NSS Labs Launches Managed Cybersecurity Test Platform
The recently relaunched NSS Labs has released Minion by NSS Labs, a managed platform designed to validate the performance of cybersecurity products for service providers, enterprises, and vendors.
The remotely managed offering relieves customers of the burden of in-house testing while providing in-depth, objective validation of security products—a must, given the proliferation of cybersecurity threats in today’s AI-oriented environments.
“Security leaders need tools that let them compare and justify cybersecurity decisions with real evidence,” stated Ian Foo, Chief Technology Officer and EVP of Product, in a press release. “Our new data platform will modernize the way we share test data so that enterprises can make faster, smarter decisions across the organization.”
Minion Addresses the Needs of Three Markets
With Minion, NSS Labs is fulfilling a major need among cybersecurity customers of all types—namely, to get an unbiased, real-world view of the actual performance of products before they hit the network. To reach this goal, the platform offers a range of features that meet the requirements of three distinct constituencies. Let’s take a closer look:
Minion for Enterprises. In today’s large corporations, C-suite executives, including CISOs, CIOs, chief risk officers, and CEOs, are tasked with a growing roster of regulatory demands, along with the need to prove supply chain safety and cybersecurity resilience. They need realistic, reproducible testing to ensure regulatory compliance and guarantee that performance of products from third-party vendors aligns with vendor claims and organizational policies. Minion provides all this, as well as historical analyses and detailed reporting of results for board-level presentation.
Minion is delivered to the enterprise as a remote test server installed on premises but managed over a remote, encrypted connection. Tests are devised based on real-world attacks, including malware, exploits, evasion techniques, and false positives. All tests are based on information gleaned from threat intelligence and active sources. A PCAP (packet capture) option delivers packet-level visibility for technical team viewing.
Minion for Service Providers and Managed Service Providers. Minion is also designed to allow SPs and MSPs to validate their services, including SASE, firewall-as-a-service (FaaS), managed detection and response (MDR), endpoint detection and response (EDR), and other offerings. NSS Labs says later this month enterprise firewall testing will become available; cloud network firewall testing will be offered in Q3 or Q4 of this year.
Since it’s remotely managed, Minion relieves the costs—and potential delays—associated with maintaining in-house testing. Service providers can quickly test out OEM services and products, adding to their credibility in competitive markets while allowing them to explore potential new offerings in a timely way.
The importance of this can’t be overstated. For years, SPs and MSPs have struggled to stay ahead of cyber threats and to ensure they have the staff on hand to gauge those threats and respond accordingly. This has interfered with their ability to meet market demands. Minion, with continuously updated testing and expertise, can relieve this shortfall.
Minion for Cybersecurity Vendors. In a highly competitive market characterized by many disparate products, it’s important for cybersecurity vendors to prove they can meet market needs for reliable and highly performant solutions as requirements quickly evolve. NSS Labs offers third-party validation that can benefit sales and marketing personnel and establish credibility with customers, industry analysts, and channel partners.
Minion also helps vendors develop products by testing performance of new releases and identifying areas that could benefit from additional engineering. A “drop-in,” lightweight remote client appliance is available to test for security in the vendor’s environment.
NSS Labs Has a Key Role
The need for independent, third-party testing has never been more urgent, given today's expanding security concerns. There are threats to cloud-based SaaS/XaaS environments. AI applications are emerging, along with their own particularly nasty threats, including data leakage during inferencing. The rise of quantum computing poses its own dangers. Plenty of security solutions are available, but organizations need the assurance that they'll perform as needed. Firms can’t afford to fall short on protecting their critical assets as they move to tap into new technological shifts.
NSS Labs may have just relaunched, but it comes with a long history and experience in the testing world. It has the smarts and technologies. It is also partnered with CyberRatings.org, the organization that earlier this year released an interesting test exposing gaps in cloud firewalls. NSS Labs and CyberRatings.org share a common founder in NSS Labs CEO Vikram Phatak, along with other key executives. And as noted, Minion will be capable of testing cloud firewalls later this year.
Futuriom Take: Minion by NSS Labs is an important step toward validating today’s emerging cybersecurity products and services. It is poised to provide an invaluable service to a market that requires fast, accurate, actionable, and independent testing of emerging solutions.
