Aviva Zacks
Safety Detective’s Aviva Zacks had a fascinating discussion with Sachin Raste, a senior research analyst at eScan, and found out what makes his company stay at the leading edge of cybersecurity.
Safety Detective: Tell me how you got started in the cybersecurity industry.
Sachin Raste: I have been working in the cybersecurity industry for more than 15 years. Initially, I started out as an engineer, then gradually started working on setting up networks and perimeter security, gaining hands-on knowledge coupled with automation of daily tasks.
SD: How did you get involved in eScan?
SR: While working in a previous organization, I had the opportunity to work on various products and technologies including SAP with end-point security and anti-spam solutions by eScan. Interaction with the support team of eScan to enhance the product features was the calling for me into CyberSecurity.
At eScan, I was exposed to various client networks and issues which otherwise wouldn’t have been possible. Furthermore, I was always encouraged to explore ideas, technologies, writing articles to share my thoughts on the wide range of topics on CyberSecurity. I believe that rather than working on a small subset of a product, understanding the technology, designing the products, and working on the core aspects have always given me a sense of accomplishment and responsibility.
SD: What does eScan do to help protect the end user? Tell me about the technology.
SR: We, at eScan, have always believed that providing the latest cutting-edge technology to our users. Based on the perceived threats, we have a range of products for home users and for enterprises. We provide enterprise mobility management (EMM) and end-point protection (EPP) to protect the end-points based on Windows, Linux, and MAC, and mobile devices like Android and iOS. We also provide a consolidated dashboard for centralized monitoring and management of these devices.
Protection from common threats, such as ransomware and RDP hacking are provided to all our users. We have developed a proactive behavioral analysis engine (PBAE), which ensures that ransomware attacks are detected and mitigated at the earliest. RDP hacking attacks are blocked by our terminal services protection module (TSPM).
SD: What do you feel is the worst cyberthreat to end users today?
SR: Crypto-miners, ransomware, and info stealers have always been a threat due to the sheer fact that return on investment for criminals is on the higher side when compared with other threats. The learning curve required by the criminal has decreased, which has led to an increase in these attacks. Earlier exploit-kits were popular with criminals; however, the technical expertise and the resources required were on the higher side. Lately, we have observed a rise in IoT attacks which are used for initiating DDOS attacks is to lack of security standards while designing IoT devices.
SD: How can your solutions keep people safe when they’re using their smart home devices?
SR: Lack of security standards in IoT devices, specifically the delay in issuing security patches, has been the root cause for the rise in attacks directed towards IoT devices. Presently we are working on a solution to protect IoT devices, but as far as desktops, laptops, and smartphones are concerned, they are protected by our range of products.
SD: How do you see cybersecurity developing in the next five years?
SR: In the next five years, security solutions for enterprises are going to move towards AI and machine learning for behavioral detection. Automated vulnerability assessment and automated dynamic application security testing (DAST) solutions would be an inherent part of IT security for enterprises.
SD: There are a lot of different antivirus solutions out there—what makes your solutions unique?
SR: Antivirus Solution is no longer a stand-alone solution against viruses and malware. Convergence of various security solutions like firewalls, IDS/IPS into security suite is the de facto standard for any security suite. The uniqueness of a solution lies within the ability to be fast and also accurately detect and mitigate threats with little or zero dependency on signature-based scanning. Apart from PBAE and TSPM, our heuristics engine detects and mitigates various types of attacks like phishing, port-scans, and SMB attacks.
