Aerobyte Cyber
Redefining the Standard of Zero Trust Security

“Never trust, always verify”—the basic notion of zero trust system architecture was emphasized in a recent executive order of the federal government. The order aims at strengthening the protection of computer networks and systems across the government with specific security methods and tools such as multifactor authentication, encryption, and more importantly, zero trust.

One thing is clear—the value of zero trust security architecture is understood and enforced at the highest levels across federal agencies and enterprises. However, an inherent drawback associated with the zero trust security model is that many adopters still base the identity verification component of zero trust on the archaic norm of provisioning identities, i.e., usernames and passwords, which are often the weakest links in the chain. Many organizations are oblivious of their inability to place reliable control on the distribution of these tokens. This, in turn, imparts a feeling of false security. Such companies assume that they need to only secure identity at their most vulnerable areas, such as the data centers, ignoring the inner layers.

Aerobyte Cyber redefines this traditional “castlemoat-perimeter” security infrastructure paradigm with its Cyber Defense Framework (CDF). The CDF deploys a zero trust architecture and Software-Defined Perimeter (SDP) consisting of a comprehensive suite of sophisticated virtualized software infrastructure delivered on an enterprise ready hardware platform that protects an organization from the inside out, all the way to their farthest endpoints. As a cyber defense powerhouse, Aerobyte protects information over any open network on-premise, or in the cloud, or even a node connected via a local coffee shop halfway around the world. The company's scalable solutions drive down cyber security costs and provide complete control over the perimeter frontier, protecting every endpoint and communication stream. This truly exemplifies the practical side of the zero trust approach.

“We focus on protecting five things: identity, endpoints, data in motion, data at rest and the human element. Aerobyte cyber defense framework is designed when deployed to provide rapid response and remediation to any type of security breach or issue,” states Howard Hellman, Founder and CEO of Aerobyte Cyber.

Novelty Driven by Passion for Cybersecurity

Growing up in South Florida, Howard Hellman developed an early love for technology. His family owned a video game business in the eighties that allowed Hellman to become proficient with computers when he was young. After earning a degree in Applied Psychology from The University of South Florida in 1993, Hellman started his career with Data Resource Group (DRG) and became the VP of sales.

By the summer of 1999, Hellman realized he was ready to forge his own path. "Around this same time, I met Bill Tabor, my current partner at Aerobyte Cyber Defense," Hellman says. Tabor is an IT expert with over 40 years of experience in distributed Unix computing environments, secured database technology, artificial intelligence, and complex high-performance computing. He has led the development of many IT security projects over the past 30 years. “Together, we know how to break into anything; and that's how we keep others out,” states Hellman.

"It's extremely easy to take our framework, implement it to a legacy network infrastructure, and run all the testing, benchmarking, and comparisons"

Today, Aerobyte's methodology entails deploying a modernized infrastructure that streamlines unnecessary traditional switching, core routing and network security functions connecting a client to a compute resource. By doing so, Aerobyte can effectively virtualize the networking, security and routing—all on a single platform—to address the vulnerabilities associated with the traditional network hardware infrastructure. The company virtualized dynamic encryption tunneling, which acts as the data's pipes or plumbing to connect each server to other server units and make the new softwaredefined perimeter (SDP) or extremely secure virtualized infrastructure for modern data interconnectivity.

The Aerobyte Cyber Defence Framework

CDF's zero trust model streamlines and encapsulates what zero trust should be within a single platform. The solution’s objective is to defend and protect individuals, corporations, and governments from the inside out, where every endpoint with an IP address may be turned into a new perimeter. Organizations will be able to configure, deploy, and protect data where it is most vulnerable while also enabling management, monitoring, analytics, and configuration tools to automate protection. The solution may be applied to a variety of different use cases, to deliver a highly secure, simple, and cost-effective cyber defense solution for enterprise-scale legacy systems.

After all, legacy systems, by definition, cannot be upgraded beyond a certain level and inherently become their own kryptonite. As they age, updates become obsolete, patches need to be created, and plug-ins get quilted together in an attempt to increase longevity. The process inevitably forces additional vulnerabilities to become exposed. To add to this risk, legacy systems are often found within the most significant and sought-after targets, such as the government. As challenging as the security of legacy systems may appear, Aerobyte's CDF is designed specifically to ensure they are protected.

On the other end of the spectrum, and at the very edge, IoT systems can also benefit from the CDF. IoT devices are not built with security in mind, and many of them cannot even have security installed in them. In some cases, they have been known to come pre-loaded with malware. The situation is growing complicated today as work-from-home (WFH) and bring-yourown-devices (BYOD) culture is adding IoT devices to networks at a rate of up to one million devices each day.

We focus on protecting five things: identity, endpoints, data in motion, data at rest and the human element

As such, companies and government agencies are forced to interact with many IoT components on a daily basis. Overcoming these challenges, Aerobyte's IoT Security Platform can turn any mobile or IoT device into a trusted device and protect and monitor its use.

The solution can also effectively reduce an organization's supply chain security costs and allow external contractors or suppliers to comply with the highest security standards. Aerobyte's API based framework works to secure local networks and the internet as a whole. Even if a company is compromised, they still won't be at risk— CDF is designed to stop an attack even before it begins and help remediate a compromised network after it has been infected.

Preemptive Action to Secure Companies from Potential

Threats Aerobyte's approach is enterpriseoriented with an architecture and framework built on a standard modular, scalable, and enterpriseresilient infrastructure that minimizes IT computing security costs and complexity. The company offers a simple, cost-effective solution that can provide data center resilience and cyber security to a person's home office guaranteeing that not just the user but the system and the corporation's data is secured.

Aerobyte has understood the challenges faced by numerous government agencies, large OEM technology companies and leaders within the Financial and Utility sectors. Its products that will be launched Q1 2022 are designed to address these challenges and Aerobyte continues to work night and day to refine their systems to provide a modern infrastructure that is cyber resilient, incorporating what zero trust should be. With their vast industry experience, Hellman and his partner Bill Tabor, have laid out a road map to build upon the notion of zero trust into security, tounravel the complexities of today’s network security infrastructure.

In the months to come, Aerobyte aims to continue researching different zero trust technologies and engage with as many organizations as possible in an effort to improve the cybersecurity posture of enterprises worldwide. Hellman assures that all companies can transition to the Aerobyte cyber security environment smoothly and quickly. “It's extremely easy to take our framework, implement it to a legacy network infrastructure, and run all the testing, benchmarking, and comparisons,” says Hellman.

With 2022 just around the corner, Hellman and Tobor have several plans in the pipeline, such as improved licensing arrangements with partners who can integrate the Aerobyte technology into their systems to offer a more robust and resilient environment. “We have a whole new trust process that we're going to launch in the fourth quarter 2022 that is going to basically set/ redefine what trust should be,” concludes Hellman.