Hyperautomation Product

The Top 4 Criteria for Choosing a Security Automation Solution

By Afik Levi, Product Specialist, Torq
May 18, 2023
5 Minute Read
The Top 4 Criteria for Choosing a Security Automation Solution

As businesses continue to evolve, automation has become an essential aspect of modern operations. The benefits of automation are numerous, ranging from reducing operational costs to increasing security, efficiency, and accuracy. However, with so many automation solutions available on the market, it can be challenging to select the right one for your business. As a product specialist at Torq with over a decade of experience in field positions, I have had the opportunity to witness countless businesses on their automation journey, and I want to share some of the insights with you. At the end of the article, you will have a better understanding of the critical factors to consider when choosing the right automation solution.

1. Business requirements, Technology Stack, In-House Solutions

The first step towards selecting the right automation tool is understanding your business requirements. This involves identifying the processes that need automation (repetitive tasks, high error rates, etc.) and mapping the technology stack. It is crucial to evaluate the automation solution’s capabilities to integrate seamlessly with your stack and provide out-of-the-box functions that are relevant to your technology stack, as this improves the time to value and ROI by enabling simplicity when creating automation workflows. It’s also equally as important to map your in-house customizations to examine how the potential solution works with them, as without the sync between the two, you will most likely face “unplanned costs” and it might lead to complete blockers.

2. Out-of-the Box vs Generic

Flexibility is another important factor to consider when selecting an automation solution. Wait a minute! What do we mean by flexibility? Referring to the balance between out-of-the-box capabilities and generic/customization capabilities. It is essential to ensure that the “out-of-the-box” capabilities can be fully customized; based on my experience, missing even one piece of the puzzle can prevent successful workflow automation, so you better be able to customize it or you might hit the same wall that is killing the legacy SOARs (content and integration creation; “Sorry, we don’t support it”). 

However, beware of generic solutions that may satisfy use cases but hinder time-to-value and solution maintenance (for example, vendor API updates). So at the end of the day, having both out-of-the-box and generic capabilities is desirable.

3. POC Time + Success Criteria

After understanding your business requirements and technology stack, evaluating potential automation solutions with a Proof of Concept (POC) is the next step. The focus is on time-to-value and ROI. Choosing your important use cases and evaluating how quickly and easily they can be fully operational is essential. It is equally important to determine how easy it is for you to accomplish this. It’s time to ask your team to complete a use case from scratch using the potential automation solution.

Here is the specific success criteria for the POC as I see it (I promise it will save you money in the long):

  • New content creation – “steps”.
  • New integration creation – out of the box and generic capabilities.
  • Bring your own code – relevant when you have a legacy code such as a big in-house solution that you can’t replace right away, or even empowering someone who wants to use code for specific use cases.
  • Connectivity capabilities – more than APIs  (SSH, Bash, SQL, etc).
  • Life cycle management – vendor API updates, production vs testing separation, testing and CI/CD solutions, etc.
  • Templates – out-of-the-box workflows that reflect different use cases.
  • Content sharing – workflows and steps, relevant for a super user who helps others.
  • Compliance – meet the standards of your company.

4. Scale + Vision

Now that we have a candidate that answers all of that (hint: Torq), it’s time to validate what the future looks like. It’s time to focus on scalability, maintenance, and the vision of the vendor. As your business grows, the solution should scale with it. It is essential to choose an automation system that can handle increased volumes of data and adapt to changing business needs over time. Selecting a solution from a vendor with a clear vision for the future can be critical to ensuring the long-term success of your automation efforts.

Choosing the right automation tool is a critical aspect of a modern security team. It’s crucial to examine the standout aspects of the solution as it can have a significant impact on your organization, particularly in terms of efficiency, improved security posture and lowering costs. 

While there are many factors to consider when selecting a security automation tool, these essential elements should guide your decision-making process as they increase the probability of success. As a product specialist at Torq, we understand the importance of selecting the right automation tool (so we have created an Hyperautomation one), and I hope that this article has provided you with valuable insights to make an informed decision.

Share

Related Articles

AI

Hype vs. Reality: Are Generative AI and Large Language Models the Next Cyberthreat?

By Torq
May 17, 2023
5 Minute Read

Generative AI and large language models (LLMs) have the potential to be used as tools for cybersecurity attacks, but they are not necessarily a new cybersecurity threat in themselves. Let’s have a look at the hype vs. the reality.

The use of generative AI and LLMs in cybersecurity attacks is not new. Malicious actors have long used technology to create convincing scams and attacks. The increasing sophistication of AI and machine learning algorithms only adds another layer of scale and complexity to the threat landscape, which should be met with both common and innovative protection measures to maintain organizations’ security posture.

Generative AI and LLMs can have a significant impact on the scale of cybersecurity threats, both in terms of the number of attacks and their complexity. On one hand, these technologies can make it easier and faster for attackers to create convincing fake content. This could lead to an increase in the overall volume of attacks, as attackers are able to generate larger quantities of fraudulent content more quickly and easily.

Additionally, LLMs can be used to generate highly-targeted and personalized messages, which could make it more difficult for people to recognize them as fraudulent. For example, an attacker could use an LLM to generate a phishing email that appears to come from a friend or colleague, using their writing style and language to make the email seem more authentic. They could also be used to generate realistic-looking password guesses, in order to bypass authentication systems. Generative AI and LLMs can give attackers an advantage in certain situations. These tools can automate the process of creating convincing fake content, making it easier and faster for attackers to generate large quantities of phishing emails and other types of misleading content.

To mitigate the potential threats posed by generative AI and LLMs, organizations can take immediate steps, such as:

  1. Multi-factor authentication-Implementing multi-factor authentication systems can help to prevent attacks that use AI technology to guess or crack passwords. By requiring additional verification steps, such as a biometric scan or a one-time password, organizations can make it more difficult for attackers to gain access to sensitive data or systems.
  2. Employee training-Providing training to employees on the increasing threat of highly targeted and personalized phishing attacks as a result of generative AI. This can include training on how to identify and respond to phishing emails or suspicious behavior on the network.
  3. Email filtering-Email filtering systems can provide an effective defense against phishing attacks that leverage AI technology. These systems can analyze large volumes of email traffic and quickly identify and block suspicious emails, helping to prevent users from falling victim to these types of attacks.
  4. Hyperautomation-This new security automation approach is effective for countering the scale of attacks generated by AI, by providing organizations with comprehensively-integrated capabilities needed to quickly detect and respond to threats. In addition, it can help to reduce the workload on security teams by hyperautomating routine tasks such as incident triage and response. This can help to free up time and resources to handle more complex threats, such as those involving generative AI and LLMs.

The use of generative AI and LLMs is not limited to attackers. These tools can also be used by defenders to develop more effective security measures and detect potential threats. For example, security researchers can use LLMs to analyze large volumes of data and identify patterns that could indicate the presence of a cybersecurity threat. Some possible future applications of LLMs in cybersecurity protection can be developed to augment the existing tech stack, and help protect against a wide range of new and more sophisticated cyber threats:

  1. Phishing Detection-LLMs can be trained to recognize and flag suspicious emails that may be part of a phishing attack. By analyzing the text of an email, an LLM can identify patterns or keywords that are commonly used in phishing attempts and alert users or security teams to the potential threat.
  2. Malware Detection-LLMs can be used to analyze large volumes of code and identify patterns that are associated with malware or other types of cyber attacks. An LLM can identify keywords or phrases that are commonly used in malicious code and help to flag potential threats.
  3. Threat Intelligence Analysis-LLMs can be used to analyze and categorize large volumes of threat intelligence data, such as security logs or incident reports, to identify patterns and trends in the data and help that indicate potential threats or vulnerabilities in the system.
  4. Hyperautomation-By integrating AI-based threat detection capabilities into a hyperautomation platform, organizations can enhance their ability to quickly respond to attacks. For example, machine learning algorithms could analyze network traffic and identify patterns that indicate the presence of a threat. This would automatically trigger a response, such as blocking the malicious traffic or quarantining an infected device.

If you want to learn more about how hyperautomation can help your organization connect your entire tech stack, use no-code to full-code, and bring your own container, and deploy in a matter days, visit Torq.

Share

Related Articles

Hyperautomation Product

How Torq Hyperautomation Reinvents Security Case Management

By Leonid Belkind, Torq CTO
May 10, 2023
5 Minute Read
How Torq Hyperautomation Reinvents Security Case Management

For years, efficient Case Management has been one of the single most challenging tasks for security operations professionals. It involves ensuring all threats are proactively identified and prioritized based on risk criticality, and then rapidly investigated and appropriately elevated across all organizational cybersecurity platforms and tools. Optimally, it sets up a near-bulletproof incident response posture that makes the most of an organization’s cybersecurity ecosystem.

However, time and time again, legacy SOAR platforms have failed to deliver on the promise of Case Management. These earlier tools simply can’t keep up with the pace, volume, and variety of evolving cybersecurity threats. They also don’t offer SecOps the flexibility to quickly pivot through records to accurately assess whether or not they’re facing a targeted campaign, a new and novel threat, or an ongoing, pervasive threat that could stop business in its tracks.

The new Torq Hyperautomation platform was purpose-built from the ground up to deliver the comprehensive Case Management capabilities SecOps have been demanding for years, and never benefited from—until now. Unique modern AI co-pilot capabilities drive efficiency even further, ensuring that security analysts are assisted by cutting-edge technology to make the right choices and not miss any details.

Hyperautomating Contextual Security Case Resolution

Torq Hyperautomation is unique in that it rapidly and accurately collects a large number of unprocessed events and signals, and organizes them into contextually-enriched cases, intelligently ordered by severity, priority, and field of ownership. It also orchestrates the analysis and remediation of security cases across multiple organizational functions, and tracks all security decisions in a single dynamic, hyperautomated framework.

The benefits of Torq Hyperautomation’s Case Management approach are significant. By hyperautomating security signal detection, it reduces noise and manual investigations by up to 70%. Its flexible framework also streamlines decision-making and automatically enriches data, cutting through the noise and separating minor, easily-remedied incidents from significant, and existential organizational threats.

Here are some of the key benefits and how they work to streamline your case management processes:

Automated Case Management

Torq empowers organizations with the power to hyperautomate common use cases with repeatable workflow processes that launch all the necessary steps, such as customizable decision trees that integrate human intervention. This includes scenarios such as escalation or case handoff. SOC Analysts can analyze and create workflows to efficiently process a case or issue.

By hyperautomating case management, security teams can streamline workflows and focus on high-priority threats. Torq empowers teams to automatically create, update, and manage cases in response to security alerts, ensuring they can quickly prioritize and respond. Analysts are freed from the mundane to concentrate on higher-level security activities.

Automatically Enriches Security Case Context

Torq’s Use Case management solution automatically transforms large numbers of events and signals into contextually-enriched cases. All cases are ordered by severity, priority, and ownership with the intelligent correlation of signals to open, update, enrich, or close cases, with human interaction being optional.

Accelerates Discovery and Remediation of Threats with AI

Torq’s unique ability to hyperautomate case management handling using AI that enriches the context of the situation, so you only need to involve humans when necessary, such as when a judgment call is required. For example, when an alert is automatically sorted by priority, intelligent analysis is performed to determine the next steps with our flexible event-driven workflows that connect any of your existing security tools to perform the required actions.

In this example, a suspicious file was detected on the endpoint, and the IT Analyst wanted to check if this particular threat was already known to be suspicious or malicious on VirusTotal.

Security Analyst executing an MD5 hash lookup that automatically kicks off a workflow without ever leaving the use case ticketing system

Utilizing the power of ChatGPT, the findings are condensed to two sentences that state that 56 of 71 AV engines detected the threat as malicious. Contrast that with the overly-verbose output that you would typically receive on VirusTotal. This saves tremendous time and summarizes the incident in a readily consumable human-readable format.

Summary of the workflow automation output automatically logged to the open ticket

Torq can then execute automatic remediation workflows to run a scan of the environment for persistence anywhere on the network, automatically clean the endpoint, or quarantine it for further analysis by a SOC Analyst.

Unified Case Management

SOC Analysts can access a unified view of each case and follow essential processes for handling and resolving cases. Torq’s intelligent case management empowers them to take action confidently, reducing the risk of human error. Handoffs between SOC Analysts occur seamlessly via hyperautomated processes, with all the relevant case details at hand.

Collaboration outside the security operations center is easily done within the platform, which is especially helpful in promoting cross-team collaboration with more complex incidents requiring multiple subject matter experts. Each external team can resolve security issues efficiently using their tools of choice, such as, but not limited to, Atlassian Jira, ServiceNow, Github, and more.

Cross-team collaboration with various subject matter experts engaged in a high-priority investigation.

Precision Accuracy and Actionable Outcomes

Torq Hyperautomation’s Case Management capabilities curate accurate and actionable data to identify service and security issues as they develop. Real-time analytics and long-term analysis help identify service trends and determine areas where SOC Analysts or other teams could benefit from improved efficiency as a result of introducing automated investigation and containment strategies and tools. Effective reporting is available to help monitor progress and track performance which helps SOC Analysts resolve cases more efficiently, leading to better outcomes.Want to learn more about how Torq Hyperautomation Case Management can dramatically enhance your security workflows so you can stay ahead of emerging threats? Test drive Torq Hyperautomation, here: https://torq.io/demo/

Share

Related Articles

News

Torq Hyperautomation: The Most Talked About Product at RSAC

By Don Jeter, Torq CMO
May 5, 2023
4 Minute Read
Torq Hyperautomation: The Most Talked About Product at RSAC

When you say, “SOAR is Dead,” you’ll get some attention, and that’s exactly what happened at RSAC 2023. 

But it wasn’t just a statement that created the buzz. 

It was the solution that we unveiled that got people talking. The debut of Torq Hyperautomation™ created an enormous buzz across RSAC 2023 – on the show floor, in the media, and even on the street. Why? Because cybersecurity professionals are tired of the complexity associated with legacy SOAR platforms. They want something easier to use that doesn’t take up all their time or require costly professional services. We get it. That’s why our booth was packed with attendees wanting to demo the world’s first no-code, low-code, and full-code security automation platform with true enterprise scalability. It’s the same reason why CRN called Torq Hyperautomation “one of the coolest products at RSAC” and “the most important product announcement” by CSO Online. 

Torq Hyperautomation addresses the challenges that SOAR platforms have only made worse. 

According to the customers and partners we spoke with at RSAC, these are the most common problems facing cybersecurity professionals:

Trouble Retaining Security Talent 

One of the most common themes we heard echoed was the trouble retaining security talent. Specifically sourcing and hiring security professionals. We sat down with our partner, Recorded Future, who posed the question, “What if we took intelligence that’s not only human readable, but machine-readable, and then a powerful automation engine, so that instead of having your analysts waste time and look up indicators, and wasting time researching the simple, being things, what if we help them automate that?” By automating mundane tasks, cybersecurity professionals can focus on the aspects they are most passionate about in their careers. 

Too Many Tools

Another concern we heard from customers was the overwhelming amount of tools they are being forced to manage. Consolidation was a word we kept hearing as cybersecurity professionals are challenged to keep up with the overwhelming amount of tools and applications they interact with daily. Our partner SentinelOne noted, “The threat landscape hasn’t changed, but budgets definitely have. CISOs and CFOs will be more deliberate on the tools they choose. I think what’s so special about Torq is it not only speaks to something that makes you secure, but also helps you save money as well, and that’s going to speak to the heart of the CFO who is more and more influential in terms of that security buying decision.” That’s why it’s mission-critical for organizations to simplify and integrate tools to prevent coverage gaps. 

Multi-Cloud Complexity

Did you know that 76% of organizations operate in multi-cloud environments? We heard lots of discussion about the challenge of the complexity of multi-cloud environments. Our partner Dig, said, “I think Torq and Dig have both identified that the scale of the cloud requires a different level of automation.” With the adoption of multiple cloud services from different providers, it is challenging for cybersecurity teams to manage and monitor security risks effectively. Hyperautomation can help to streamline the process by automating the detection, analysis, and response to potential security threats.

Torq Hyperautomation is here to change the game. Here’s what the media had to say about Torq Hyperautomation:

“One of the most interesting products to see at RSAC 2023.”
CSO

“Top-10 cool new cybersecurity tool announced at RSAC 2023.”
CRN

“One of the most important new product announcements at RSAC 2023.”
SecurityWeek

“Automates whole workflows and processes for all security initiatives within an organization.”
Analytics Insight

“Torq empowers people to take greater responsibility for security while enabling them to participate in threat remediation.”
SiliconAngle

“Capable of automating the most complex security infrastructures.”
Betanews

“Torq Hyperautomation is distinguished from legacy SOAR, making it simpler to use a range of tools to create new processes.”
Security Boulevard

“Innovative GPT AI-based analytics.”
CyberWire

“A quantum leap forward for security automation.”
SecuritySenses

Want to learn more about how to streamline your security workflows and stay ahead of emerging threats? Test drive Torq Hyperautomation, here: https://torq.io/demo/

Share

Related Articles

Hyperautomation

SOAR is Dead. Why HYPERAUTOMATION is What’s Next.

By Don Jeter, Torq CMO
April 20, 2023
4 Minute Read

Today, Torq transformed security automation forever with the debut of the world’s first enterprise-grade security hyperautomation platform.

Why does that matter? I’ll let Gartner explain. It says “Hyperautomation is a business-driven, disciplined approach that organizations use to rapidly identify, vet, and automate as many business and IT processes as possible.” Simply put, it’s the future of security automation, and we’re delivering on its promise, today.

So Long, SOAR

The Torq Hyperautomation Platform is the first to automate all workflows and processes across the entirety of modern enterprise security organizations to deliver best-in-class, end-to-end cybersecurity protection. It also offers the world’s first GPT AI-based analytics capability for auto-analyzing cybersecurity incidents, making strategic responses, and informing immediate and long-term defensive measures.

Torq Hyperautomation enables security professionals to create and deploy complex, sophisticated workflows in minutes, more than 10X faster than legacy SOAR and conventional security automation solutions that also involve costly professional services commitments. In fact, our customers now rely on our platform for more than 3m daily security automations. In other words, when we say SOAR is dead, we mean it.

Integrates with Anything and Automates Everything

With Torq Hyperautomation, customers are experiencing the deepest integrations imaginable, that enable them to:

  • Connect to Everything–Every app, every stack, vendor agnostic across cloud, on-premise, and hybrid environments, including Microsoft Teams, Slack, Discord, and Zoom.
  • Use No-Code, Low-Code, and Full-Code–Go beyond APIs, with support for any CLI, on any platform, and any programming, or scripting languages, including Python, GraphQL, C#, and gRPC.
  • Bring Your Own Container–Torq orchestrates containerized actions that can connect internal and external platforms seamlessly, including support for Docker, Kubernetes, Amazon Web Services, and Azure.

Making AI-Based Automation a Reality

We’re liberating overworked security and IT operations professionals by innovatively deploying the power of AI. Torq Hyperautomation integrates GPT to dramatically enhance SecOps using Natural Language Processing (NLP) to accurately answer user requests in real-time, which elevates the speed, quality, and accuracy of investigating and resolving security issues.

With GPT integration, Torq uniquely delivers a chatbot interface integrated into Slack, MS Teams, Discord, and Zoom to communicate with security tools and systems. Now, SOC analysts or any authorized operators can use natural language to intuitively search for specific information and insights across multiple security tools and data sources. It simplifies interactions with complex security tools and makes analysts more efficient in threat hunting, investigations, and response. It also auto-escalates self-service requests, notifying SecOps teams when a critical incident requires human intervention.

Your Security Product’s Favorite Security Product

With Torq Hyperautomation, our customers, spanning the Fortune 500 and the world’s leading cybersecurity vendors, including Wiz, Abnormal Security, Armis, and SentinelOne, are consolidating, managing, and orchestrating the entirety of their cybersecurity stacks.


We’re proud to also have many of the world’s biggest financial, technology, consumer packaged goods, fashion, hospitality, and sports apparel companies experiencing extraordinary outcomes with Torq Hyperautomation. Here’s what a few of them are telling us:

“We now query 2,000+ assets in under 7 minutes with Torq, which previously took over an hour to run, one at a time. This reflects an 800% improvement in execution time.”
– Taylor Harwerth, Cloud Security Architect, Abnormal Security

“It’s amazing to see that Torq is handling 80,000+ runs a week for Compuquip without a single hiccup. Torq saves hundreds of hours a month on analysis. Alert fatigue is a thing of the past.”
– Phillip Tarrant, SOC Technical Manager, Compuquip

“The only limit Torq has is people’s imaginations. And if I take Torq out, I lose three people.”
– Gai Hanochi, VP Business Technologies, Fiverr

“Torq has transformed how our team manages security. Using Torq to manage web application firewall blocking rules reduced time-to-block malicious traffic by 70x, and increased coverage to over 90% — a significant improvement.”
– Jonathan Jaffe, CISO, Lemonade

“Torq’s pre-built workflows enable us to easily deploy cybersecurity defenses at scale throughout our organization, mapping to countless different use cases, and protecting us across multiple conceivable incursion points.”
– Yaron Slutzky, Chief Security Officer of Agoda

A Bold New Brand Refresh

The eagle-eyed among you will notice we’ve also unveiled a new look and feel for the Torq brand. It’s dynamic, infused with energy, and projects the excitement and innovation Torq Hyperautomation  delivers. It’s also about capturing lightning in a bottle, illustrating the incredible drive and commitment each and every Torq employee has towards our customers. There’s lots of light, color, and electricity and we can’t wait to further deploy it in the coming weeks and months across every Torq touchpoint. 

SOAR Is Dead. Hyperautomation Killed It.

Read the SOAR Is Dead manifesto to dig deeper into SOAR’s fatal flaws and the advantages of hyperautomation.

Share

Related Articles

News

The Best of Growth Worlds: Natasha Fulbright Joins Torq as VP of Growth

By Torq
April 12, 2023
4 Minute Read

We’re thrilled to announce the appointment of Natasha Fulbright as our VP of Growth. Natasha’s served as Corporate VP of Marketing at Pax8, and will be responsible for driving growth marketing and building our go-to-market engine. Get to know Natasha, below:

Tell us about how you plan to elevate growth at Torq in 2023? 

Prior to my joining, the team had built a really strong sales and marketing teck stack foundation, and my objective is to put fuel on those tools enabling them to work together creating striking integrated campaigns to generate demand and also build customer community programs. Our product is incredibly powerful, and now it’s all about elevating and getting the message out there to the right people to accelerate our growth. We really are taking away mundane and repetitive tasks from IT and Security teams, so that they can concentrate on strategic initiatives, what’s not to love about that. I think we have so much untapped potential and I’m joining at a time where I feel I can make an impact to the business. 

Tell us a little bit about your career path before Torq

My career has always been in B2B Marketing and the environment has ever-changed. In my previous role I served as the Corporate VP of Marketing at Pax8, where the company saw 60% revenue growth, yearly during my 5-year tenure. When I left Pax8, we had achieved a $1B run-rate. Over the course of my tenure we went from being a startup to a mid-sized company. I loved being an integral part of their growth, which is now what I want to do here for Torq. I thrive on being given the opportunity to build and grow teams. 

What makes you excited about working at Torq? 

The limitless possibilities for Torq’s success. The whole team carries this energy and enthusiasm which is addictive. We’ve even had customers tell us that Torq is addictive, and I think it resonates through everything the team does. The possibilities are endless, we see that in how our customers react when they see a demo, and our high adoption rate. We’re excited to be pioneering a new way forward for enterprise-grade security automation. Don Jeter (Torq CMO) and I have worked closely together for five years – we’re a marketing duo. I’m excited to support him and the entire Torq team in building the go-to-market strategy here. I feel honored to work and learn alongside the experienced sales leadership that also recently joined. 

What’s the best piece of advice you were ever given? 

Eleven years ago I had a mentor that I told I was very interested in moving overseas from the EMEA office in London to the Global HQ of the company in Denver, and he replied, “Have you told anyone you want to work at the Global HQ?” I sheepishly replied, “no,” and he replied, “do you think you should?” and I sheepishly replied, “yes.” So, I made a phone call, and my colleague declared I’d made their day. Within three months I was on a plane moving from London to Denver, Colorado. Lesson learned, ask for what you want. It was simple advice, but it changed my life. 

What are your hobbies outside of work? 

I ski (a lot) in the winter, and road bike (a little) in the summer. I also love to travel. My favorite place I’ve ever been to is Vietnam, it’s beautiful and the culture is enchanting. I’ve been twice, and I really want to go back again. 

Share

Related Articles

Insights

IAM Legend: How Torq is Reinventing Identity and Access Management

By Leonid Belkind
April 4, 2023
3 Minute Read

IAM is a critical foundation of modern enterprise IT infrastructures and governance. It’s one of the ways security professionals deliver value to their entire company, customer, and partner ecosystem. It’s also what drives the effective management of organizational roles, assets, and the connections between them. 

The product team at Torq is focused on changing the IAM game and leveling up our customers’ capabilities.

5 ways Torq is Reinventing IAM: 

  1.  Automating the approval cycle of user access to assets

When a new user joins an organization or an existing user moves to a different role, IAM systems must be adjusted to provide access to newly-required applications and assets and to remove access permissions from previously (but no longer) required ones. Automating the process of reaching out to resource owners and obtaining their permissions can turn the complicated process into a streamlined one with very little organizational investment.

  1. Improving security posture with Just-in-Time (JIT) access

Automatically allow users to have just-in-time access to add software to their devices without the need for an IT professional to assign, using a chatbot or web UI.

  1. Allow a user to self-service using chatbots for managing user/device compliance

Providing scalable interactive automations that can reach out to users on behalf of the organization, guiding them through achieving compliance, reminding them to complete the operations and providing them convenient ways of managing exceptions. For example users can use this for a password reset; unlock their account if accidentally locked out; or register a new 2 factor authentication device. 

  1. Democratize handling suspicious behavior events

While many IAM (or dedicated IAM-security tools) can raise events that potentially indicate malicious activity, these mechanisms face challenges such as credentials, different devices in different locations, and authentication failures. Enterprise-grade security automation can help organizations “sift through the noise” by democratizing the investigation of the events. Automatically reach out to users via an external channel, like instant messaging, SMS, or voice, and asking them to confirm whether they have performed the operation or not. Very little overhead on the user can serve as a rapid filter for legitimate operations vs. malicious activity indicators.

  1. Discover and reduce inactive access permissions

In any organizational IAM (especially in larger organizations) there is an inherent challenge with ensuring that access permissions do not become stale. Torq will periodically access logs to automatically disable contractor and/or employee accounts that have been inactive for a certain period of time. 

Using enterprise-grade hyperautomation makes IAM processes cost less and scalable, ensuring that an IAM policy has a strong posture at any given moment.

Not using Torq yet? Get in touch to see how Torq security automation accelerates security operations to deliver unparalleled protection.

Share

Related Articles

News

Torq Poaches Splunk’s Josh Morris as New SVP of Worldwide Sales and Taps Chief Marketing Officer Don Jeter From Pax8

By Torq
February 13, 2023
4 Minute Read

Torq further accelerates growth and global expansion with world-class hires
as broader tech sector struggles with revenue declines and layoffs

New York, NY, February 13, 2023—Torq, the security automation leader, today announced the addition of new Senior Vice-President of Worldwide Sales Josh Morris and Chief Marketing Officer Don Jeter to its executive team. Together, Morris and Jeter will be responsible for helping propel Torq into its next phase of growth and shape the company’s sales and marketing strategies to maximize its pipeline, customer engagement, and brand reach and engagement.

These additions to the executive team also coincide with Torq moving its US headquarters to New York City so it’s even more closely connected with major global enterprises. They also underline the extraordinary market opportunity ahead for Torq. According to Forrester, in its The Pandemic’s Wake Drives Automation Trends report, “Companies with advanced automation programs will obliterate — not merely beat — the competition.” In addition, Emergen Research forecasts in its December 2022 Security Orchestration Market report that the global security orchestration market “is expected to reach $9.6b in 2030, registering a CAGR of 16.52%.”

“Josh and Don’s collective leadership and expertise will take Torq to new heights by elevating our go-to-market success,” said Ofer Smadari, CEO and Co-Founder, Torq. “In 2022, Torq achieved 800% revenue growth and 10X customer growth, even while so many other technology companies are dealing with revenue declines, resulting in mass layoffs. We’re just at the beginning of a spectacular journey as we continue to strengthen our market position and drive home the dramatic benefits our enterprise-grade security automation platform provides to organizations across every industry.”

Morris is a highly-experienced executive with more than 20 years of sales leadership in global companies across all aspects of cybersecurity. He has a demonstrated history of working in both public companies and early-stage ventures. Morris was previously Group Vice President at Splunk and has held sales leadership positions at Palo Alto Networks, BAE Systems Applied Intelligence via Silversky acquisition, and Symantec via Messagelabs acquisition. The addition of Morris follows the appointment of Paulo Veloso, Vice President of Sales, Americas, another cybersecurity visionary who joined Torq after serving as a key sales leader at Splunk.

“There has never been a greater need in the history of cybersecurity for security automation than at this present moment,” said Morris. “That means there has also never been a greater market opportunity for Torq. Multinational enterprises across the Fortune 500, including some of the world’s biggest financial, technology, consumer packaged goods, fashion, hospitality, and sports apparel companies are seeing extraordinary outcomes with Torq. This growth reflects significant enterprise traction across the United States, Europe, and Asia Pacific. I’m thrilled to build on those impressive achievements to create an even more powerful sales trajectory for Torq.”

Jeter joins Torq with a successful track record of building and leading marketing organizations through hyper-growth stages. In his previous role, Don was the SVP of Marketing at Pax8, where he developed the company’s disruptive brand strategy and built a world-class demand generation engine. During his tenure at Pax8, the company experienced explosive growth, scaling from 25 to more than 1,500 employees and surpassing $1B in annual recurring revenue. Before Pax8, Jeter held key sales and marketing roles at Veritas and Symantec.

“I’m excited to help Torq accelerate its incredible growth and revenue potential,” said Jeter. “Torq’s trajectory doesn’t surprise me. Historically, SOAR platforms have been complex and clunky. Torq is dramatically changing that. Customers want an easier way to orchestrate and automate security workflows. The Torq platform is uniquely positioned to deliver enterprise-grade security with an intuitive, consumer-level drag-and-drop user experience. Torq’s market prospects are immense and I look forward to harnessing its incredible momentum to take the company to the next level.”

Jeter will also spearhead a significant evolution of Torq’s MSP and MSSP strategy. He departs Pax8 on excellent terms, as he creates a new relationship for Torq with Pax8 that provides it with access to its enormous community of technology professionals.

“Torq has landed a creative genius and gifted leader in Don Jeter,” said Nick Heddy, Chief Commerce Officer, Pax8. “While we are sad to see him go, we look forward to partnering with him and the Torq leadership team to bring their innovative product to our community of 25,000 MSPs and MSSPs.”

About Torq
Torq is the cybersecurity force multiplier. Its comprehensive security automation platform unifies and automates the entire security stack to deliver unparalleled protection and productivity. Torq drives maximum value and efficiency from existing security investments. It supercharges security teams with powerful, easy-to-use no-code workflows that reduce manual tasks and integrate low-code and full-code tools, freeing security professionals from Fortune 100 Enterprises to cutting-edge startups to focus on higher-value strategic activities.

Media Contact:

MikeWorldWide (MWW) for Torq

Krista Couch

[email protected]

Share

Related Articles

Product

How Parallel Loop Empowers Torq Users to Rapidly Automate Bulk Data Processing Up to 10x

By Torq
February 7, 2023
5 Minute Read
Automate Bulk Data Processing

Torq is proud to introduce Parallel Loop, a new capability that enables users to process bulk data from myriad security tools with unprecedented ease. It also provides the power of orchestration like no other automation tool in the security automation industry with true parallelism. That means multiple tasks can be run simultaneously, and optionally, on multiple elastically-scaled compute resources, shortening the time workflow automations take to complete by 10x or more.

Historically, this data has been siloed across multiple tools and accessible mainly through serial processes. Security professionals had to figure out individual vulnerabilities themselves, who the owner of any particular infrastructure is, what the project affinity involves, and any relevant exceptions. Those professionals then had to follow up with each entity involved in the bulk data sequentially. This approach takes up an enormous amount of time, creates incredible frustration, and is prone to analyst fatigue and human error.

Parallel Loop relieves security professionals from these burdens by enabling bulk data processing at unlimited scale, eliminating any glass ceilings. It builds on Torq’s recently-introduced Parallel Execution feature that allows users to instantly create multiple branches within an automatic workflow, and handle each concurrently before seamlessly merging back into a single flow. 

Now, with Parallel Loop, users can automatically process large quantities of bulk data, understand which security tools and users they are associated with, and perform parallel processing of the required follow-up actions. It’s worth noting that a few security automation vendors tout workarounds, including limited asynchronous processing capabilities with deduplication managed by code with an upper limit of a predefined amount of data elements. These creative afterthoughts are not scalable, as they cannot effectively improve mean time to acknowledge (MTTA), mean time to response (MTTR), or the overall efficiency of your security operations, unlike Torq, where there is no limit.

Parallel Loop in Action

In this example, customers benefit from parallel loop scanning 30,000 hosts or IP addresses with VirusTotal, or your preferred security reputation service tools. Typically, with legacy automation tooling, each IP address is sequentially scanned, which might not seem like an issue in small volumes. However, once you run into hundreds, if not thousands, of IP addresses that must be quickly validated during an investigation, when time is not on the analyst’s side, waiting for the result of each individual scan is not tenable.


Torq enables the same workflow to execute vastly more efficiently. Instead of scanning a single IP address at a time and waiting for the result, it can launch multiple workflows to run simultaneously with multiple users or systems, shortening execution times by 10x or more. Instead of taking hours or days, you can have results in a fraction of the time. The extent of parallelism is defined by the level of your Torq subscription, and we provide built-in guaranteed parallelism in each package and also sell an add-on to increase the capacity.

Parallel Loop significantly improves processing time and reduces mean time to resolution (MTTR), making it an essential tool for enhancing an organization’s security posture. Key benefits include:

  1. Reduced Risk: By reducing processing time and improving MTTR on incoming alerts, Parallel Loop can help reduce the risk of security incidents and improve an organization’s overall security posture.
  2. Improved Efficiency: Parallel Loop can significantly reduce the time it takes to complete a process by allowing multiple tasks to be performed concurrently. This is especially useful when dealing with large volumes of data, such as ingesting incoming alerts in a security information and event management (SIEM) system like Splunk.
  3. Increased Scalability: Parallel Loop enables Torq to handle enormous volumes of data and perform large numbers of tasks concurrently, making it more scalable and able to handle increased workloads.
  4. Enhanced Flexibility: With parallel iterations, it is possible to customize the number of tasks that can be performed concurrently, allowing organizations to fine-tune their processes to meet their specific needs.

Begin Looping in Parallel, Today 

The Parallel Loop capability and associated workflow templates are available to Torq users today. Find them in the workflow designer and template libraries, respectively. Users can also contact their customer service manager for a demo and walkthrough.

You can also get a deeper dive into Parallel Loop at the Torq Learning Center.  https://learn.torq.io/docs/run-loop-iterations-in-parallel

If you’re already ready to go, we’ve prepared a few workflow templates that utilize and demonstrate the power of this Parallel Loop. Torq users can begin deploying these right away. 

Slack Mention to Analyze Suspicious URLs and IPs with VirusTotal
Receive a suspicious list of URLs and/or IPs from Slack, scan using VirusTotal, and report the results to the Slack thread.

Not using Torq yet? Get in touch for a trial account and see how Torq security automation accelerates security operations to deliver unparalleled protection. 

Share

Related Articles

Insights

How to Have a More Professionally Rewarding Workplace with Automation

By Torq
January 25, 2023
5 Minute Read
How to Have a More Professionally Rewarding Workplace with Automation

I love automation.

Seriously, what could be more satisfying than tricking a machine into doing all the things you don’t want to do using only the power of your mind? Paying bills, brewing coffee, making appointments, ordering food… it’s like being Tom Sawyer without all the manipulation and questionable ethical choices.

OK, Google, Do My Math Homework

If I’m being completely honest, I owe my career to automation. While I have always been interested in technology, it wasn’t until I got my hands on my first programmable graphing calculator back in high school (the trusty TI-83 Plus) that I really understood just how powerful the concept of using computers to solve all your problems was.

Literally.

One of the very first programs I ever wrote (which, now that I think about it, was probably the first program I ever wrote outside the Wild West that was Geocities website development) was a little graphing calculator utility that solved quadratic equations for me… and, eventually, the rest of the class.

It has been twenty years since that story, and while my teacher classified my ingenuity as cheating and nearly flunked me out of Algebra II, I ultimately learned a valuable lesson: with enough understanding of a problem space, well-designed automation can save an extreme amount of time, stress, and (eventually) money.

A Cure for Burnout

For over a decade now, I have worked in about every type of company you can imagine – from three-person startups to publicly traded companies with staff in the thousands – and if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that there is never enough time, people, or money to get everything done. The reality is that just because we’re stretched thin doesn’t mean we can’t continue to execute. Add in the “unprecedented” events of the last two and a half years, and it’s no surprise that people are finding themselves pushed past their breaking points.

If “doomscrolling” was the word of 2020, “burnout” should be the word of 2022.

But the wheel never stops turning. So, how do we keep the business moving forward while still creating a healthy and supportive atmosphere for the people that make it all happen? I’ll give you a hint: automation.

In the business world, “automation” tends to have a lot of meanings, but for our purposes, I am using the word to mean the automatic execution of previously manual processes. In case you missed it, the key phrase in that definition is “previously manual processes.”

What do I mean by “previously manual?”

In a nutshell, I mean a process or action that an employee is either already doing by hand or would be doing by hand if they only had the time. This is an important distinction because it’s easy to buy into a new tool that proposes to “automagically” solve all of your problems without first identifying where in your current process it will reduce time or stress.

Automation 101

Take, for example, quality assurance. Many organizations hire people to manually test changes to an application or service before it gets deployed, and while testing is critical to the software development lifecycle, many of these tests are repetitive and ultimately prone to human error. By employing automated “record and playback” style testing tools, tests become not only repeatable but also cumulative. Whereas before, a single tester might take days to test a new feature plus run standard regression tests, automation can enable them to run those same tests in a matter of hours.

In a similar vein, automation can go a long way toward reducing long deploy times, which in turn can reduce the stress of a deployment. Many organizations rely on long checklists filled with backups, rollovers, tagging, and dozens of other steps necessary for releasing a new version of an application into a production environment. These checklists, while valuable, make deployments slow – and recovery from those deployments even slower. Automating releases not only speeds the process up, it also helps prevent errors and ultimately reduces the recovery time in the event of an incident – all of which reduce employee stress.

It’s not just about engineers, though. Automation can help support an overworked workforce in any capacity. For example, it can be used to automatically onboard new employees or increase the company’s security posture. Even simple things like managing conference rooms or on-call rotations can reduce the amount of repetitive administrative work employees are often expected to do.

A Checklist Is an Automation in Training

One thing to note is that in almost every situation, an automation is preceded by a checklist of some sort that outlines the steps necessary to successfully execute a manual procedure. The beauty of a checklist is that it is an already-documented repeatable process, which means that automating it is more a matter of time than complexity. Anywhere a checklist or documented process exists in an organization is an opportunity to reduce stress and increase predictability.

There will always be more work to do than time and people to get that work done. But just because we’re busy doesn’t mean we have to burn out. Automation can help provide that much-needed work-life balance by taking care of the “boring” stuff, leaving us to focus on the things that make our jobs worth doing. All it takes is a little understanding and effort. And, in case you were wondering, I did eventually pass Algebra II. All I had to do was update my little calculator program to also output the steps to the solution alongside the answer.

Always show your work.

Share

Related Articles

See Torq in Action

Torq helps you harness AI in the SOC to detect, prioritize, and respond to threats faster.

Is your security team ready to automate more, faster?