Digital Shadows

The CBEST and STAR testing regimes, launched by the Bank of England and the Certified Register of Ethical Security Testers (CREST) respectively, aim to help systemically-important financial institutions remain resilient to cyber attack.  They both mimic the actions of cyber attackers intent on stealing, compromising or destroying organizational assets that have financial, operational, intellectual, confidential or reputational value.
Organizations undertaking a CBEST or STAR test must work with a threat intelligence provider who can provide realistic, threat-informed attack scenarios that underpin simulated cyber attacks.  However, many threat intelligence providers deliver little more than elementary facts about commodity threats, with an emphasis on lower-level technical forensics rather than higher-level insights into the attacker, their motivation and their modus operandi. Marketing hype and jargon only serve to complicate matters.
As a leading specialist provider of cyber intelligence services, Digital Shadows has been working with the Bank of England, CREST and a community of security vendors to define a framework for developing the CBEST tests.  We therefore have the capability and experience to provide clients with intelligence of the standard required for CBEST or STAR test purposes.
Our Digital Shadows SearchLight™ facility enables us to identify the technical characteristics of potential attacks, the techniques employed, the attacker’s capabilities and their motivation.  Using these threat profiles we can create threat scenarios that narrate the flow of interaction between the attacker and their target.  We will then undertake a footprinting exercise in which we emulate the attacker and identify the attack surface of people, processes and systems within the target.
Equipped with our intelligence, the client’s security test provider will have the evidential basis for designing and justifying a realistic and successful targeting campaign.  This may be a provider selected by the client or with one of a number of leading security test providers with whom we have established close and efficient working relationships.
As well as laying the foundations for an effective CBEST or STAR test, the intelligence we provide our clients will enable them to more proactively manage an array of new and evolving cyber threats and provide valuable input into risk management and business strategies. - See more at: http://www.digitalshadows.com/services/cbeststar/#sthash.O1qYnMPk.dpuf