Loki Labs
Enabling Proactive Security

Apart from the increasing sophistication of multi-dimensional threat vectors, the other key concern for global businesses today is the lack of understanding of their own IT infrastructure. Most companies have a security posture that is not aligned with their business strategy, and yet they believe having an antivirus as the end-all and be-all. Coming from an NSA background with expertise in implementing inventive cybersecurity measures, Nick Hnatiw co-founded Loki Labs to help companies gain the visibility into the weak spots in their environment and achieve foolproof IT ecosystem. Loki Labs implements cyber threat hunting techniques to granularly understand the changes that are taking place in the environment in real time, helping clients to discern the good from the bad. “Beyond technology-driven analytics, we bring to the table the tribal knowledge to help clients tackle the adversaries lurking in their environment,” says Nick Hnatiw Co-founder & CEO, Loki Labs.

Loki Labs offers Security Operations Center (SOC) as-a-service through which they conduct client reconnaissance, understanding and assessing their critical assets with respect to security. They gain deep information on the crown jewels in the environment and interact with diverse teams to create a map of dependencies and have a 360-degree view of the infrastructure. Further, they gather information of the systems down to the kernel level. “Our ability to gather holistic data from across the infrastructure is second to none in the industry,” highlights John Phillips, Co-founder & President. Backed by this information, they initiate black hat style penetration testing through their red team. Unlike other companies, Loki Labs doesn’t depend on approval from system administrators prior to launching attacks on the client network, and yet they ensure their practices adhere to the client’s security policies. Post exploitation, Loki Labs provides the necessary reporting through which they help clients identify the vulnerabilities. They bring in their blue team to find a comprehensive solution to plug the loopholes existing in the infrastructure. Taking a proactive threat hunting approach, Loki Labs constantly checks for indicators of security compromise.

In addition, Loki Labs provides active support to companies delving into merger and acquisition (M&A) process. Agents from Loki Labs are deployed in the client environment where the behavior of the networks and any plausible network threats are studied. This process provides vital insights for the company that is merging or buying out another company and provides a good understanding of the risks that are underwritten in the service level agreement (SLA). By doing this, Loki Labs helps to look at the M&A process from not just an IT perspective, but also from a security standpoint. “Machines have their own limitations whilst looking for threats. While they prove to be great at automation, human intelligence is required for creativity and multi-perspective thinking,” says Hnatiw.

Beyond technology-driven analytics, we bring to the table the tribal knowledge to help clients tackle the adversaries lurking in their environment

The future looks bright for Loki Labs as they are all set to open an office in Chicago. They are entering into a partnership with New York University to create a Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) training program that will be tied to the masters programs. The prime objective of this training program would be that CISO’s will be trained in cyber security management with regards to overall management and its connection to technology. What’s more, Loki Labs aims to deploy SOC services for wealth fund and private equity fund companies in New York, where the state has stipulated that all financial services firms should have an SOC.