DNA day, which takes place every year on April 25th, was created to commemorate the completion of the Human Genome Project in 2003 and the discovery of DNA’s double helix half a century earlier. It has become a focal point for people to learn more about the fundamental role genetics has played in human evolution and history, as well as its increasing importance for today’s global biotechnology industry and beyond.
As scientific understanding of DNA has increased, it’s role in society has accelerated. From the most cutting edge medical treatments to discovering hidden details about family history, for most of us, DNA is all about what makes us who we are and the characteristics we share with our relatives.
At Glasswall, we enjoy recognising these shared events – they help bring people together and do a good job in focusing on important issues and causes. DNA Day is also interesting to us because we can draw some parallels between its role in the real world and the information we analyse in the digital context. Metaphorically, focusing on file and document ‘DNA’ is central to everything we do to provide proactive protection against file-based threats.
Our approach to CDR – Content Disarm and Reconstruction – looks at the file and document equivalent of DNA – its digital DNA – to understand where details differ from their published ’known good’ specification. We inspect files on three key levels: the File Structure, Active Content and Visual Content, to identify changes to the files digital DNA and therefore where potential file-based threats may reside. Glasswall CDR platform instantly de-risks all your files, ensuring your users can trust files in your organization are clean and safe.
So how does CDR technology work? Glasswall’s CDR Platform applies a simple, but highly effective approach whereby we ‘Inspect, ‘Clean’, Rebuild’ and ‘Deliver’ a safe, identical file to the end user.
Inspect: we inspect the File Structure – its digital DNA, to validate its compliance with the manufacturers ‘known good’ specification, and repair the structure when it’s non compliant.
Clean: we look at the Active Content such as Macros, JavaScript, embedded files or data connections – which are common areas for cyber criminals to embed malicious content – and remove risky active content (by policy), ensuring only the users who need active content receive that content.
Rebuild: we then rebuild the file to the known good standard, ensuring its digital DNA is correct.
Deliver: finally, we deliver a safe, identical file to the end user, ensuring no changes to the Visual Content – i.e. the text or images on the page – have been made.
The result is a powerful ability to close the security blindspots exploited by cybercriminals who know that reactive antivirus and sandboxing technologies cannot identify new vulnerabilities hidden in file ‘DNA’ for days or even weeks after they have been released.
To learn more about how a proactive approach to cybersecurity can help your organisation reduce risk and ramp up productivity, click here.
