Safeguard with Security Risk Benchmark in NCM Security Central


By Girivaru Tarun and Ruhi Sehgal

Ransomware attacks are escalating in frequency, sophistication, and impact, posing a significant threat to organizations of all sizes. Cybersecurity Ventures estimates that by 2031, a ransomware attack will cost victims around $275 billion annually, with a new attack every 2 seconds as they become refined. This underscores the ransomware’s persistent danger, often exploiting vulnerabilities like misconfigurations or lateral network movement. Organizations need a proactive approach to fortify their security posture and build ransomware resilience. 

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) Security Central has launched a new Security Risk benchmark, featuring automated checks aligned with cybersecurity best-practices from MITRE, NIST, and CISA to strengthen security posture and ensure compliance.

Why Security Risk is Mission-Critical

When ransomware strikes, it’s not just IT Teams that suffer - it’s the entire business that’s put at risk. Successful attacks can drain time and financial resources, halt operations, and inflict lasting damage on an entire organization. A robust ransomware defense strategy demands a multi-pronged approach:

  • Proactive Measures: Strengthening your infrastructure to minimize vulnerabilities.
  • Anomaly & Threat Detection: Identifying malicious activity or anomalies.
  • Response Workflows: Isolating compromised or potentially affected entities from the network to prevent further spread.  
  • Planned Recovery Mechanisms: Ensuring business continuity through rapid restoration.
NCM Security Central capabilities

Nutanix Security Central: Your Security Risk Benchmark

Security Central's new Security Risk capabilities deliver a robust defense across the entire attack lifecycle:

  • Protect: Proactively secure your environment by:

    • Detecting misconfigurations and benchmarking against cybersecurity standards such as NIST, MITRE , and CISA

  • Detect: Uncover anomalies with ML models:

    • Signature-based threat detection leveraging TAXII feeds to filter VM communication to blacklist IP addresses compiled from Proofpoint Emerging Threats, abuse.ch, and more

    • Network anomaly-based detection (e.g., DDoS, port scan, Dictionary, Data Leak) using ML-based algorithms

    • Identify rogue user behavior from Nutanix Prism users. 

  • Respond: Contain and mitigate threats effectively with:

    • Micro-segmentation rules to restrict lateral movement and isolate compromised systems

    • Quarantine of infected VMs to prevent further spread in the network

    • Rules-based notification

  • Recover (Coming Soon): Future Security Central updates will enable recovery actions to help our customers recover critical applications and manage business continuity. 

The Security Risk capabilities will be consolidated in a single pane, accessible through the Security Risk page in NCM Security Central. This centralized view will provide a comprehensive overview of critical misconfigurations and network anomalies, allowing for more efficient monitoring and management of security risks.

NCM dashboard

Security Risk with NCM Security Central

NCM Security Central’s Security Risk capabilities empower security and IT professionals to gain visibility, streamline compliance and prioritize remediation efforts. 

By utilizing these capabilities in NCM Security Central, organizations can gauge their Nutanix Cloud Platform workloads across best practices laid by industry standards.

To access the Security Risk feature, you'll need either the Security Central License or the Nutanix Cloud Manager Ultimate license. Once you have the required license, simply navigate to the Security Risk tab from the main menu in NCM Security Central to get started. For more information on licensing, visit the Software Options page.

Learn more about NCM Security Central, take a Test Drive, or start your free 60-day Trial with NCM Security Central. Plus, refer to our Nutanix Documentation for more support. 

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