Cloudwick, the global leader among Data Lake companies, was pleased to announce the recent launch of CDL (cyber data lakes). CDL is a neural cybersecurity intelligence system that is the culmination of a multi-year collaboration between stakeholders from a variety of backgrounds, who worked together to integrate their experience and knowledge. What CDL offers is more flexibility and power for intelligence analysts by enabling the use of User and Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA), Advanced Analytics (AA), and Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions –fundamentally transforming the way this sector operates and ensuring that industry sector participants will be able to focus more on big-picture issues.
CDL opens the doors for companies, organizations, and nations to tackle security issues that have inefficient solutions or require inordinate amounts of computing power. The introduction of CDL directly translates into more powerful anti-malware and anti-ransomware solutions. CDL can also be an effective tool in counteracting issues as diverse as Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs) and various insider threats. One of the largest benefits CDL has for nations is that it provides tools that can be used to combat nation-state attacks, a relatively new method of disruption that has gained global scrutiny over the past few years. This is largely in response to the reported role that the Russian government played in hacking the 2016 U.S. presidential elections, as well as its ongoing efforts to play a disruptive role in social media.
What sets CDL apart?
The technology is transformative. Prior to the launch of CDL, data and information was dealt with using a silo approach. As the name suggests, in a silo approach, information is segregated and isolated. While there are definite advantages to this approach, it frequently led to communication breakdown. When an IT team cannot understand the challenges team members are experiencing or information is not properly distributed, projects involving multiple teams become very inefficient. The CDL approach, on the other hand, is comprehensive and holistic. It allows users to see security challenges from a big picture perspective, facilitating communication and the spread of knowledge. Secondly, CDL is highly horizontally scalable. This is critical, since the volume of IT security challenges continues to expand at a mind-boggling pace. Companies and organizations need to have the capacity to meet these challenges in real time.
In addition to being comprehensive and scalable, CDL offers numerous other advantages. It can ingest and analyze hundreds of terabytes of data every day. Not only can it ingest data, but it can also store this data in a much more cost effective manner than many of its earlier competitors.
The Four Parts of CDL
CDL is an umbrella that includes four distinct components: CDL Capture, CDL Platform, CDL Manager, and CDL Cloud. What do each of these components offer? As the name suggests, CDL Capture is focused on collecting and analyzing data. Cloudwick believes that it can collect 100 million events per second of telemetry data. This provides analysts with tools that were previously not feasible. CDL Platform, on the other hand, is a cyber data lake appliance. This platform allows users to successfully conduct advanced data analytics and other cybersecurity operations at a previously unheard of scale of 1 – 1,000 petabytes. Both CDL Capture and CDL Platform are clearly transformational tools. The initial response of users to these products has been overwhelmingly positive.
CDL Manager provides access to the system for multiple users who may come from different backgrounds, ranging from data analysts to lawyers and compliance experts, and may have vastly different interests in the data that is collected and analyzed. CDL Cloud is a transformational tool that takes data lake capabilities into the cloud (the AWS). Again, this opens up a wide range of solutions that were previously not possible –providing users with unheard of flexibility in addressing challenging circumstances.
Together, these different components and features ensure a transformational data collection and analysis process, allowing users to keep pace with growing information security threats, which are likely to continue unabated for the foreseeable future. It is not just speed and volume that sets CDL apart from other systems. Because of how CDL collects information, it dramatically reduces costs; it provides better services at a more affordable price point for a more diverse group of stakeholders. Cloudwick also believes that the CDL system is inherently democratic. It opens up state-of-the-art cybersecurity options to companies and organizations that were previously excluded from the market. Democratization is an important 21stcentury security concept.
CDL’s Data-Focused Approach
Ultimately, CDL is a unique platform that allows its users to capture, analyze, and store data in one easy-to-access location. It collects dramatically more data than other systems –providing users with the information necessary to successfully counteract any challenges to security. It also dramatically accelerates the speed at which analysts can carry out their work. Given the global threats that companies and organizations may face, speed can be an important asset. As security threats continue to expand, CDL –unlike many of its competitors –has the flexibility and ability to adapt to these changing threats and circumstances, ensuring that companies and organizations can quickly combat even the most aggressive security challenges.
Cloudwick initially unveiled its CDL project in the summer of 2017 at Black Hat USA. Black Hat USA is a leading forum that introduces new information security innovations to industry stakeholders. CDL was immediately recognized by industry players as a major transformational step in information security, and Cloudwick was also applauded for actively listening to and incorporating strategic feedback from a variety of important industry players. Cloudwick recognized that everyone has had unique experiences and faced distinct challenges. Sharing these challenges creates a powerful knowledge base that can then be piggybacked upon. The product, in various formats, is now available for purchase. And more information about the product and its purchase price can be found on the Cloudwick website.
