As organizations become more and more dependent on IT systems to support business processes it is important that critical systems are protected in order to address Security risks of modern IT environment.

help AG employs industry experts within the field of Network Security and are able to apply the expertise of help AG organization onto customer IT environments.

Examples of the services that help AG offers are end to end evaluation of IT Network Security implemented by an organization, identification of gaps in Network Security and optimization of Network Security deployed by an organization.

Quite often organizations have deployed Network Security solutions such as Firewalls and IPS Systems, but are not getting the correct value of these solutions due to the way the implementation has been performed. help AG can verify deployments of such solutions and if they are done based on best practices of the industry and solution capabilities. Furthermore, with our focus on ISO 2700x and other compliancy frameworks we are able to map the deployment of Network Security solutions into the technical controls of the compliancy framework planning to be deployed.

As an example, a customer’s risk assessment will dictate how a firewall or IPS system is deployed and the expertise of help AG can ensure an efficient mapping & configuration.

In case an organization needs to refurbish or modernize their Network Security controls help AG also partners with some of the leading vendors within the field of Firewall and IPS technologies.

Any organization today is faced with the challenge of making sure the IT environment supports business and operational requirements in the most efficient way. 

One of the very important technology objectives can be achieved is allowing employees and partners to access the IT information infrastructure in a flexible way, disregarding the location, time and connection type. Furthermore, employees have been increasingly accustomed to being able to work from home or from remote locations allowing them a more flexible work day.

Remote Access Solutions have therefore become a key component in any IT infrastructure today. When deploying a Remote Access infrastructure it is extremely important that security is the foundation the solution is designed around. A Remote Access Solution should in itself be secure, but since the Remote Access Solution becomes the interface where data is presented through it is also important that extra care is taken in securing this data. It is imperative that in the design of a remote access solution the focus is kept on who should use the solution, which data should be presented and how it should be presented.

Legacy Remote Access solution rarely allows a granular control of the access, which is why many Remote Access Solutions today are unsafe and does not offer the needed flexibility in controlling access.

help AG has extensive experience in designing, deploying and operating remote access solutions from some of the largest customers in the Middle East. Furthermore, help AG is partnering with some of the leading vendors within the field of Remote Access Solutions, covering both the actual solution and Authentications and authorization solutions.

Network Behaviour Analysis is rapidly becoming a very powerful tool in identifying security incidents and intrusions in a network.

A vast majority of malicious applications such as viruses, spyware and botnet activity is very difficult to identify for traditional network security devices, but a network behaviour analysis solution will be able to identify the change in behaviour from infected hosts.

Typically a host that is infected will change the pattern for how sessions are set up, the volume of sessions, may communicate to new ports or send data-traffic which is different to a non-infected host. Based on a number of characteristics a network behaviour analysis solution will be able to flag or identify suspicious traffic before any other security solutions such as antivirus or IPS systems may even have a signature for the infection.

Furthermore, a Network Behaviour Analysis solution can be a very important tool when reporting on performance metrics such as application response time, volume of transmitted data, top-talkers etc. This information can be utilized for instance when sizing infrastructure, WAN links and other resource planning.

help AG partners with some of the leading vendors with Network Behaviour Analysis tools and have been deploying Network Behaviour Analysis tools for some of the major Financial, Government and Telco infrastructures in the Middle East.

Looking historically at Network Security infrastructure organizations have been focused on deploying perimeter security solutions such as Firewalls, IPS Systems other gateway solutions in order to handle threats and intrusions originating from extranet connections such as the Internet or 3rd Party connections.

Unfortunately threats cannot be controlled and any organization therefore needs to handle the issue of employees or internal users being the source of threats.

Oftentimes employee is not even aware that their actions are causing a threat to the IT infrastructure.

Solutions like Network Access Control provide an organization a possibility to control which devices are allowed on the network, and which state this device is in. As an example, many organizations may have a policy that only corporate delivered PCs and laptops are allowed on the networks, but only very few organizations are able to enforce this as they simply do not have the technical controls for this. Network Access Control solutions makes it possible for an organization to control who is connected to the network, and what device they are connecting with. Depending on the device type and state of the device specific access in the network can be provisioned automatically. As an example, an organization can choose to give different access to a machine if all technical controls like Antivirus, Patch Level etc. is up to date, while machines that are failing these types of checks may be provisioned a limited access. By enforcing such policies Network Access Control also becomes a vital tool in handling the threats from spyware and virus spread as such types of malicious content are typically spreading using vulnerabilities in unpatched systems.

help AG is an expert in Network Access Control Systems working with leading vendors since the concept of Network Access Control was first defined. help AG has delivered Network Access Control solutions all over the world and has been recognized by leading vendors of Network Access Control solutions as an expert in the field of consultancy and deployment of Network Access Control.

help AG has designed and deployed solutions for up to 25.000 concurrent users in complex networks spanning multiple global locations.

help AG is focusing on advanced security assessments in order to identify security misconfiguration of network devices like switches, routers and firewalls.

Furthermore, the assessment can be scoped to also cover servers, applications and client in order to identify shortcomings in patch-levels, application vulnerabilities, etc.

Security Vulnerability Assessment can offer a holistic view of the overall security status of an organization or be tailored to cover only specific parts or segments of an organizations Client, Server, Network and Application infrastructure.

Since the risks and security issues are a constant evolving landscape help AG offers subscription services where Security Vulnerability Assessments can be performed in clearly specified intervals.

help AG can also assist in consultancy on automated Security Vulnerability Assessment tools.

A web application has several assets to protect: the data inside the application confidentiality of which must be protected and/or integrity of which must be assured; the availability of this data, so that authorized users can access it at all times; and the systems accessible through the web application, e.g., databases and other internal servers.

A compromise of the application security could place all of these assets at risk. A web application (e.g. an e-commerce application) is visible to all Internet users. Often even the legitimate, authorized users number in thousands. Because of the high number of potential attackers, and because security breaches of web applications are often very visible and create a lot of bad publicity, web application security should be tested as thoroughly as network security in general.

help AG's web application security audit evaluates the web application security both from an attacker's and an authorized user's point of view.

Like an attacker, we evaluate if it is possible to access the service without authentication or in some way collect information (e.g. from old sessions) and use it to access the service.

The outcome of a web-application audit will be a report clearly identifying the security issues identified in the application, which can be used from the client side to communicate with application developers to rectify issues, or be used in identifying technical solutions to address the issues of the application.

Due to extensive knowledge in application security help AG can also assist in identifying solutions, which can harden applications and protect against hackers, vulnerabilities and loss of data.

help AG IT GRC consulting services team delivers consultative and implementation services that allow our customers to meet their governance, risk and compliance objectives. These services are pertinent to a wide variety of industry verticals, including Banking and Financial Services, Government, Health care, etc. The range of compliance advisory and implementation services span across regulations such as PCI-DSS compliance to best practice implementation approach like Information Security (ISO 27001), etc. Over a period of time, help AG GRC team has established an advanced framework that has been effectively implemented in various GRC ventures.

help AG IT GRC practice includes both technology experts and business domain that brings a distinctive combination that is critical for successful IT GRC program in an organization. Our involvement in working with the customers and our in-depth field understanding have allowed us to develop solutions that help companies automate GRC practices, meet governing compliance needs,  and completely utilize the know-how of the GRC technology solution.

The major focus of help AG GRC consulting services is to provide practical consulting that addresses multiple compliance and risk management challenges along with reducing costs in meeting these requirements. Our solution encompasses people, processes, and technologies that are essential to building an effective and efficient compliance program, including:

• Real-time visibility into any weaknesses that may exist in the compliance culture
• Comprehensive data concerning IT controls that are currently used to mitigate regulatory risks
• Tools that enable decision-makers to monitor, evaluate, and control the current state of your compliance environment
• Consolidation of previously adapted, ad hoc solutions that were not able to address all compliance requirements

A combination of helpAG’s business acumen, process accuracy, and in-depth industry understanding, along with partnership with leading IT GRC vendors delivers many key benefits to your organization:

• Mitigates business risks by simplifying and speeding the implementation of a coherent, comprehensive compliance control system, reducing the time and effort involved in planning, engineering and deployment
•  Significantly reduces compliance costs
• Improves the overall compliance posture, enabling business and IT managers to make better decisions with regards to IT risks and liabilities
• Minimizes the number of deficiencies in IT controls as well as exposure to vulnerabilities and threats, as well as helping to pass internal and external audits
• Reduces the risk and amount of theft or data loss and their consequences, including fines, penalties, and damage to business reputation
• Facilitates cross-department cooperation and streamlining of processes to achieve a coherent and effective compliance posture that satisfies multiple regulatory mandates
• Helps ensure that end users will understand and adopt policies and controls from the beginning, improving productivity and ongoing compliance with policies

Over the past few years organizations have been undergoing a paradigm shift in how communication is being handled between organizations, third party and customer, which has all been driven by the rich functionality that can now be build into web-based applications.

While web-applications used to be static, relatively simple applications accessed through a web browser web-based applications have now become the preferred media for 3rd party and customer interactive websites.

The added functionality comes at a price though since websites and web applications have generally become more vulnerable to attacks and the fact that we are at the same time presenting more data through the website means that websites have become targets of hackers and attackers.

Web Application Firewalls greatly help reduce the weaknesses by acting as an application-aware layer of defence with the capability to drop malicious traffic and communication attempts.

When configuring an Web Application Firewall it is very important that the engineer has a strong understanding of weaknesses in application and which vulnerabilities to protect against. Therefore all of help AG consultants have application control and development background in addition to real life experience in penetration tests and vulnerability assessments.

help AG has deployed and operates some of the most critical Web Application infrastructures in the Middle East in Finance, Government and other sectors.

As most organizations will face, deployment of a security infrastructure is not a one product approach. In order to address security issues of the modern world a number of solutions needs to be deployed like Firewalls, IPS, Antivirus, Switches, routers etc. - The list is long and ever expanding.

Each product in a security solution has its own functional justification and is selected against a number of criteria. Often organizations can be managing 10-15 core security solution in order to address the risk requirements of the organization and typically from different vendors.

One of the large issues of managing multiple solutions is that there is no correlation of events in the different systems. For instance if an intrusion is happening in a firewall, which attacks a server it could be helpful to see events from both server, antivirus system, IPS systems etc. and use the combined view of all security devices to generate a consolidated view of what has happened and what the impact has been.

Security Incident Event Management Systems does exactly this by correlating information from different security, networking and server systems and optimize the information displayed to the security manager. As an example if an IPS sees an attack targeted a specific operating system, but the server attacked is of a different type the Security Incident Event Management System will be able to ignore or lower the impact of the event since the system is not vulnerable.

help AG has been working with log-management and Security Incident Event Management systems since the day we started operations and have been succesfully advising and assisting customers in rolling out Security Incident Event Management Systems both in Europe and in the Middle East.

help AG  can assist in both identifying solutions by assessing the security solutions, networking and server infrastructure deployed - matching against the solution with the best fit the customer requirement or help AG can deliver turn key solutions including operational and implementation support.

As organizations are using IT in more and more critical parts of daily operations it also means that data stored by the organizations will inevitably contain information which is of vital importance or sensitivity to the organization.

Data Loss is of key concern for most organizations and the proliferation of communication flows makes the problem more and more present. Whether with malicious or unintentional behaviour users can cause serious problems to their organizations by just sending an e-mail containing information, which is confidential – often without even knowing the data is confidential.

help AG offers services in the field of implementation of Data Loss Prevention solutions and consultancy on classification of data and risk assessments of data sources.

help AG can deliver both turn-key solutions for Data Loss Prevention and consultancy on the processes surrounding the aspects of Data Loss Prevention such as awareness training, classification and policy creations.

Oftentimes organizations are spending vast amounts of money in provisioning the correct data circuits for IT communication between locations and Internet Services. These communications circuits should be treated as a valuable resource and optimized for business applications.

help AG offers services and technical solutions to allow organizations to gain the most of their investment by optimizing data flows and controlling the applications traversing the communication links. Oftentimes optimization of application traffic can free a lot of bandwidth on a communication link and postpone or eliminate the need for upgrading bandwidth.

Content control can also be applied to disallow or prioritize specific applications on communication links, hereby allowing bandwidth to be utilized by business critical applications.

The proliferation of mobile devices such as laptops, smartphones and tablet PCs is posing a completely new paradigm of security issues for any organization serious about protecting themselves.

One of the big issues with such devices is that they often fall within a grey zone of the security solutions of an organization. Often the ownership of such devices also falls under an individual user, but with a wish to connect to the corporate infrastructure and data services.

Any organization needs to ask themselves how they want to handle the request from users to utilize iPhones, Ipads and other devices for such services as e-mail, applications etc. As early technology adopters help AG have been utilizing such devices internally for a very long time and are often requested to consult on securing such devices.

help AG has identified a number of technology solutions which can help in maintaining an acceptable security level for such devices. Furthermore, help AG can assist in consulting around acceptable use policies for mobile devices.

The need for automation of IP address management has never been greater. Today any organization is completely dependent on the operation of their underlying IP based infrastructure.

Services such as virtualization, cloud and mobile computing, and the introduction of diverse IP-based devices such as IP telephones, cameras, and RFID readers are proliferating at a dramatic pace.

All of this leads to the need for a more efficient way of handling IP address assignment, DNS registration and DHCP services and identification of where IP addresses are located, right down to the switch port level.

help AG has partnered with some of the leading vendors in the field of IP Address Management and offers implementation services and consultancy in all aspects of IP Address Management, DNS and DHCP design.

One of the fundamental technical security solutions in any organization is deployment of an efficient antivirus solution.

Today any endpoint antivirus is much more than an antivirus and offers bundled features such as client Intrusion Prevention Detection, Anti-Malware, Device Control and Firewall. Management of the Security Endpoint Protection is very critical for any organization since any failure in maintaining updated clients can open up for an infection vector in the organization.

help AG can assist in assessment of efficiency of an existing endpoint security solution and assist in tuning the solution. In case the existing solution is inadequate in protecting the organization help AG can also assist in identifying new solutions, which will meet the modern threats of the network connected world.

In 1995 a paradigm shift in Network Security happened with the introduction of the first commercial statefull inspection firewalls to the security market, and from then onwards firewall has been a key component in any security solution. However, while the way we deliver applications has evolved, firewalls have not evolved in the same way. The Next Generation Firewall technologies are trying to bridge this gap by integrating signature based matching in the firewall in order to identify modern applications, while also adding advanced threat management such as IPS functionality, Antivirus Checking and Malware detection. The introduction of a Next Generation Firewall will allow most organizations to regain control and visibility of the traffic flows in the network, while inspecting those flows for threats.

help AG has partnered with some of the leading vendors of the Next Generation Firewall technologies and can offer both technical solutions and consultancy on such solutions.

As most people know, IT threat landscape is a very dynamic battleground where the good guys always try to keep up with the bad guys, unfortunately the bad guys are also very clever and often the good guys end up being in a very reactive mode to new threats and sometimes we are even completely blind to them.
 
One of the reasons why Modern Malware is very difficult to detect is that most detection mechanisms are based on signatures, and with the explosion of malware it will be a constant race to keep the signatures up to date.

Modern malware are often undetected by many Antivirus and IPS solutions for a very long time, and if we then look at polymorphic malware which is constantly changing, the detection becomes very difficult for traditional security solutions. Finally a new breed of malware is now appearing, which is targeted at one specific organization, which means the antivirus and IPS vendors will not even be aware and can write signatures to detect this type of malware.

help AG is partnering with one of the most revolutionary solutions for providing a signature-less approach in detecting Malware by testing downloaded executables in a known virtual environment in real time.

Industrial control systems are an integral part of the critical infrastructures of electric, water, oil/gas, chemicals, pipelines, and transportation. The capabilities of networking these systems provide unprecedented opportunities to improve productivity, reduce impacts on the environment, and help provide energy independence.

The Smart Grid is based on these networking capabilities. However, the same networking capabilities that can provide these benefits have also introduced cyber vulnerabilities that have resulted in these systems having been identified as one of the most vulnerable targets for the security of any organization running a SCADA Network. Consequently, any organization running a SCADA network should have a strong focus on the security and technical controls protecting the SCADA infrastructure.

help AG offers many services for SCADA network operators such as vulnerability assessments, platform audits and documentation of security controls in the SCADA network. Furthermore, help AG can assist in identifying solutions for addressing identified security gaps in the current infrastructure.