeagle, ThEMarD20
Banana Pi M5 (Tablet)m5_tabnpjohnson, stricted20
Essential PH-1matahaggertk, intervigil, npjohnson, rashed20
F(x)tec Pro¹ Xpro1xBadDaemon, bgcngm, mccreary, npjohnson, qsnc, tdm20
F(x)tec Pro¹pro1BadDaemon, bgcngm, intervigil, mccreary, npjohnson, tdm20
Fairphone 4FP4mikeioannina20
Google Pixel 2 XLtaimenchrmhoffmann, Eamo5, npjohnson, jro197920
Google Pixel 2walleyechrmhoffmann, Eamo5, npjohnson, jro197920
Google Pixel 3 XLcrosshatchrazorloves, cdesai, intervigil, mikeioannina20
Google Pixel 3bluelinerazorloves, cdesai, intervigil, mikeioannina20
Google Pixel 3a XLbonitocdesai, mikeioannina, npjohnson20
Google Pixel 3asargocdesai, mikeioannina, npjohnson20
Google Pixel 4 XLcoralcdesai, Eamo5, mikeioannina, npjohnson20
Google Pixel 4flamecdesai, Eamo5, mikeioannina, npjohnson20
Google Pixel 4a 5Gbramblealeasto, mikeioannina20
Google Pixel 4asunfishPeterCxy, cdesai, mikeioannina20
Google Pixel 5redfinaleasto, mikeioannina20
Google Pixel 5abarbetaleasto, mikeioannina20
Google Pixel 6 Proravenmikeioannina20
Google Pixel 6oriolemikeioannina20
Google Pixel 6abluejaymikeioannina20
Google Pixel 7 Procheetahmikeioannina, npjohnson20
Google Pixel 7panthermikeioannina, neelc20
Google Pixel 7alynxmikeioannina, niclimcy20
Google Pixel 8 Prohuskymikeioannina 
Google Pixel 8shibamikeioannina 
Google Pixel Foldfelixmikeioannina 
Google Pixel TablettangorproLuK1337, mikeioannina, npjohnson, neelc20
Google Pixel XLmarlinnpjohnson, electimon20
Google Pixelsailfishnpjohnson, electimon20
HardKernel ODROID-C4 (Tablet)odroidc4_tabnpjohnson, stricted20
LG G5 (International)h850aleasto, AShiningRay, npjohnson, ROMSG, x86cpu20
LG G5 (T-Mobile)h830aleasto, AShiningRay, npjohnson, ROMSG, x86cpu20
LG G5 (US Unlocked)rs988aleasto, AShiningRay, npjohnson, ROMSG, x86cpu20
LG G6 (EU Unlocked)h870aleasto, AShiningRay, npjohnson, ROMSG, x86cpu20
LG G6 (T-Mobile)h872aleasto, AShiningRay, npjohnson, ROMSG, x86cpu20
LG G6 (US Unlocked)us997aleasto, AShiningRay, npjohnson, ROMSG, x86cpu20
LG V20 (AT&T)h910aleasto, AShiningRay, npjohnson, ROMSG, xxseva44, x86cpu20
LG V20 (GSM Unlocked – DirtySanta)us996daleasto, AShiningRay, npjohnson, ROMSG, xxseva44, x86cpu20
LG V20 (GSM Unlocked)us996aleasto, AShiningRay, npjohnson, ROMSG, xxseva44, x86cpu20
LG V20 (Global)h990aleasto, AShiningRay, npjohnson, ROMSG, xxseva44, x86cpu20
LG V20 (Sprint)ls997aleasto, AShiningRay, npjohnson, ROMSG, xxseva44, x86cpu20
LG V20 (T-Mobile)h918aleasto, AShiningRay, npjohnson, ROMSG, xxseva44, x86cpu20
LG V20 (Verizon)vs995aleasto, AShiningRay, npjohnson, ROMSG, xxseva44, x86cpu20
LG V30 (Unlocked) / LG V30 (T-Mobile)joanlifehackerhansol, SGCMarkus20
Motorola edge 20 propstarnpjohnson, SGCMarkus20
Motorola edge 20berlinnpjohnson, SGCMarkus20
Motorola edge 2021berlnaSyberHexen20
Motorola edge 30dubaithemard, sb6596, Demon00020
Motorola edge s / Motorola moto g100niodianlujitao20
Motorola moto g200 5G / Motorola Edge S30xpengthemard, rogers260220
Motorola moto g32devonDhina17, mikeioannina20
Motorola moto g42hawaoDhina17, mikeioannina20
Motorola moto g52rhodeDhina17, mikeioannina20
Motorola moto g6 plusevertjro197920
Motorola moto g7 playchannelSyberHexen, deadman96385, erfanoabdi, npjohnson20
Motorola moto g7 pluslakejro1979, npjohnson20
Motorola moto g7 poweroceanSyberHexen, erfanoabdi, npjohnson20
Motorola moto g7rivererfanoabdi, npjohnson, SyberHexen20
Motorola moto x4paytonerfanoabdi, ThEMarD, electimon20
Motorola moto z2 force / Motorola moto z (2018)nasherfanoabdi, npjohnson, qsnc20
Motorola moto z3 playbeckhamjro197920
Motorola moto z3messinpjohnson20
Motorola one actiontroikaStricted, npjohnson20
Motorola one vision / Motorola p50kaneStricted, npjohnson20
Nokia 6.1 (2018)PL2npjohnson, theimpulson20
Nokia 6.1 PlusDRGnpjohnson, theimpulson20
Nubia Mini 5GTP1803ArianK16a, npjohnson20
OnePlus 11 5Gsalamibgcngm 
OnePlus 5cheeseburgertrautamaki20
OnePlus 5Tdumplingtrautamaki, qsnc20
OnePlus 6enchiladaLuK133720
OnePlus 6TfajitaEdwinMoq20
OnePlus 7 ProguacamoleLuK1337, Tortel20
OnePlus 7guacamolebshantanu-sarkar20
OnePlus 7T Prohotdogqsnc20
OnePlus 7ThotdogbLuK133720
OnePlus 8 ProinstantnoodlepLuK133720
OnePlus 8instantnoodlejabashque20
OnePlus 8TkebabLuK133720
OnePlus 9 ProlemonadepLuK1337, bgcngm, mikeioannina20
OnePlus 9lemonademikeioannina, tangalbert919, ZVNexus20
OnePlus 9Rlemonadesmikeioannina20
OnePlus 9RTmartinimikeioannina20
OnePlus NordaviciiMajorP93, KakatkarAkshay20
Radxa Zero (Tablet)radxa0_tabbgcngm, npjohnson, stricted20
Razer Phone 2auramikeioannina, npjohnson20
Razer Phonecherylmikeioannina, npjohnson20
Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 10.4 2020 (LTE)gta4lchrmhoffmann20
Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 10.4 2020 (Wi-Fi)gta4lwifichrmhoffmann20
Samsung Galaxy Tab S5e (LTE)gts4lvbgcngm, LuK133720
Samsung Galaxy Tab S5e (Wi-Fi)gts4lvwifiLuK1337, bgcngm20
Sony Xperia 1 IIpdx203hellobbn20
Sony Xperia 1 IIIpdx215hellobbn20
Sony Xperia 10 PlusmermaidLuK133720
Sony Xperia 10kirinLuK133720
Sony Xperia 5 IIpdx206kyasu, hellobbn20
Sony Xperia 5 IIIpdx214kyasu, hellobbn20
Sony Xperia XA2 PlusvoyagerLuK133720
Sony Xperia XA2 UltradiscoveryLuK133720
Sony Xperia XA2pioneerLuK1337, Stricted, cdesai20
Xiaomi Mi 5geminibgcngm, ikeramat20
Xiaomi Mi 5s PlusnatriumLuK133720
Xiaomi Mi 6sagitArianK16a20
Xiaomi Mi 8 Explorer Editionursabgcngm20
Xiaomi Mi 8 Proequuleusbgcngm20
Xiaomi Mi 8dipperinfrag20
Xiaomi Mi 9 SEgrusSebaUbuntu20
Xiaomi Mi CC 9 / Xiaomi Mi 9 Litepyxisceracz20
Xiaomi Mi CC9 Meitu Editionvela0xCAFEBABE20
Xiaomi Mi MIX 2chironmikeioannina20
Xiaomi Mi MIX 2Spolarisbgcngm20
Xiaomi Mi MIX 3perseusbgcngm, rtx4d20
Xiaomi Poco F1berylliumbgcngm, warabhishek20
Xiaomi Redmi 3S / Xiaomi Redmi 3X / Xiaomi Redmi 4 (India) / Xiaomi Redmi 4X / Xiaomi Redmi Note 5A Prime / Xiaomi Redmi Y1 PrimeMi89370xCAFEBABE20
Xiaomi Redmi 4A / Xiaomi Redmi 5A / Xiaomi Redmi Note 5A Lite / Xiaomi Redmi Y1 LiteMi89170xCAFEBABE20
Xiaomi Redmi 8 / Xiaomi Redmi 8A / Xiaomi Redmi 8A DualMi4390xCAFEBABE20

Added 20 devices

Device nameWikiMaintainersMoved from
10.or GGkardebayan 
ASUS ZenFone 8sakeZVNexus, Demon000, DD3Boh19.1
ASUS Zenfone Max Pro M1X00TDVivekachooz19.1
BQ Aquaris X ProbardockproQuallenauge, jmpfbmx18.1
BQ Aquaris XbardockQuallenauge, jmpfbmx18.1
Banana Pi M5 (Android TV)m5stricted 
Dynalink TV Box 4K (2021)wadenpjohnson, bgcngm, stricted, webgeek1234, deadman96385, trautamaki, luca020400, aleasto19.1
Fairphone 3 / Fairphone 3+FP3dk1978, teamb5819.1
Google ADT-3deadpoolnpjohnson, stricted, webgeek1234, deadman96385, trautamaki, luca020400, aleasto19.1
HardKernel ODROID-C4 (Android TV)odroidc4stricted 
Motorola one fusion+ / Motorola one fusion+ (India)liberWilliam, Hasaber819.1
Motorola one zoomparkerHasaber819.1
Nubia Play 5G / Nubia Red Magic 5G Litenx651jCyborg2017 
Nubia Red Magic 5G (Global) / Nubia Red Magic 5G (China) / Nubia Red Magic 5S (Global) / Nubia Red Magic 5S (China)nx659jDD3Boh 
Nubia Red Magic Marsnx619jCyborg2017 
Nubia Red Magicnx609jCyborg2017 
Nubia Z17nx563jBeYkeRYkt, Cyborg201719.1
Nubia Z18 Mininx611jCyborg201719.1
Nubia Z18nx606jCyborg2017 
OnePlus Nord N200dretangalbert91919.1
Radxa Zero (Android TV)radxa0bgcngm, npjohnson, stricted 
SHIFT SHIFT6mqaxolotlamartinz, joey, mikeioannina19.1
Samsung Galaxy A52 4Ga52qSimon151119.1
Samsung Galaxy A52s 5Ga52sxqSimon1511 
Samsung Galaxy A72a72qSimon151119.1
Samsung Galaxy A73 5Ga73xqSimon1511 
Samsung Galaxy F62 / Samsung Galaxy M62f62Linux4 
Samsung Galaxy M52 5Gm52xqSimon1511 
Samsung Galaxy Note 9crownltebaddar9017.1
Samsung Galaxy Note10d1Linux419.1
Samsung Galaxy Note10+ 5Gd2xLinux419.1
Samsung Galaxy Note10+d2sLinux419.1
Samsung Galaxy S10 5GbeyondxLinux419.1
Samsung Galaxy S10beyond1lteLinux419.1
Samsung Galaxy S10+beyond2lteLinux419.1
Samsung Galaxy S10ebeyond0lteLinux419.1
Samsung Galaxy S9starltebaddar9017.1
Samsung Galaxy S9+star2ltebaddar9017.1
Samsung Galaxy Tab A 8.0 (2019)gtowifilifehackerhansol 
Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Lite (LTE)gta4xlhaggertk, Linux419.1
Samsung Galaxy Tab S6 Lite (Wi-Fi)gta4xlwifiLinux4, haggertk19.1
Sony Xperia XZ2 Compactxz2cdtrunk9019.1
Sony Xperia XZ2 Premiumauroradtrunk9019.1
Sony Xperia XZ2akaridtrunk9019.1
Sony Xperia XZ3akatsukidtrunk9019.1
Walmart onn. TV Box 4K (2021)dopindernpjohnson, bgcngm, stricted, webgeek1234, deadman96385, trautamaki, luca020400, aleasto 
Xiaomi 11 Lite 5G NE / Xiaomi 11 Lite NE 5G / Xiaomi Mi 11 LElisaItsVixano19.1
Xiaomi Mi 10T / Xiaomi Mi 10T Pro / Xiaomi Redmi K30S UltraapollonRamisky, SebaUbuntu19.1
Xiaomi Mi 10T Lite 5G / Xiaomi Mi 10i 5G / Xiaomi Redmi Note 9 Pro 5GgauguinHridaya, Lynnrin19.1
Xiaomi Mi 11 Lite 5GrenoirArianK16a19.1
Xiaomi Mi 11 PromarsFlower Sea 
Xiaomi Mi 11i / Xiaomi Redmi K40 Pro / Xiaomi Redmi K40 Pro+ / Xiaomi Mi 11X ProhaydnAdarshGrewal, erfanoabdi19.1
Xiaomi Mi 9T / Xiaomi Redmi K20 (China) / Xiaomi Redmi K20 (India)davinciArianK16a17.1
Xiaomi Mi A1tissotabhinavgupta37119.1
Xiaomi POCO F2 Pro / Xiaomi Redmi K30 ProlmiSebaUbuntu19.1
Xiaomi POCO F3 / Xiaomi Redmi K40 / Xiaomi Mi 11XaliothSahilSonar, SebaUbuntu, althafvly19.1
Xiaomi POCO M2 Pro / Xiaomi Redmi Note 9S / Xiaomi Redmi Note 9 Pro (Global) / Xiaomi Redmi Note 9 Pro (India) / Xiaomi Redmi Note 9 Pro Max / Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Litemiatolldereference23, ItsVixano19.1
Xiaomi POCO X3 NFCsuryaShimitar, TheStrechh19.1
Xiaomi POCO X3 ProvayuSebaUbuntu19.1
Xiaomi Redmi 7 / Xiaomi Redmi Y3oncliteDhina1719.1
Xiaomi Redmi 9lancelotsurblazer 
Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro / Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro (India) / Xiaomi Redmi Note 10 Pro Max (India)sweetbasamaryan, danielml3 
Xiaomi Redmi Note 10S / Xiaomi Redmi Note 10S NFC / Xiaomi Redmi Note 10S Latin Americarosemarysurblazer 
Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 Provioletjashvakharia, raghavt2016.0
Xiaomi Redmi Note 9merlinxsurblazer, bengris32 
ZUK Z2 Plusz2_plusDD3Boh19.1

Added 18.1 devices

Device nameWikiMaintainersMoved from
Google Nexus 7 2013 (LTE, Repartitioned)debxnpjohnson, surblazer, Elektroschmock, hpnightowl, ROMSG 
Motorola moto zgriffinerfanoabdi, npjohnson17.1

Source :
https://lineageos.org/Changelog-28/

Part 10: See How Customers Are Unlocking the Power of Hybrid Cloud with VMware Cloud on AWS 

Sonali Desai
February 7, 2024

Trying to figure out how to start your hybrid cloud journey and looking for some real-world customer examples to see how customers have used VMware Cloud on AWS for different use cases and how they have seen significant positive impact in terms of cost, speed and uptime of the environment after moving to VMware Cloud on AWS, then you are at the right place. In this blog series (Part 1Part 2Part 3Part 4Part 5Part 6Part 7Part 8 and Part 9), you will find a lot of different customer stories across different geographies and different industries who have been using VMware Cloud on AWS over the past few years.

And now, we are back with another set of latest customer stories in Part 10 of this blog series. But before we dive into it, let’s look at the latest IDC Business Value Snapshot results with you.

Hot off the Press!!! 2024 IDC Business Value Snapshot: VMware Cloud on AWS Outshines On-Premises, Unleashing Superior Agility, Performance, and Business Results

IDC interviewed some of the existing VMware Cloud on AWS customers. And they found out that VMware Cloud on AWS delivers superior agility and performance, better cost and staff efficiencies and improved business results as compared to the traditional on-premises environments and faster and efficient migration as compared to other traditional public cloud options. So don’t forget to check out the 2024 IDC Business Value Snapshot.

Now, let’s dive into some of the recent customer stories and understand what they have to say about their experiences of using VMware Cloud on AWS:

1. NEC Corporation Performs Accelerated, Seamless Migration to the Cloud

NEC Corporation, a provider of diverse solutions ranging from social infrastructure to public and private enterprises to space development in Japan, had “Digital Transformation within the company” as one of the top initiatives on their agenda and for that, they were seeking for a fast, affordable, and secure transition to cloud. To implement a large-scale move to the cloud rapidly and smoothly—at low cost—NEC chose VMware Cloud on AWS mainly because this service fulfilled their 2 key requirements: minimal impact of cloud migration on end users and reduced time and costs of migration.

After carefully considering how to safely carry out the cloud migration in a cost-effective and speedy manner, we decided that VMware Cloud on AWS was the best choice.”​ Hiroshi Kodama, Corporate Executive Vice President, CIO and CISO, NEC Corporation​

In only 70 days, NEC completed the migration of 301 systems and 424 virtual machines to VMware Cloud on AWS. And after moving to VMware Cloud on AWS, they were able to cut migration costs by 91% and reduced their operational expenses by 19% over the previous on-premises infrastructure.

Check out the case study and video to learn more about their experiences.

2. Loyalty NZ Disrupts Data-Driven Loyalty Programs with VMware Cloud on AWS

With around 2.8 million members, Loyalty NZ runs Flybuys, the most extensive loyalty program in New Zealand. They have significant amount of valuable customer insights data that their partners rely on. And they realized that they should move from traditional infrastructure model to hybrid cloud model that would allow them to better utilize this data and provide better customer engagement and personalized customer experiences. Loyalty NZ wanted to exit its physical data centers and adopted VMware Cloud on AWS as the solution to complete this transition. They migrated their physical data centers to VMware Cloud on AWS in three phases in just over three months, right on schedule.

And here is what they have to say about their experience of using VMware Cloud on AWS:

“We’ve gone through two holiday periods, and we’ve had a total of zero severity one incidents. Queries that previously ran in hours, now take minutes. And at important retail dates, we’ve been able to ramp up our capacity to 800percent.” says Brian Ferris, CTO, Loyalty NZ.

“This was a complex migration made simple. It was on time, on budget, on scope, minimal business disruption and delivered all the value that it was meant to” says Jeremy Anderson, acting CTO, Loyalty NZ.

Read the story to learn more.

3. POSCO DX Expands Business with VMware Horizon VDI on VMware Cloud on AWS

Posco DX specializes in deploying industrial robots in high-risk, high-intensity industrial environments to enhance worker safety and streamline logistics management. With the new goal of discovering future businesses in smart logistics, automation, and industrial robots space, POSCO DX wanted to move from its previous ad-hoc, revenue-based system integration to a subscription-based business model. Additionally, POSCO DX recognized that it was necessary to create a next-gen work environment for the distributed workforce to increase employee productivity. Also, security was their prime concern. POSCO DX required seamless access from any device that can easily maneuver between private and public spaces while maintaining a high level of security and operational efficiency.

In order to address these business needs, Posco DX deployed a full-stack VDI system offered by VMware Horizon running on VMware Cloud on AWS, that provides hardened security. VMware Cloud on AWS offered strong Zero Trust security, which enhanced mobile security and behavior-based endpoint response with micro-segmentation using distributed firewalls and information leakage monitoring. VMware Cloud on AWS provided them fast migration and bi-directional portability of workloads without demanding any application refactoring or changes.

With the newly introduced VMware VDI solution, we have even achieved a business transformation based on a Zero Trust security framework.” Seok Bae Yoon, Project Manager, IT Infrastructure Group, TSS Section, POSCO DX

After migrating VDI workloads to VMware Cloud on AWS, POSCO DX experienced improved performance for applications including video conference and collaboration tools. And automated operations including VDI lifecycle management and user inquiry response resulted in cost reduction. Also, POSCO DX improved energy efficiency to reduce carbon emissions, and the company achieved improved corporate governance via enhanced security.

Check out this case study to learn more.

4. The Royal Orthopedic Hospital Pioneers Move to the Cloud with VMware Cloud on AWS

NHS- The Royal Orthopedic Hospital is one of the largest musculoskeletal and orthopedic hospitals in Europe. The hospital wanted to deliver quality healthcare to its patients while reducing operating costs, minimizing the healthcare system’s carbon footprint, and giving clinicians better access to the high-performing IT systems they need to provide quality healthcare.

The Royal Orthopedic Hospital used VMware Cloud on AWS to deliver patient care with highly available services at a lower cost, enabling the hospital trust to meet sustainability goals, scale hybrid workforce, and optimize IT spending. The hospital seamlessly migrated critical workloads such as medical systems, patient data, the radiology solution, and administrative functions, including the letter dictation application and appointment management and patient check-in systems within few days.

We’ve had a great experience with VMware, so implementing VMware Cloud on AWS was the natural choice.” Liam Maiden, IT Program Manager, The Royal Orthopedic Hospital

By moving to VMware Cloud on AWS, The Royal Orthopedic Hospital has embraced a new era of efficiency and scalability, giving clinicians reliable access to tools that help them deliver outstanding patient care. Administrative staff can also work more efficiently from anywhere, promoting greater employee wellbeing.

Read this case study to learn more.

5. iGA BahraiEmbraces Hybrid Cloud with VMware Cloud on AWS and VMware Cloud on AWS Outposts to Transform Government Services

iGA Bahrain is the umbrella for all Bahrain public sector entities. iGA governs and facilitates services within the IT sector, such as proposing public policies, suitable legislation, and decisions for the implementation of the eGovernment programs, as well as necessary IT and data programs.

iGA had 75% of its workloads in the public cloud since around 2017, and the remaining 25% of sensitive and critical workloads were held on-premises with a separate on-premises facility for disaster recovery. There was little coordination between the cloud and on-premises workloads, which led to increased complexity, especially when workloads needed to be moved between the two. This setup also required significant resources to manage and maintain and iGA needed more agility to upscale capacity or offer new services and solutions to government departments. The disaster recovery setup also presented a risk as iGA was using a manual solution that required a minimum of six hours to start up, which in the event of a disaster could lead to loss of data and services to end users.

So, iGA was looking for secure, flexible, efficient, and agile solution that would offer secure cloud services, including sovereign cloud and DR as a Service. iGA opted to deploy VMware Cloud on AWS Outposts to give a completely managed sovereign cloud solution for its on-premises workloads. With VMware Cloud on AWS Outposts, iGA has achieved a cloud-like experience on-premises, providing its customers with a secure sovereign cloud experience. And, due to consistent infrastructure and operations across the hybrid cloud environment, they stored less sensitive data on VMware Cloud on AWS Bahrain region. For DRaaS solution, iGA used VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery on VMware Cloud on AWS to protect its data and applications in the most efficient way possible which helped iGA to efficiently secure its data and services. This was especially useful for supporting government agency users whose requirements can change suddenly.

“By offering secure, flexible cloud solutions to government agencies and private sector organizations, we can ensure workloads are operating at maximum efficiency and availability. This will help the government to fulfil its mission of helping Bahrain to transform into the finest country in GCC to visit, live, work and conduct business.” Dr. Khalid Ahmed Almutawah, Deputy Chief Executive, Operations and Governance, iGA

Don’t miss this case study and video to learn more.

Customer Panel Sessions:

Apart from the stories mentioned above, there are also some interesting stories that were discussed live directly with the customers at VMware Explore 2023 and AWS re:Invent 2023. So, in case if you missed those sessions, check out the on-demand recordings below:

And last but not the least, here are VMware Cloud on AWS learning resources for you that will help you kickstart your cloud migration journey:

Resources:

Sonali Desai

Sonali Desai is a Group Product Line Marketing Manager for VMware Cloud on AWS at VMware, Inc. Sonali has been working in IT industry for more than 15 years with…

Source :
https://blogs.vmware.com/cloud/2024/02/07/part-10-see-how-customers-are-unlocking-the-power-of-hybrid-cloud-with-vmware-cloud-on-aws/

Part 9: See How Customers Are Protecting Their Workloads In Case of A Disaster with VMware Cloud on AWS

Ruchi Tandon
September 11, 2023

Looking to protect your workloads in the event of a disaster and strengthen disaster recovery? You’re not alone. Here’s how organizations are using VMware Cloud on AWS for their disaster recovery needs. In this blog, I am going to share some of the recent customer stories on disaster and ransomware recovery use case.

But before that, I want to highlight our VMware Cloud on AWS customer panel at VMware Explore Las Vegas 2023. During this panel, our esteemed customers and partners (S&P Global Ratings and Converge Technology Solutions) shared the transformative impact they’ve experienced after migrating workloads to VMware Cloud on AWS within their organizations. It was truly inspiring to witness firsthand the positive changes brought about by this innovative hybrid cloud service. In case you missed attending the live session, don’t worry. Check out this on-demand session and hear it directly from the customers and partners how VMware Cloud on AWS helped them accelerate their cloud transformation initiative.

Also, check out Part 1Part 2Part 3Part 4Part 5Part 6Part 7 and Part 8 of this blog series for more customer stories across various use cases.

Now, let’s check out some the customer stories in Disaster and Ransomware Recovery space.

USE CASE: DISASTER RECOVERY

VanEck

VanEck Streamlines Recovery From Modern Ransomware with VMware

Founded in 1955, VanEck is a global investment manager with offices around the world. Today, VanEck offers active and passive strategies with compelling exposures supported by well-designed investment processes. The firm’s capabilities range from core investment opportunities to more specialized exposures to enhance portfolio diversification.

Before using VMware Ransomware Recovery, VanEck relied on the restore capabilities of an outdated backup solution for ransomware recovery. The approach was scattered and required shifting between products to recover. This process consumed valuable IT resources and made the recovery long and unpredictable.

After implementing VMware Ransomware Recovery, this solution helped VanEck cut costs and save FTE hours to better allocate IT resources. The team at VanEck no longer had to build, secure and manage the Isolated Recovery Environment themselves. Using VMware Ransomware Recovery, the team replaced an error-prone recovery process with streamlined recovery at scale.

Here is what VanEck has to say about their experience of using the product: 

“Previously, recovery was complicated and time-consuming. Now, everything is seamless and orchestrated. I have yet to see a recovery product for ransomware that works as well  as VMware.”

– Alaa Elbanna, Global Director, IT Infrastructure, VanEck

Watch this video to check out VanEck’s success story.

Reily Foods Company

Reily Foods Company Uses VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery to Protect IT Operations at the Southern Foodmaker

Reily Foods Company (Reily Foods) is a 5th-generation, family-owned food and beverage company. Since 1902, they’ve helped to define the food and beverage flavors of the American South. Reily Foods is proud of their New Orleans heritage, which continues to shape the way they make their products and the way they believe in doing business.

Initially, Reily Foods disaster recovery (DR) strategy was to use the New Orleans and Knoxville facilities as DR locations for each other. Reily Foods quickly realized that they didn’t want to keep investing in premium data center hardware that would only be used in a disaster. Add to that the network complexity and capacity needed between sites and momentum started to build for a cloud-based solution. And that’s when Ben Cooper, their Director of Infrastructure & Security, found VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery (VMware Cloud DR).

To diversify Reily Foods ecosystem for resiliency, Cooper looked at several other public cloud providers. “VMware Cloud on AWS seemed to be a better fit.” After that the whole disaster recovery project came together for Reily Foods with familiar, trusted, reliable products.

With VMware Cloud DR in place, Reily Foods knows that their critical infrastructure can be served by an RPO (Recovery Point Objective) as low as 30 minutes. Their staff can leverage existing skills and this setup integrates with related technologies already in use at Reily Foods while projecting lower operational costs.

Here is what Reily Foods has to say about their experience of using the product: 

“Knowing that I have copies of my infrastructure in the cloud, and that I have the capability to add ransomware recovery in the future is a plus. So far, it’s a great solution that could help a lot of people who are looking to do what we did, which is save money on disaster recovery. We leverage the cloud OpEx model and save money by avoiding an ongoing investment in expensive on-premises equipment that will only be used in the off chance of a disaster.”

– Ben Cooper, Director of Infrastructure, Reily Foods

Learn more about Reily Foods’ success story using VMware Cloud DR with VMware Cloud on AWS here.

Fozzy Group

Fozzy Group Protects IT Operations in War Zone using VMware Cloud DR with VMware Cloud on AWS

Fozzy Group is one of the largest conglomerates in Ukraine and one of the leading Ukrainian retailers, with over 700 grocery outlets and convenience stores throughout the country.

They wanted to eliminate disruption threats (in supplying groceries and goods to its customers) as the Russian war on Ukraine continues. So, the Fozzy Group decided to adopt cloud for disaster recovery in the event of natural or wartime disruptions. They also wanted to replace disparate systems loosely coupled to serve as protection from a disaster that made it hard to test the recovery plan as well as integrate with their existing VMware infrastructure.

Fozzy Group decided to put in place disaster recovery in the cloud using VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery (VMware Cloud DR) with VMware Cloud on AWS to achieve low RPOs and RTOs for mission critical workloads. By deploying this setup, the team at VMware helped the customer protect itself against the elevated threat of data center disruption in time of war with VMware Cloud DR’s ransomware capabilities.

With time being of the essence, their implementation was complete in just over 2 weeks with VMware’s deployment expertise. Additionally, they are able to support RTO and RPO of as little as few hours for the most critical systems and 24 hours for the less critical ones. Fozzy Group was also able to replicate and host hundreds of terabytes in the cloud in a secure manner supported by VMware Cloud DR with VMware Cloud on AWS.

Here is what the customer has to say about their experience of using the product: 

“After implementing VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery, I certainly sleep much better.”
– Ivan Slavioglo, Vice President of IT, Fozzy Group

Read more about Fozzy Group’s experience using VMware Cloud DR with VMware Cloud on AWS here.

Vente-unique

Vente-unique Ensures Business Continuity with VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery and VMware Cloud on AWS

Vente-unique is the leading online retailer of furniture, home furnishings and decorations in France and throughout Europe. Founded in 2006, the company has grown quickly in France and across Europe. Today, Vente-unique operates in 11 European countries, with 2 million customers served so far and bringing in 160 million euros in sales revenue in 2022.

The Vente-unique warehouse is 860,000 square feet spread over 13 storage cells and they employ 300 people mainly working in receiving, storage and dispatch. Their entire warehouse is computerized, and the warehouse operates 23 hours a day, 7 days a week. With an exclusively online sales business and a growing volume of traffic, Vente-unique was particularly vulnerable in the event of a system failure. A disaster like that would bring 300 employees to a standstill, clients left unserved, empty lorries leaving the warehouse. To protect its reputation, which is built on trust and customer satisfaction, Vente-unique wanted to ensure that its operations run smoothly and without interruption.

The team at Vente-unique needed a disaster recovery plan to guarantee client satisfaction and delivery times. After some back and forth with VMware and AWS, they chose VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery (VMware Cloud DR) on VMware Cloud on AWS to implement a fast and secure disaster recovery plan and ensure the protection and full recovery of its critical workloads in the event of a disaster. The implementation went well and within two weeks, they setup a cloud backup system with the help of VMware and AWS partner, Metanext. This setup with VMware Cloud DR would allow Vente-unique to resume activity in under 4 hours in the event of a warehouse system failure.

Here is what Vente-unique has to say about their experience of using the product: 

“Thanks to the combined benefits of VMware and AWS, we are now able to recover from an outage in less than four hours. Indeed, our customers will no longer have the risk of being impacted in the reception date of their parcels and we will continue to respect our promises.”
– Grégory Schurgast, CTO, Vente-unique

Watch Vente-unique’s success story using VMware Cloud DR with VMware Cloud on AWS here.

Woche-Pass AG

Woche-Pass AG Drives Business Resilience and Prepares for a Scalable Future

Woche-Pass AG (Woche-Pass) is a media house in Sursee, Switzerland. It originally launched as a print shop in 1975 and today, the company runs a successful website plus two weekly printed publications and digital guides.

Before moving to the cloud, the customer faced some challenges like disruptive DR testing, which led to infrequent testing. Further, the changes to the production site were not always deployed to DR site and the existing DR solution did not work properly during a real DR event which resulted in Woche-Pass almost missing a print deadline. Besides, they had limited IT resources available.

By moving to VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery with VMware Cloud on AWS, the customer attained rapid response to disaster recovery, achieved frequent testing and continuous health checks and was able to protect production with limited in-house resources.

Here is what Woche-Pass has to say about their experience of using the product: 

“If a real disaster situation occurs, we are confident that we’ll be live with the disaster recovery site within a short time.”
– Adrian Hess, CEO – Woche-Pass

Learn more about Woche-Pass AG’s success story using VMware Cloud DR with VMware Cloud on AWS here.

Publiacqua

Publiacqua Improves Infrastructure Resilience with Cloud-based Disaster Recovery using VMware Cloud on AWS

The Italian municipal utility operator Publiacqua manages integrated water services for the provinces of Florence, Prato, Pistoia and Arezzo.

They wanted to improve the resilience of their infrastructure through disaster recovery service in the cloud. They also wanted to build strong levels of IT governance to ensure operational continuity as well as ensure GDPR compliance. Additionally, Publiacqua wanted to identify a solution that was sustainable from technical and economic perspective.

They decided to build disaster recovery directly in the cloud using VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery (VMware Cloud DR) with VMware Cloud on AWS.  Doing so, Publiacqua attained a more responsive, scalable and resilient IT architecture and reliable disaster recovery service as well as strengthened their business continuity models.

Publiacqua also freed up their IT architects from operational management to focus on capacity management, application integration, and data exchange methods. This also allowed the IT team to update and improve their skillset while tackling the project with tools and technologies they already knew.

Here is what Publiacqua has to say about their experience of using the product: 

“The possibility of integrating VMware Cloud on AWS allowed us to tackle the project with tools and technologies we already knew.”
– Mauro Cacciafani, Architecture, Risk and Security Manager, Publiacqua

Learn more about Publiacqua’s experience of using VMware Cloud on AWS in this case study.

Merrick & Company

Merrick & Company Protects Digital Assets from Ransomware using VMware Cloud DR with VMware Cloud on AWS

Merrick & Company (Merrick) is an employee-owned engineering, architecture, surveying, and geospatial firm headquartered in Greenwood Village, CO, USA. They wanted to move to cloud-based infrastructure to protect digital assets from ransomware in addition to being able to integrate with their existing VMware infrastructure.

The customer decided to implement cloud-based disaster recovery through VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery with VMware Cloud on AWS so that they would be ransomware and disaster protected. With this setup, Merrick was able to achieve RPO of 30 min, down from 4 hours previously. As part of this setup, they also integrated with existing VMware infrastructure at Merrick, and used the cloud as a failover target.

Here is what Merrick & Company has to say about their experience of using the product: 

“It’s just a few clicks on the VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery console to enable protection for additional virtual machines. I can modify the schedules so that we control when protection takes place, for example weekly, daily, or even every few hours.”
– Brian Whiting, Merrick IT Organization

Check out the case study to learn more about their experience of using VMware Cloud on AWS.

What’s Next:

Start protecting your workloads with VMware Cloud on AWS. Now, you can sign up for the free trial of VMware Cloud on AWS and try out the migration yourselves for free for the first 30 days. Also check out how VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery and VMware Ransomware Recovery can help you in your DR needs. And meanwhile, if you would like to learn more about VMware Cloud on AWS, here are more learning resources for you:

Resources for VMware Cloud on AWS

Ruchi Tandon

Ruchi is a Senior Product Marketing Manager for VMware Cloud on AWS at VMware Inc. With 14+ years of strong technology, data, and marketing background, Ruchi brings deep experience in…

Source :
https://blogs.vmware.com/cloud/2023/09/11/part-9-see-how-customers-are-protecting-their-workloads-in-case-of-a-disaster-with-vmware-cloud-on-aws/