At Ridgeback Network Defense we are animated by the role of cyber as a ubiquitous undercurrent to the dangers in the world.
Our approach is worth understanding because of its potential to influence outcomes in the protection of domestic digital assets (including critical infrastructure), as a tool for the the protection of critical infrastructure and business operations especially in the US and parts of the world where exposures are most acute, and also as an innovation to aid US multi domain joint force warfighters on the battlefield in open conflict.
Here is a brief synopsis of the situation as we see it:
Exposure
Especially in free economies in which the means of production are fragmented into the hands of innumerable private and public entities, vulnerability to cyber is endemic. This exposure extends to every industry, but most concerning, especially to critical infrastructure.
The Adversary is omnipresent
Recent developments reflect the powerful and ubiquitous use of cyber techniques by near peer adversaries for intelligence, information operations, business disruption and deterrence aimed at inhibiting the United States from its role assuring both national and global security goals in the face of conflict.
Insufficient Defenses
Despite innovation in support of more effective cyber defense of Information Technology and Operating Technology, the refinements are tactical…not strategic. The key themes around which such evolution is driven are not — and will not — be equal to the task.
These themes include augmenting blocking technologies (e.g. firewalls, zero trust) and signal classification technologies (e.g. threat and anomaly detection). Even with the refinement of machine learning capabilities, which suffer from the problem of garbage-in, garbage-out when cyber adversaries inject data into systems, no approach aims at the required result: imposing the defender’s will on the attacker. Each solution in cyber is inherently passive, after-the-fact, replete with false positives, as well as latent, relegating counter-engagement to a too-late rearguard action. Even in the face of the ballooning volume of threats, defenders have been accepting of the need to augment spending on passive solutions and the attendant incident response labor.
Game theory teaches this strategy needs to evolve, such that a cost must be imposed on malicious actors to stand the chance of achieving a more favorable equilibrium in cyber conflict.
Ridgeback
The inventor of Ridgeback, a USMC linguist who spent nearly 30 years working in national security with DOD and the IC following his military service, understood via his direct experience that a new approach was called for.
The Ridgeback software product’s key source of differentiation is that it injects offensive techniques as a defensive measure to counter-engage adversary exploitation operations autonomously as they occur. Tangling with Ridgeback imposes costs on the adversary. Ridgeback’s software is universally applicable to small and large environments, purely IT environments, purely OT enclaves…and any mix.
Alongside its offense-for-defense proposition, Ridgeback delivers instantaneous real-time situational awareness into system endpoint inventories, the network attack surface and all internal system communications. Ridgeback serves network operators, sys admins, SOC teams, threat hunters and compliance teams with insights uniquely available from Ridgeback to reform network operations, expedite compliance and focus labor on the most pressing sources of exposure.
The software is currently in use in a range of industries.
There are also dual-use applications, potentially of particular value to the SOF community, US Department of Defense, hospital systems, Department of Energy and civilian Critical Infrastructure, operations overseas, and for multi-domain joint force strategies in the field, just by way of example.
Summary
Phase II and Ridgeback are comprised of Veterans still working to protect and defend the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Let us show you how to immediately take the offensive against our cyber adversaries and criminal agents!
Scott C. Fogarty
CEO, Ridgeback Network Defense
https://ridgebacknet.com/