Tom Ridge, former U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, has joined the advisory board of TaaSERA, Inc., a company comprised of advanced malware detection experts. Here, Ridge will help guide TaaSERA with its upcoming launch and help the startup’s attack behavior discovery methodology with techniques in identifying potential criminals and suspected terrorists.
“Just as it’s no longer sufficient to check for passports at a border crossing, or wait until someone attempts to carry out an attack to identify threats to our nation, organizations must move past traditional perimeter security models and analysis of historical data to prevent data breaches and other incidents,” said former U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge. “TaaSERA will bring to market a compelling array of solutions that empower IT security professionals to understand when malicious programs are first attempting to carry out their commands, and take action before it’s too late.”
Before being the first Secretary of Homeland Security in 2001, Ridge was a longtime member of the U.S. House of Representatives, and was the 43rd governor of Pennsylvania.
The company’s Attack Warning and Response Engine (AWARE), available in various solutions in early 2013, leverages detailed analysis of known malware behavior characteristics to identify threats as they take shape, notably previously unseen attacks that cannot be prevented with existing signature-based AV, heuristics analysis or virtual sandbox testing solutions.
“Our solutions represent the application of intelligent behavior analysis, detection and information sharing in the computing environment, mirroring techniques used by the world’s leading law enforcement organizations to find potential attackers and assess their level of risk,” said CTO of TaaSERA, Srinivas Kumar. “Having an expert such as Former Secretary Ridge working with us as an advisor is a tremendous advantage in evolving our detection models. The longstanding approach of using network gateways, user authentication and endpoint antivirus to prevent breaches isn’t working against today’s advanced malware attacks; just as in the physical world, new techniques are needed to safeguard our virtual assets.”
