ESET Expands Threat Intelligence Offering For MSSPs With New eCrime Reports

The launch provides MSSPs with deeper visibility into ransomware attacks and other cybercrime activities, as well as offering a ready-made report to present to customers on key emerging threats, according to ESET.

ESET announced a major addition to its threat intelligence portfolio Thursday with the debut of enhanced reports covering cybercriminal groups and affiliates, in a move to better empower MSSPs and their end customers to defend against financially motivated attacks.

The launch of ESET’s eCrime Reports provides MSSPs with deeper visibility into ransomware campaigns, infostealer tactics and other cybercrime activities, as well as offering a ready-made report to present to customers on key emerging threats, according to ESET.

“They're able to solve the attack scenario while it's happening in real time, but then also further educate their customers,” said Cameron Tousley, director of MSP channels at ESET North America.

ESET has long stood out in the area of security research with more than three decades of experience in the area, Tousley noted. The eCrime Reports represent a significant advancement by providing threat intelligence down the level of threat actor affiliates, he said.

While many of the biggest and most-prolific cybercriminal groups are closely watched by security researchers, the numerous affiliate groups operating today “are not always going to use the same tactics and procedures,” Tousley said.

In fact, activity at the affiliate level will often signal changes in cybercriminal tactics before they hit the broader market, he said.

The result is that, ultimately, this dynamic “changes the whole makeup” of how threat actors actually operate, Tousley said.

Thus, with ESET’s new eCrime Reports, “we’re actually tracking the affiliate and then looking at the how and why—how are they doing it, and why? What's the motivation behind the attack?” he said. “The affiliate level really, really matters because these are the people that are buying from the [threat actor] provider. So I think that's the real special sauce.”

ESET’s eCrime Reports are being offered as a standalone component of ESET’s Threat Intelligence portfolio, the company said.

Partner Perspective

For one ESET partner, Eugene, Oregon-based Alpha IT, the launch of eCrime Reports is positioned to be a very useful addition to its threat intelligence offerings, according to Alpha IT CEO Ravi Brounstein.

The reports appear designed to help address a big challenge that Alpha IT faces when it comes to explaining the threat landscape to customers at an executive level, Brounstein said.

ESET’s eCrime Reports are likely to be particularly valuable when it comes to demonstrating the value of investing in proactive security measures, aimed at protecting against the types of emerging tactics described in the reports, he said.

The result, Brounstein said, is that customers should be able to better understand why their security posture needs an upgrade in response to the current state of the threat landscape.

“We can leverage this to help our [customer] partners make informed decisions,” he said. “It’s powerful.”

Notably, being able to provide the eCrime Reports to customers is also a net-new offering that Alpha IT has not had previously had for customers in the threat intelligence sphere, according to Brounstein.

For instance, during quarterly meetings with customers, much of the focus in the past has been around taking a retrospective look at what the company has done for the customer, he said.

The introduction of eCrime Reports, however, should serve to better enable future planning around the state of the threat landscape, Brounstein said.

All in all, “I think it's going to be a game changer for us in our quarterly meetings with [customer] partners,” he said.

AI Enablement

ESET said that its new eCrime Reports will be offered to partners and customers as either a standard or an advanced offering.

The advanced tier will add the ability to utilize the reports in conjunction with ESET’s AI Advisor, an AI-powered assistant that can help with rapidly assessing threat intelligence information, according to the vendor.

Other eCrime Reports functionality available only on the advanced tier includes access to ESET’s curated MISP server, providing an integration of threat intelligence directly into security operations, the company said.