Bit9, Inc., the leader in Advanced Threat Protection, today announced the availability of the Bit9 Cyber Forensics Service™. This new service is based on the Bit9 Global Software Registry™ (GSR), the world’s largest and most complete authority on software. A typical Windows computer has 15,000 executable files; validating the integrity and trustworthiness of those files is difficult on a single system and exponentially more difficult on a network of thousands of computers. The Bit9 Cyber Forensics Service provides the intelligence enterprises need to easily identify, validate and understand the reputation of software files, enabling IT executives to better protect end users and help prevent malicious software files from causing havoc on networks.

Until now, there has been no single source of information that could provide such broad coverage and in-depth knowledge about the world’s software. Leveraging billions of metadata records, the Bit9 GSR contains more than 5 billion records and the number of unique files is nearing 500 million. This massive analytical engine pulls information from a combination of distribution partners, Web crawlers, honeypots and Bit9’s own organic community to feed the database with raw software files and metadata. Reputation is assigned to software by scanning with multiple anti-malware solutions and cross-referencing against 3rd-party vulnerability databases. With the knowledge gained from the Bit9 Cyber Forensics Service, enterprises are able to validate which software files are trustworthy and safe to download while helping identify and protect against malicious software files that could cause havoc within the network.

The Bit9 Global Software Registry boasts:

The most comprehensive repository of software and software information in the world;
Over 150 integrated software and security analyzers collecting and identifying more software than any other source;
More malware and vulnerability scanners on software files than any other source;
More metadata on each file than any other source; and,
Faster growth than any other software identification repository.
“Our incident responders have been leveraging the Bit9 GSR for the last year to accelerate our investigations into targeted intrusions, including Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) attacks,” said Dave Merkel, Vice President of Products and Threat Management Services at Mandiant. “We chose to integrate Bit9’s Cyber Forensics Service with Mandiant Intelligent Response to make it easier for our customers to leverage the power of the GSR. Having an expansive library of intelligence on new and previously unknown software at our fingertips increases our ability to counter targeted threats.”

Bit9 Cyber Forensics Service enables users to lookup files using a unique hash of the file through the secure Web services interface or by leveraging a physical copy of the database that is periodically refreshed. The hash lookup results include a comprehensive set of forensics metadata for that file, such as product, publisher, malware scanning results, threat level, age, category and more. By utilizing this data, enterprises, government agencies and organizations will be able to better use their existing security solutions to eliminate the risks of malicious software.

“The sheer volume of software that is accessible to any PC with an Internet connection outstrips any security team’s manual tracking efforts,” said Tom Murphy, Chief Strategy Officer, Bit9. “Our customers – in the commercial space and across military, civilian and DoD sectors – who need to accurately identify and analyze software require reliable, timely and scalable information. This new service makes it easy to identify, validate and understand the reputation of software files, reducing the investigations process from weeks to days.”

The Bit9 Cyber Forensics Service is available immediately, with pricing starting at $50K for five forensic users/year, and is offered through an on-demand “in the cloud” Web service or via a monthly disk refresh program.

Source:http://www.kansascity.com/2010/10/18/2324659/bit9-launches-cyber-forensics.html