Proxies in Cyber Security

When you think about , the most common use cases include ad verification, price comparison, public data collection and brand protection, among other usual suspects.

Yet, hidden just under the radar, a new set of use cases have begun to emerge in the cyber security market. These include cybersecurity companies that provide services and companies offering

These companies have historically focused on developing in-house tools to generate attack traffic or, collect web data, preferring to keep all the knowhow in house.

But that’s all changing. With the increase in the usage of proxies in more and more markets, and the need to collect and generate more traffic, cyber security companies have started to look into sourcing proxy networks from companies such as NetNut.

For companies approaching companies such as , the benefits depend largely on the company’s internet usage.

Let’s take a closer look at the companies mentioned above and discuss how they might benefit from proxy networks.

OSINT Companies

OSINT (Orefers to information gathered legally from both public and free web (Internet) sources about individuals, organizations, and companies. OSINT companies are usually hired by organizations for three main reasons: 1) to map corporate and employee online digital footprint, 2) to take a proactive approach to remove potential information from the internet, and 3) to increase cyber security and prevent cyber-attacks.

The idea behind an OSINT data collection process is to create an online profile of a potential victim (e) to better understand its characteristics and prevent hackers from utilizing such data in order to hack the hiring company.

So, it’s clear from the description above, that OSINT companies are potentially massive data collectors. The more data they can collect and from as many online sources as possible, the better they can be at building online profiles for their customers’ users, in addition to providing a more detailed online presence profile for their customer.

In a nutshell, by utilizing proxy networks, OSINT companies gain the following benefits from collaborating with such a company as NetNut:

• Collect large amounts of data from multiple online sources at scale and without getting blocked by the destination web site
• Simulate an actual attacker or bot trying to collect data
• Collect data from multiple geographies, allowing to check if user profiles are different based on source geography
• Reduce in house development efforts and costs of developing a data collection service
• Shorten data delivery times to their customers by collecting data at scale

Vulnerability Assessment, Penetration Testing and DDoS Testing Companies

While these companies essentially provide different services to their target organizations, each type of company is usually hired by organizations wishing to test their cyber security defenses and posture.

Vulnerability testing and penetration testing companies use their different white-hacking tools, vulnerability scanners, and methodologies to try and gain access or go through the different security defense layers of their customers, by utilizing exploitable vulnerabilities.

DDoS testing companies, on the other hand, use a different approach; rather than trying to hack into the company’s network, they essentially try to bring down the customer’s online resources (e.g., web site) or the company’s network itself by flooding it with a network or application-based denial of service (DDoS) attack.

Differing from the OSIT organizations who are massive data collectors, vulnerability assessment and DDoS testing companies are huge data generators, requiring many different sources from which to either generate large amounts of attack traffic or a vast amount of  global locations from where they can simulate simultaneous attack bots.

By utilizing proxy networks, vulnerability assessment and DDoS testing companies are set to gain the following benefits from collaborating with a company such as NetNut:

• Generate large amounts of attack traffic without the need to spin up many attacking virtual machines
• Simulate an actual attacker or bot trying to attack the customer
• Generate attack traffic from multiple geographies, allowing to simulate an actual attack scenario
• Reduce in house development efforts and costs of developing a data generation tool
• Simplify the security assessment process and shorten the time it takes to perform the security assessment, by easily generating attack traffic at any scale needed

Conclusion

Proxy networks are no longer associated only with business-related online data collection use cases but are now being utilized with great satisfaction in other verticals within the cyber security space. We can expect to see proxy networks to continue to pique interest by other verticals previously not traditionally targeted by proxy providers. And that’s something to keep our eyes open for.

With our various types of proxies, cyber security companies can now enhance their offerings to customers. If you’re interested in getting a 7-day free trial of our services, talk to our team today. We would be more than happy to help you get started with our proxies and answer any questions on collecting or generating data.