ForeScout announced an integration with Splunk today that it hopes will bring a new level of security visibility to Internet of Things devices.
The new tool dubbed The ForeScout Extended Module for Splunk, allows two-way communication between the ForeScout CounterACT tool and Splunk Enterprise or Splunk Enterprise Security (Splunk ES) — with the goal of finding issues faster in order to minimize possible damage.
ForeScout, which has a unicorn valuation of a billion dollars, helps companies detect Internet of Things devices on their networks. Splunk provides much broader security visibility across the enterprise through its logging tools. The companies hope that by working together, they can shine a light IoT security issues before they become a problem.
While that’s the goal of every security tool, ForeScout believes that by working together with Splunk, and sharing information, the two tools can help break down the security information silo problem, ForeScout CMO Rob Greer explained.
“The typical enterprise uses scores of security platforms and software suites. The problem is that many don’t share information between them. Enterprises need to remove these data silos in order to get real insight into their operations,” he said.
“By using ForeScout and Splunk together, users can track network traffic, operational intelligence and user behavior analytics simultaneously, delivering a single source of actionable information,” he added.
In fact, last fall the infamous Mirai malware was used to exploit unsecured devices and turn them into hacking weapons of mass destruction, leading to the attack on the Dyn domain name service. That attack took down large swaths of the internet for a good part of a day, including such popular sites as Twitter and Spotify.
Even before that attack, Internet of Things security had been top of mind. In February, President Obama released his Cybersecurity National Action Plan. The plan called for a Cybersecurity Assurance program to provide a minimum level of security for Internet-connect devices.
ForeScout launched in 2000 and has raised over $158 million, according to the company. The most recent round was $76 million last January (eventually finalized as $80 million), on a valuation of a billion dollars.