2024 November Edition Challenge Statements
Challenge
Construct an Artificial Intelligence (AI) module designed to seamlessly amalgamate with current Privileged Access Management (PAM) systems, enabling the scrutiny of PAM session recordings to pinpoint irregularities in user behaviour.
Background
PAM serves as an identity security mechanism that identifies and obstructs unauthorised entry to vital assets while monitoring the activities of privileged users during their access to these critical resources. It maintains a record of the sessions via logs and screen video captures.
Presently, the analysis of screen recordings is conducted manually, a process that is both tedious and time-consuming. The log recordings are not exhaustive and are challenging to interpret due to their lack of natural language, while video recordings can be extensive and cumbersome to review, often leading to human oversight. Consequently, there is a pressing requirement for a cost-effective, standalone AI component that can be effortlessly incorporated into existing PAM frameworks.
Requirements
The solution should encompass, but not be limited to, the following features:
Additional Information
2024 November Edition Challenge Statements
Challenge
Create a data security management tool that autonomously identifies and safeguards data instantaneously, employing Artificial Intelligence to ascertain the sensitivity of data contingent on context as opposed to predefined rules.
Background
New AI technologies such as Copilot enable organisations to operate more efficiently and effectively. These systems can analyse data from both within and outside the organisation, delivering results based on the user’s prompts. However, they also introduce new risks to data management and privacy.
To integrate new AI technologies like Copilot, our organisation must enhance our capabilities to:
Given the vast amount of unstructured data, it is impractical to preprocess and label all data at rest. We need a solution capable of independently identifying and protecting data in real-time. Most solutions on the market rely on precise definitions to identify data, which often results in a low accuracy rate due to a lack of contextual understanding.
Requirements
The solution should encompass, but not be limited to, the following features:
Management of data loss prevention strategies (restricting email, USB transfers, printing, etc.) in line with designated data classifications.
Additional Information
The solution could be a standalone end-to-end system or an integration with existing Data Loss Prevention products.
2024 November Edition Challenge Statements
Challenge
Develop a cyber security incident response utility employing GenAI to synthesise the incident details, carry out an impact assessment, offer remediation strategies, and compile a report summary.
Background
Cybercriminals around the world now have access to new AI tools as these become more commercially available. These tools significantly enhance their ability to conduct sophisticated cyber-attacks. The inherent limitations in OT/IoT environments, such as the inability to install agents and security tools, further increase cybersecurity risks.
To adapt to these changing times and upgrade our capabilities, our organisation must also embrace AI to bolster our rapid response to cyber-attacks while meeting global regulatory reporting requirements. The solution we seek should not only reduce response times but also improve the accuracy of incident handling in OT/IoT environments.
Our organisation requires a swift response to any cybersecurity incidents to enhance our capabilities in responding to cyber-attacks and to comply with reporting requirements from regulators worldwide, thereby protecting our Operational Technology (OT)/Internet of Things (IoT) environments globally.
Requirements
The solution should encompass, but not be limited to, the following features:
Additional Information
The solution could be an end-to-end system or an integration with existing Security Information and Event Management (SIEM), Security Orchestration, Automation and Response (SOAR), or extended Detection and Response (xDR) platforms.
2024 November Edition Challenge Statements
Innovative cybersecurity proposals that do not fulfill any of the Challenge Statements can be submitted under the “Open Category”. The proposal should clearly explain the issue(s) that it aims to address, demonstrate innovation in solving the identified problem (e.g., no existing solution, improvement(s) on existing solutions), and have concrete go-to-market plans.
For proposals submitted under the Open Category, the applicant company must secure at least one committed end-user by the third milestone. This end-user must be interested in deploying the solution if the project is successful. The company can leverage on “minimum viable products”* and/or market-ready technologies to develop cybersecurity applications with new features and functionalities that would meet the new and emerging demands of cybersecurity users.
Solution providers can submit proposals in the following focus areas including, but not limited to:
*A minimum viable product is a product with just enough features to satisfy early customers and to provide feedback for future product development.
Challenge
Preserving privacy of victim while allowing digital forensic searches and analytics to be performed on Personally Identifiable Information (PII) data and sensitive images or videos
Background
Digital Forensics is a rapidly growing capability for examining the contents of computers and other digital devices. It raises many challenges to the conventional notions of privacy because it involves a more considerably detailed search of digital data than is possible with other manual techniques.
Digital Forensics, especially on cybercrime, for law enforcement agencies is experiencing an exponential increase in the amount of digital data to be processed, analysed, and stored for evidential purpose. Moving to the cloud is one of the key solutions but there is much concern on the storage of sensitive data on cloud, especially PII and sensitive images or videos such as sexual content.
Requirements
The proposed solution should contain, but not limited to the following:
Limitations
Real or actual data is not provided for development but can be leveraged upon for testing at user’s premise.
Challenge
Develop a solution that can automate, simplify, and provide recommendation for the cybersecurity risk management for cloud application change requests. The change requests can be for enterprise’s functional (e.g. new features) and non-functional (e.g. cybersecurity patches) updates.
Background
Any alterations to the cloud applications carry cybersecurity risks, including coding errors and unintended logic faults. Implementing new cloud applications may require changes to the configuration management such as the firewall rules and the routing tables which might affect the security posture of the system. Implementing changes requires rigorous risk assessments to mitigate these risks. An automated risk management solution is needed to perform dynamic risk assessments based on the change request, provide a recommendation for appropriate change schedules, and notify stakeholders. The dynamic nature of these operations demand swift turnaround times, but the current manual effort is inefficient to handle the volume of change requests.
Requirements
The solution should contain, but not limited to the following:
Challenge
Develop a platform/service that provides assurance of the security posture of the connected systems from partners/vendors. Some expected capabilities are automatically monitor and update of possible incidents in partners/vendors systems, provide secure channels for info exchange and collaboration, and facilitate the identification and remediation of the vulnerabilities of the systems to mitigate risks effectively. This platform/service should assure that all connected systems are at the same security posture that can mitigate the serious threats are prevalent/expected up to the near future.
Background
Today, organisations need collaboration and support of external parties to expand/reach their customers and stakeholders. Evidently, the organisations must connect to each other, which may result in the propagation of attacks to each other. The security posture of one’s organisation is intricately expanded/extended to the security posture of one’s partners/vendors connected systems as well. Assessing the security posture of a system internally usually requires cybersecurity expert to conduct security assessment scans, but some partners/vendors don’t have such in-house cybersecurity expertise to continually monitor and maintain the security posture of their systems. Even if they get attestation reports, these don’t give current/real-time status of the system security state.
Requirements
The solution should contain, but not be limited to the following:
It should have end-to-end coverage of every system connected in the collaboration/ support tasks to understand the threats and/or vulnerabilities as they appear and alert every participant to take necessary actions to minimise the risks. Some of the expected functions are:
