Black Hat 2024: CDR, Good Threat Intel Can Help Blunt AI-Based Attacks

OPSWAT's solution for battling attackers using the dark side of AI is a bit counter-intuitive: Get rid of detection capabilities in the network. That was the position of Benny Czarny, founder and CEO of OPSWAT, who joins Dark Reading's Terry Sweeney at News Desk during Black Hat USA in this swift conversation. "The big trend that we see happening is removing detection from the equation," Czarny says. "And we see many attack vectors that are AI generated, whether it's using social engineering or some pretty advanced polymorphic tools to go and change or inject files." So detection may no longer be available, but OPSWAT replaces it with content disarm and reconstruction (CDR) to excellent effect. "We find [it] very effective against AI-borne threats, which means it's just regenerating the data flow," he says. CDR has three stages, according to Czarny. First, users must identify the file type — .jpeg, Word doc, or video file, for example. Secondly, analyze the file to understand what's in it, how it operates, what triggers it. Then the CDR'd file can be stored outside the organization or sent straight to a threat intel repository — threat or malicious payload disarmed.

Czarny also discusses the company's recent acquisition of InQuest, an advanced network detection and response (NDR) vendor that also offers threat intel for critical infrastructure applications. InQuest has worked with the US Department of Defense and other departments and agencies, which is expected to help OPSWAT gain traction with government customers.

Benny Czarny is the founder and CEO of OPSWAT, a cybersecurity firm with over 1,500 customers, 500 employees, and 11 offices worldwide. Founded with a personal investment in 2002 to offer a unique, market-driven approach to security application design and development, OPSWAT has been breaking ground in the field of cybersecurity for more than 15 years. Benny has over 20 years of experience in identifying market needs and building, marketing, and selling cloud-based security products and solutions. From the early days of computer viruses, he was interested and involved in the fields of encryption, network operations, and security vulnerability detection and research. Prior to founding OPSWAT, Benny held technical leadership positions at NetManage, Netect, and BindView. Benny earned a bachelor's degree in computer science from the Technion-Machon Technologi Le'Israel.