Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 expands its DFIR service globally

At RSA Conference 2023, Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 unveiled the expansion of its Digital Forensics and Incident Response (DFIR) global service to help organizations understand evolving threats quickly and take swift action to remediate them.

The Global Digital Forensics and Incident Response service combines depth of incident response experience with the breadth of AI-powered solutions, including Cortex XDR and Xpanse, and Prisma Cloud, to equip enterprises to respond immediately and recover.

To help organizations better respond to complex threats, Palo Alto Networks’ knowledge of security and a deep understanding of advanced attacker behavior enables Unit 42 to undertake a rigorous investigation with rapid response.

According to Wendi Whitmore, SVP of Palo Alto Networks Unit 42, “No other security vendor in the industry can match Palo Alto Networks’ telemetry or our breadth of products to stop attacks in real-time. We analyze data from thousands of customers globally, generating over 500 billion daily events. This massive dataset enables responders to contextualize threats and respond effectively. Coupled with our expertise in cloud threats, SOC automation, and network security, this advanced intelligence helps companies recover and emerge stronger than before.”

Unit 42 specializes in cyber DFIR and responds to thousands of customer events annually from ransomware incidents to the rising cloud attacks. Backed by a global team of incident responders, threat intelligence experts, and consultants, Unit 42 has handled some of the largest data breaches in history.

According to the recent Unit 42 Cloud Threat report, more than 60% of organizations take over four days to resolve security issues, while threat actors typically exploit a misconfiguration or vulnerability within hours.

Unit 42 recently engaged with a large enterprise customer after a zero-day vulnerability allowed an authentication bypass and remote code execution (RCE) exploit. The threat actor leveraged the vulnerability to drop web shells and launch a crypto miner onto the client’s unpatched CRM system hosted on a popular cloud service provider (CSP).

Through unauthorized access, the threat actor stole a CSP credential that provided access to sensitive databases, which they made publicly available on the Internet. As part of the investigation, Unit 42 leveraged Cortex XDR to ingest the CSP CloudTrail logs for rapid threat hunting and analysis and Prisma Cloud to assess the client’s CSP environment.

Using Prisma Cloud, Unit 42 assisted the client in remediating the CSP misconfigurations and implementing security best practices during the incident, in real-time, improving their security posture overall.

The Unit 42 Digital Forensics and Incident Response Service includes:

• Assessments: To evaluate and test controls against real-world threats proactively, Unit 42 offers many assessments, including compromise assessments, ransomware readiness assessments, attack surface assessments, and more.
• IR preparedness: Helping organizations pressure test technical controls, network security, response playbooks, and more. Services include Penetration Testing, Purple Teaming and Tabletop exercises.
• Incident response: Quickly jumpstart an intelligence-led investigation, deploying Palo Alto Networks tools within minutes to contain threats and gather the evidence needed to analyze an incident fully. Unit 42 IR services include cloud incident response, expert malware analysis, and ransomware investigation.
• Managed threat hunting: Offers round-the-clock monitoring from Unit 42 experts to discover attacks anywhere in an organization. Threat hunters work on an organization’s behalf to discover advanced threats, such as state-sponsored attackers, cybercriminals, malicious insiders, and malware.
• Managed detection and response: Combines Cortex XDR with Unit 42’s threat intelligence to offer continuous 24/7 threat detection, investigation and response.