SYDNEY, Australia, Feb. 27, 2013 — HP today announced the formation of the HP Security Research (HPSR) organisation, a new group that will provide actionable security intelligence through published reports, threat briefings and enhancements to the HP security product portfolio.

The company also released findings from its annual HP Cyber Security Risk Report, providing insight into the vulnerability landscape, with a range of data covering technologies such as web and mobile.

As part of the HP Enterprise Security Products (ESP) business unit, HPSR will lead HP’s security research agenda, leveraging existing HP research groups, including HP DVLabs, a research organisation focused on vulnerability discovery and analysis, and HP Fortify Software Security Research, which is focused on developing software security practices. HPSR also will manage the Zero Day Initiative (ZDI), which focuses on identifying software flaws that have led to cyber attacks and security breaches.

Driving security intelligence research into product offerings

A core focus of HPSR is to provide research that directly influences the development of the HP ESP portfolio. As such, HP has enhanced its HP Reputation Security Monitor (RepSM) 1.5, which protects clients against advanced threats by leveraging data feeds directly from HPSR. These data feeds enhance the identification of peer-to-peer network use and improve detection of potential spear phishing and spam floods, while also recognising patterns over time, such as reconnaissance scans and abnormal activity levels.

The new HP RepSM enables clients to defend against sophisticated attacks by detecting dangerous interactions with ill-reputed sites to prevent a breach. After a breach occurs, the solution identifies the infected assets, communicating with ill-reputed command and control centres, before intellectual property is leaked.

For midmarket organisations with large volumes of data and limited resources, HP ArcSight Express 4.0 combines security information and event management (SIEM), log management and user activity monitoring in an out of the box solution, including connectors to HP ArcSight IdentityView and HP RepSM. The solution simplifies the collection, analysis and management of security events quickly and cost-effectively.

Clients can be up and running in minutes, quickly gaining insight into potential security threats by pulling information from hundreds of data sources. The solution also monitors user and application activity for security anomalies, such as suspicious behaviour.

HP research identifies security risks, helps organisations assess security posture

HP today released the HP 2012 Cyber Security Risk Report. The annual report provides security intelligence to organisations so that they can best deploy their resources to minimise security risk.

Highlights from the report include:

• Total vulnerabilities are on the rise
• Disclosures grew 19 percent from 6,844 in 2011 to 8,137 in 2012
• 2012 disclosures remain 19 percent lower than the peak in 2006
• Critical vulnerabilities declined, but still pose significant risk
• Critical vulnerabilities fell from 23 percent in 2011 to 20 percent in 2012
• One in five vulnerabilities still give attackers total control of their target
• Well-known web vulnerabilities remain prevalent in 2012
• Four web vulnerability categories made up 40 percent of 2012 reports
• Vulnerabilities exploited by clickjacking are still ubiquitous
• Less than 1 percent of URLs tested leverage standard mitigation after more than a decade
• The rate of mobile vulnerabilities continues to increase rapidly
• Mobile vulnerabilities rose 68 percent from 158 in 2011 to 266 in 2012
• 48 percent of mobile applications tested in 2012 gave unauthorised access
• Mature technologies introduce continued and evolving risk
• Vulnerabilities in SCADA systems rose 768 percent from only 22 in 2008 to 191 in 2012

In addition to the annual risk report, HPSR will publish reports that provide the most current security intelligence available, ensuring organisations understand and proactively respond to potential security threats. HPSR will deliver this research through biweekly threat briefings, as well as free summary briefings available to the public on HP’s website and iTunes. Premium vertical and client specific briefings will be available to paid subscribers.

“Organisations need the latest in security research to effectively prevent, detect and combat the growing number of sophisticated threats,” said Christopher Poulos, vice president, general manager, Enterprise Security Products, Hewlett-Packard Asia Pacific and Japan. “HP empowers clients to address the most advanced threats by combining access to a global network of security experts and published research with the power of that expertise built directly into our products and services.”