It’s an epic challenge to provide comprehensive, affordable and manageable security for today’s businesses. Why is this the case? And why does it seem to be getting harder? One reason is that the applications, infrastructure, data and people that need to be protected are in a steady state of flux. At the same time, the technical security controls that vendors provide are often still siloed. So, they tend not to play well together. This adds complexity and increases management costs.
And finally, there are cybercriminals—whom we think of as “security control gap seekers.” They are always looking for chinks in the security defenses of their targets. One weak spot in the defense of many companies is their identity security.
Proofpoint and CyberArk recently announced that we’ve deepened our partnership to help businesses strengthen their identity defenses. In this blog post, we’ll discuss into how our collaboration and product integrations can help you close your security gaps.
Identities are a top target for threat actors
Increasingly, threat actors target people and their digital identities to get inside targets and get to where they want to go. We see this repeatedly in individual public breaches. It has also been consistently validated on a macro level in Verizon’s Data Breach Investigation Reports. Credential loss is the No. 1 reported way that attackers get in year after year. That figure hit about 40% in the latest Verizon report.
This problem is made even worse due to the exploding number of digital identities for people, machines and services. Plus, long-used systems for identity management at most organizations, like Active Directory, are littered with identity vulnerabilities and misconfigurations that are just waiting to be exploited.
These are big problems that aren’t easy to solve. But giving up and taking our security ball home is not an option. Vendors with adjacent and complementary security controls need to work together more closely to deliver better combined solutions for our customers.
That is what Matt Cohen and Sumit Dhawan, the CEOs of CyberArk and Proofpoint, respectively, talked about during today’s keynote at Proofpoint Protect 2024 NYC. They discussed:
- Why it’s so important to put identity protection at the center of human-centric security rather than rely on traditional endpoint or network-based controls
- Why security innovators need to collaborate more closely and connect their security domain expertise to yield better customer outcomes
- Which complementary and integrated solutions from Proofpoint and CyberArk are currently available that bring together identity risk discovery, threat protection, privileged account management, and detection and response controls for better identity security
- The upcoming integration of Proofpoint threat intelligence and ZenWeb Browser Extension solutions into the CyberArk Secure Browser to detect and block malicious URLs
- Planned integrations between the Proofpoint Threat Protection and Identity Protection solutions and CyberArk’s adaptive controls to deliver smarter and more automated defense-in-depth
Who are Proofpoint and CyberArk?
Proofpoint is a leading cybersecurity company. We protect companies’ greatest assets and biggest target—their people. Our integrated suite of cloud-based solutions help you to:
- Stop human-targeted threats
- Protect your data
- Find and eliminate identity risks proactively
- Detect and stop active threats
- Make your people more resistant to cyberattacks
CyberArk is the global leader in identity security. It provides the most comprehensive security offering for any identity—human or machine—across business applications, distributed workforces and hybrid cloud environments and throughout the DevOps life cycle. CyberArk does this through its focus on intelligent privilege controls.
As partners, Proofpoint and CyberArk work to:
- Stop targeted threats before they can reach end users
- Identify and secure vulnerable users and their digital identities and access points
- Enhance user safety with adaptive controls and policies
- Reduce the risk of unauthorized access to sensitive data
- Streamline threat detection and incident response
- Automate response processes
What are the Proofpoint and CyberArk integrations?
Proofpoint and CyberArk have collaborated for years. We offer integrated solutions that can automatically identify and remediate identity vulnerabilities as well as detect and respond to attacks. Together we help secure identities comprehensively—from endpoints and browsers to email, apps and the cloud.
Proofpoint identifies risky and currently attacked users. We have tremendous amounts of data and insights on attacks and threat actors. Plus, Proofpoint can reveal where identity vulnerabilities exist and how best to remediate them. CyberArk uses this information to provide the right level of privilege control. This ensures that attackers cannot exploit vulnerable and currently attacked users, human or machine.
Our current integrations include:
- Identity integration. Proofpoint Threat Protection identifies email threats, assigns risk levels to people and informs CyberArk Identity to ensure adaptive responses.
- Privilege integration. Our joint solutions protect privileged users who are identified by Proofpoint Threat Protection. This enables CyberArk to remediate them in real time.
- Privileged user vaulting integration. Proofpoint Identity Protection and CyberArk automate the discovery of privileged accounts and local administrators that should be secured in the CyberArk Vault but currently are not.
In active co-development: Proofpoint ZenWeb Browser Extension for the CyberArk Secure Browser
In today’s dynamic work environment, people use more than just email to communicate and collaborate. They use message and collaboration apps like Slack, Teams, Zoom. And they use various social media platforms, including LinkedIn.
Threat actors work in these same digital channels. From there, they launch phishing attacks that use social engineering tactics and malicious URLs. URLs are the most common delivery technique for malicious payloads. Over the past three years, Proofpoint Threat Research has observed an increase of 119% in URL-based threats that are delivered by email. And we have seen a whopping 2,524% increase in URL-based threats that are delivered by smishing.
In these digital channels threat actors set up fake accounts. They establish sham relationships. And they direct people to fake login pages or forms that are designed to harvest credentials, personal data or manipulate them into taking actions like transferring money or revealing sensitive intellectual property.
Against this backdrop, Proofpoint and CyberArk have teamed up for a new project. We are actively co-developing the Proofpoint ZenWeb Browser Extension for the CyberArk Secure Browser. The CyberArk Secure Browser helps make web browsing more secure by providing granular policy controls, data exfiltration prevention, session monitoring, credential security and privacy enforcement.
The Proofpoint ZenWeb Browser Extension extends phishing protection beyond email. It is powered by the industry-leading threat intelligence from Proofpoint. And it protects against malicious URLs that are delivered via any messaging, collaboration or social media platform.
We designed our browser extension to protect employees and contractors at click-time from malicious URLs. These URLs are dangerous because they can download malware or steal corporate credentials and sensitive data. When you deploy the extension with the CyberArk Secure Browser, your business will be able to automatically detect and block malicious URLs in real time. This integrated capability is designed to stop enterprise credentials from being uploaded to phishing sites as well.
Together, Proofpoint and CyberArk improve identity-centric and web browsing security
Our expanded partnership significantly advances identity-centric and web security. Together, we help your business to defend against sophisticated cyberthreats proactively. And we ensure that you become more efficient in how you secure your digital transformation initiatives.
To learn more about currently available integrations between CyberArk and Proofpoint, check out this joint Solution Brief.