Soltra, a joint venture of FS-ISAC and The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), is to launch the Soltra Network, a new offering designed to connect cyber threat intelligence sharing across intelligence producers, intelligence consumers, communities and cyber security tools.
The new service will work alongside Soltra’s existing threat information sharing platform, Soltra Edge. Soltra Edge was developed in partnership with the financial services industry; its cyber security capabilities have been extended to other key segments, including the retail and healthcare sectors.
Soltra Edge acts like a threat intelligence server that aggregates and distributes threat content within an organisation and between organisations leveraging a peer-to-peer, firm-to-firm model. As envisioned, the new Soltra Network will connect Soltra Edge servers and route data between users in a hub-and-spoke model within a highly scalable, highly secure network. Users of the Soltra Network -– individual entities, groups, sharing communities, threat intelligence providers and cyber security solutions providers – will authenticate and connect into the network, facilitating the flow of information in a federated, standardised way leveraging industry standard protocols including Structured Threat Information eXpression (STIX) and Trusted Automated eXchange of Indicator Information (TAXII). Users will be able to access the Soltra Network directly from Soltra Edge, which includes over 2,000 users since it was launched earlier this year. Organisations can continue to use Soltra Edge for peer-to peer sharing, as necessary.
Mark Clancy, CEO of Soltra and Board Member of FS-ISAC, says: “Information security should no longer be comprised of disparate, disconnected silos. Due to the overwhelming success of Soltra Edge, we’ve seen thousands of entities start to use standardised protocols to connect to peers and share information. We are now at the point where we have an opportunity to create additional efficiencies to facilitate the automated flow of millions of threat indicators across tens of thousands of entities. The Soltra Network is an important solution that has been designed to enable this information flow.”
The Soltra Network will codify industry standards and enable the best, most efficient use of STIX and TAXII for actionable threat intelligence. It will enhance the ability of organisations and communities to participate in multi-lateral information sharing amongst tens of thousands of entities, maintaining the highest fidelity of all source threat data. With strong authentication, the Network will increase trust for non-attributed submissions within and between sharing communities. To date, Soltra has focused on standardising and automating the flow of intelligence with Soltra Edge. Now, Soltra is focused on making it even easier to take in high quality threat content, speed the time to decision and enable organisations to take more effective action to prevent and mitigate threats in a variety of ways.
Bill Nelson (pictured), President of Soltra and President & CEO FS-ISAC, says: “Information security must be modernized. Instead of dozens of tools, islands of data and disconnected communications, at Soltra, we want to leverage the strength of standardization and the power of the network effect, just like social media or mobile phone networks. We are going to make it simple and effective for users to get the right threat intelligence at the right time in order to defend entire communities. With the Soltra Network and Soltra Edge offerings, users can consume and share threat information that is in a standard format and have confidence that it is accurate, trusted and secure.”
A pilot version of the Soltra Network will be available to early adopter Soltra Members during Q4, 2015. The Soltra Network is expected to be available for FS-ISAC Members during Q1 2016 and generally available during the first half of 2016. Those that have joined the Soltra Membership program will be able to easily add access to the Soltra Network to their Membership plan.
