Tech tools

Our third quarterly (Q3) threat report is here and it’s overflowing with cybersecurity data, trends, and recommendations to help you protect your organization. Here are our top five takeaways from Q3.

Expel is excited to open source a new Hashicorp Vault plugin that brokers database credentials between Hashicorp Vault and Google’s CloudSQL DBs.

Our Alert Similarity tool lets us teach our bots to compare similar “documents” and suggest or recommend a next step, freeing up our analysts. Here’s a walk-through of how we developed it.

Our second quarterly (Q2) threat report is here and its chock full of cybersecurity data, trends, and recommendations to help you protect your organization. Here are our top five takeaways from Q2.

We process millions of alerts each day, and many look similar to one another. We asked ourselves: is it possible to teach our bots to compare similar “documents” and suggest or recommend a next step? (Spoiler alert: YES!)

Read on to learn why we use the RIOT API to dispatch network security alerts that don't require further investigation and how these APIs parse the results for human consumption.

With cryptojacking on the rise, we walk through why we’ve found Palo Alto Networks next-generation firewall is great at detecting it, and some actions we’ve integrated into our detection bot to help.

It was four days of excitement as we made our exhibitor debut at #RSAC. Now that we’ve had time to reflect on this year’s conference, here are three of the big takeaways from our time at Moscone.

Day three of the conference was full of interesting conversations with long-time industry folks who are no stranger to RSA. Here are some of our favorite takeaways and observations.

Another day at RSA full of interesting speakers, lessons learned, and (of course) cool swag — but one session stood out to us the most. Here are some of our main takeaways from day two.

That’s a wrap on day one of #RSAC and we’re still reeling from excitement. From beatboxers to keynote speakers, here are some of our takeaways from the first day at Moscone.

Top takeaways from our first quarterly report, filled with patterns and trends we identified from Q1 2022. Our goal? Help translate the events we detect into a security strategy for your organization.

For the first time, Expel is headed to RSA Conference as an exhibitor! Stop by our booth to meet the crew, snag some swag, meet Josie and Ruxie, and let us show you that security can be delightful.

As more people look to donate to Ukrainian relief efforts, bad actors are taking advantage. Lookout for these phishing scams to ensure your donations are actually going to help those in need.

Looking to reduce the meeting load on your technical teams while maintaining effective communication and collaboration? Learn the tools and tips that our CTO uses to improve his team’s “meeting mojo.”

Looking for an MDR provider? Make sure you understand their onboarding process. Here are the questions you should ask when you’re evaluating MDRs. Bonus: learn how we do onboarding here at Expel.

Cloud-based infrastructures can be confusing, but sometimes building a better security program starts with the basics. Try these pro tips to help focus the lens for detecting threats in AWS.

They’re at it again. This time attackers are phishing for credentials by sending fake AWS log-in pages to unsuspecting users. Find out how our crew identified and triaged a phishing email.

Not sure if you should build your own hunting capability or get a hunting partner? Check out this post to discover your options and the things you should consider (yes, we break down cost for you).

How does Expel tackle phishing? Smart people and great tech. Learn how VMRay helps our analysts triage and analyze potentially malicious emails submitted by our managed phishing service customers.

First we showed you how to spot an Okta compromise in this two-part blog series. Now we’ll walk you through our investigation and share five tips on how you can strengthen your security defense.

Building detections in Google Cloud Platform (GCP) but not sure where to start? Time to get strategic. Our detection and response engineers demystify the process for building detections in the cloud.

A red team recently swooped in and showed off some new tactics. What started as a PowerShell download cradle quickly turned into a custom rootkit download. Find out how we spotted the crafty red team.

Want a tour of Expel’s Phishing dashboard? Get a behind-the-scenes look at how one of our senior UX designers developed the Phishing dashboard for Expel’s managed phishing service customers.

We’re noticing a trend in ransomware attacks. But that doesn’t mean it’s time to go into panic mode. Find out what you need to know and get some tips on how you can keep your org safe.

You can scale your SOC and improve quality. Seems impossible? Not if you know how and what to measure. The crew that helped build Expel’s SOC explain how they pulled it off – and how you can too.

We shared the top attack trend spotted during the pandemic and what to keep an eye out for looking ahead. But how do you remediate and stay resilient against these attacks? Our crew shares some tips.

Our team shares some success stories in creating efficiency and reducing analyst burnout. They end this three-part series with a gift from our SOC – a downloadable resource to measure performance.

We’ve added something new to Expel Hunting: cloud hunts. Find out how our crew’s newly developed hunting techniques can help you spot visibility gaps in your cloud (and give you some peace of mind).

Take our short quiz to find out how your approach to AWS security compares to similar orgs. Based on your responses, we’ll also share some resources to help you level up your AWS security game.

Find out how Expel’s internal teams collaborated to migrate our core infrastructure from a legacy environment to GCP, with no downtime (while also making sure they were prepared for a little chaos).

Flying blind when it comes to running Hashicorp Vault in Kubernetes? We’ve got you covered. Accelerate your path to production without compromising on security with these tips and best practices.

Migrating to Kubernetes as Expel’s core engineering platform with zero downtime – and without interfering with our analysts’ workflow – is a tall order. But our engineers pulled it off. Find out how.

Find out how Expel’s internal teams built an integration on top of Azure signal – creating a new detection strategy for ASC that provides more context around alerts and improves customer visibility.

We’re excited to announce the launch of our first SaaS product! It automates the investigation of AWS alerts and logs – allowing your team to spend less time finding and fixing security issues.

Got Microsoft Azure? Running Microsoft products in your org? Then you might want to get a free copy of our all-new Azure guidebook.

Find out how Expel’s D&R engineers think about detection writing, and how this process helps our SOC analysts make smart decisions and gain a deeper understanding of our customers’ environments.

What do you do when you can’t trust the internet? Supply chain attacks like the SolarWinds Orion breach are not new. Here are some things you can do to help prepare and guard against similar attacks.

Here’s how Expel created a phishing triage process that keeps our analysts’ heads above water while also ensuring that a trained pair of eyes is on every email submitted by our customers.

Here are some of our early observations on the SolarWinds Orion breach, plus our ideas on what to do next to detect related activity and better protect your org.

Ever wonder about how Expel’s analysts investigate alerts? Our SOC team created a workflow called the Expel Workbench managed alert process. Read on to find out how it works and how it can help you.

It’s impossible to sum up a year that felt like 1000 in a single blog post. But we did gather some topline takeaways on security trends and the evolving role of the CISO from Expel’s Bruce Potter.

We’re open sourcing a python client in the Expel Workbench! This labor of love will allow our customers to take advantage of our APIs. Find out what the release of the pyexclient project includes.

In this second post in our three-part series on all things metrics and SOC leadership, our team dives into details of what metrics and techniques are used to protect the SOC against volatility.

You’ve heard that Expel integrates with your tech. But not YOUR tech. What gives? Well, sometimes it doesn’t always make sense. Expel’s COO explains why and what this means when working with us.

How can a SIEM help you address your business needs? Do you even need a SIEM? Finding the right answer isn’t easy. Here are some tips to help you make a decision that works best for you.