Columbus Collaboratory Launches WatchTower™ Affordable Vulnerability Management As A Service

COLUMBUS, Ohio, Sept. 11, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Columbus Collaboratory, a rapid innovation company founded by leading companies in seven different industries that delivers business value through advanced analytics and cybersecurity solutions, today announced the launch of WatchTower™. As an affordable, practical and unique vulnerability management subscription service, WatchTower identifies and manages cybersecurity risk. WatchTower was a direct result of Columbus Collaboratory's unique embrace of collaboration in defining and creating new security and analytics solutions.

Leveraging the Collaboratory's unique model, the company's seven founding members – American Electric Power, Battelle, Cardinal Health, LBrands, Huntington Bancshares, Nationwide Insurance and OhioHealth – collaborated together to share know-how and best practices around vulnerability management, and the importance of an up-to-date view of their internal and internet-facing network surface area. And with those members' investment, testing and support, Columbus Collaboratory is making available its new WatchTower service.

This offering includes both a tool to deliver quick and understandable visibility into cyberrisk, as well as Columbus Collaboratory's professional services that help organizations create a strategy around vulnerabilities, interpret scan results and determine the appropriate response to known and new risks as they are discovered. With WatchTower, Columbus Collaboratory offers an affordable service to companies that to this point had been largely underserved by mainstream vulnerability management solutions. The offering provides a persistent, automated view of surface area risks and comparisons with peer companies through a cloud-based platform.

"With so many threats coming from numerous vectors, companies find it increasingly difficult to not only monitor where they are at risk, but also to prioritize what actions to take," said Tim Hudson, senior analyst at Battelle. "Working within the Columbus Collaboratory framework allows organizations to help create a solution that not only highlights potential research industry vulnerabilities, but also makes our insights available to companies across industries."

Managing an organization's cyberrisk can be messy and overwhelming, with constant challenges in monitoring and maintaining a comprehensive view of ongoing threats. For example, according to a recent CBS MoneyWatch report, losses from the "WannaCry" ransomware attack, which exploited a known, patchable vulnerability, could reach $4 billion. Until WatchTower, vulnerability management solutions were either too expensive and complex, or required extensive manual effort using common productivity tools. As a result, there is a market of enterprises in need of expertise to scan the network, as well as a practical tool to interpret the results in meaningful ways.

"Continuous vulnerability management is the first line of cyberdefense, but the volume of information and event records associated with this can be immense, and it is not sufficient to merely capture the data," said Jeff Schmidt, vice president and chief cybersecurity innovator for Columbus Collaboratory. "Security managers are unsatisfied and frustrated by the vulnerability management solutions that dominate the market, and we believe WatchTower vulnerability management as a service is an accessible and foundational security solution for any business."

WatchTower Service Overview

Columbus Collaboratory's WatchTower vulnerability management as a service is a practical solution to ingest, normalize and prioritize vulnerabilities for a fraction of the cost of other systems and capabilities. With included professional services, WatchTower enables resource-oriented decisions based on what is urgent, what steps can make a significant impact on risk, and what risks a company can accept. WatchTower features include:

• Management of your external or internal threat scanning needs, including expert analysis
• Professional services to set scanning parameters, manage and determine risk priorities
• Strategically scheduled scans to continuously monitor threat changes
• Immediate access to analytics and data visualizations that clearly communicate your security posture based on recent scan data
• Up-to-date view of trending threats to keep you situationally aware
• Grouping of vulnerabilities by Common Vulnerability Scoring System rating to assist with prioritization and remediation
• Custom host and vulnerability tagging to enable tailored filtering and reporting
• Managed exceptions for vulnerability types and hosts without reworking for each new scan

For more information about Columbus Collaboratory WatchTower, visit https://collaborativesecurity.com/WatchTower.

About Columbus Collaboratory

Columbus Collaboratory is a rapid innovation company founded by leading companies in seven different industries (American Electric Power, Battelle, Cardinal Health, LBrands, Huntington Bancshares, Nationwide Insurance, OhioHealth) that delivers business value to its members through advanced analytics and cybersecurity solutions. Our unique model surfaces shared, complex challenges and operationalizes cognitive and machine learning technologies for our member companies and the broader market. We make this possible by capitalizing on the collective know-how possessed by our team, collaborating companies and partners. As a result, we strengthen Ohio's IT and analytics workforce and secure the region's future as a national leader in technology innovation. For more information, please visit www.columbuscollaboratory.com and follow @cbuscollab.

SOURCE Columbus Collaboratory

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https://columbuscollaboratory.com