If you’re the one responsible for keeping your organization’s data from being compromised, whether purposefully or accidentally, then you’ve probably wished your data protection solution could be further fortified. And not only that, but what if it also self-adjusts so it gets better and better at blocking intruders?
The Cobalt Iron Compass enterprise SaaS backup platform will be able to do that, and we’ve got the patent to prove it. (It’s just one of many patents that bolsters Compass’ ability to make enterprise data more secure while saving you a lot of time and headache.)
Our latest patented technology is called machine-learning-driven authentication control of IT resources. It is unique in that it will apply machine learning (ML) techniques to device behaviors and health status, and leverage those to improve device access controls. As a result, IT infrastructures and business security controls will become more intelligent over time by learning from past operational outcomes, thereby optimizing security controls of IT resources.
This patent is related to another Cobalt Iron patented technology — one for ML optimization of authentication control. By applying new ML techniques, that patent extended Compass’ already patented ability to optimize user authentication and access to IT resources dynamically based on what’s happening in the environment. This new patent is similar, but it also incorporates machine learning techniques to analyze the behaviors and health status of computing and storage devices.
Why You Need It
Authentication controls in use today are static and don’t respond to changing conditions and events. In addition, those authentication controls aren’t monitored or analyzed to determine whether they are effective or optimized for achieving company security and safety objectives.
Likewise, critical IT resources — such as computing servers and storage devices — typically rely on the same authentication techniques as they did decades ago. In today’s world of relentless cyber attacks, this practice in unacceptable.
In order to be more secure, IT resources and infrastructure must be able to respond to evolving cyber and health events. User authentication roles and privileges may need to change temporarily under certain conditions, like when storage devices fail or when hardware devices come under cyber attack.
Cobalt Iron’s latest patent covers just those concerns.
What It Does
The new patent’s novel techniques will use extensive data collection, analytics, and machine learning to adjust user authentication and access to IT resources dynamically based on environmental events and operational outcomes.
Specifically, these patented techniques will:
- Collect training data such as computing and storage device health status, IT operation health status, device event data, users’ permission access patterns, access control duration data, project data, cyber event information, security event logs, and data protection operational results.
- Analyze training data to determine the effectiveness of authentication controls during previous conditions and events.
- Generate ML rules based on the training data to adjust authentication controls during future conditions and events.
- Monitor the health status of IT resources such as computing and storage devices for various health conditions and events.
- Dynamically adjust user authentication privileges based on generated ML rules.
- Modify durations of user authentication privilege adjustments in response to generated ML rules.
For example, these techniques could automatically and temporarily restrict access to computing or storage devices that show signs of being targeted by ransomware.
In another example, a change in the health status of a computing or storage device (e.g., devices going offline or online or having various kinds of health failures) could trigger adjustments in authentication control to those devices.
What It Means for You
Controlling authorization and access to key IT resources, such as computing and storage devices, is a critical part of securing any enterprise. Today’s outdated authentication controls leave your enterprise vulnerable. But if you’re using Compass, then those outdated controls will be where they belong — in the past. Instead, Compass’ built-in patented technology will automatically optimize authentication controls based on the health status of IT resources. This helps eliminate the pervasive security exposures of stale, obsolete, and unresponsive authorization controls. IT resources and the entire IT infrastructure will become more secure because Compass will adjust authentication controls automatically as the environment changes. And authentication controls will continually improve over time by learning from the past.
Cobalt Iron has all sorts of patented techniques to help secure your data and make you a data protection superhero. More about those in other blogs.
In the meantime, contact us to learn more.
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