Group-IB teams up with Virtual Vendors in Australia and New Zealand to deliver local companies rock solid cyber defense

Group-IB, a global threat hunting and adversary-centric cyber intelligence company, has signed a partnership agreement with Virtual Vendors, an Australia based cyber security advisory company. The two companies aim to join forces to connect local business and government organizations to Group-IB’s products and services trusted by the world’s biggest financial, energy, telecommunications, eCommerce companies, and enterprises amid growing frequency and sophistication of cyberattacks on IT and OT networks.

According to the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC), an average of 164 cybercrime reports are made by Australians every day. Banking trojans and ransomware groups are increasingly active in the region. The top five sectors to report ransomware incidents to the ACSC are healthcare, government, education, transport and retail. As stated in the Hi-Tech Crime Trends Report 2020-21, Australia is one of the most favorite targets of infamous ransomware gangs, such as REvil and Ryuk. Cybercriminals are also actively interested in payment cards issued by the local banks: Australia is in the top-10 countries in the world by the number of card dumps traded on the underground marketplaces, as per the report.

The increased attack surface, caused by the growing remote workforce, is further driving change in the threat landscape for Australian and New Zealand private and public companies, whose cybersecurity teams are constantly challenged in the protection of the customer and corporate assets. Thanks to the partnership between Virtual Vendors and Group-IB, local financial sector, eCommerce, telecommunications, industrial companies and government institutions can now leverage Group-IB full suite of battle-tested Cyber Threat Intelligence & Attribution, Threat Hunting, Fraud Hunting, and Digital Risk Protection technologies. Group-IB smart cybersecurity ecosystem uniting Group-IB’s patented innovative technologies helps cybersecurity teams consolidate, prioritize, and make informed decisions on relevant threats posed to their organization.

Virtual Vendors has extensive commercial experience, active cyber expertise, and technical knowledge. The partners aim to deliver valuable real time defense, based upon Group-IB’s 18 years of proactive threat research and analysis. The ability to inform cyber teams of links between scatter incident data, cybercrime groups, phishing attacks, botnet and fraudulent activity is invaluable to Australia and New Zealand government and private enterprises as they continue to digitize their business.

Virtual Vendors are confident that both government and private enterprises across our region will benefit from Group-IB’s technological leadership which is built on more than 18 years of experience in cybercrime investigations worldwide, and more than 65,000 hours of incident response. We are pleased to partner with Group-IB, to make these essential, market-leading cyber solutions available to all Australian and New Zealand enterprises.„ The recent attack at Channel Nine again highlighted that organization’s need tools driven by real time information to defend against these new variants of malware or ransomware, that’s why the platforms and expertise that Group IB provides, is invaluable in helping to protect valuable digital assets by understanding key vulnerabilities, based upon great intelligence.

Gregory Ryan

Managing Partner at Virtual Vendors

Group-IB’s continued investment into the Australian market is essential to our growth as a Singaporean company and to further support clients within the region for their Cyber Threat Intelligence, Network Security, Anti-Fraud and Digital Risk Protection needs. The Australian government has placed significant focus on developing cyber security in all critical infrastructure segments. Our partnership with Virtual Vendors was taken given the significant experience of its leadership team working with the financial and government segments as former CISO and business leaders within the Australian market and we look forward to working together with our new partners to bring visibility to the threats and adversaries that their customers and all of Australia faces.

Nicholas Palmer

Head of Group-IB Global Business

About Group-IB

Founded in 2003 and headquartered in Singapore, Group-IB is a leading creator of cybersecurity technologies to investigate, prevent, and fight digital crime. Combating cybercrime is in the company’s DNA, shaping its technological capabilities to defend businesses, citizens, and support law enforcement operations.

Group-IB’s Digital Crime Resistance Centers (DCRCs) are located in the Middle East, Europe, Central Asia, and Asia-Pacific to help critically analyze and promptly mitigate regional and country-specific threats. These mission-critical units help Group-IB strengthen its contribution to global cybercrime prevention and continually expand its threat-hunting capabilities.

Group-IB’s decentralized and autonomous operational structure helps it offer tailored, comprehensive support services with a high level of expertise. We map and mitigate adversaries’ tactics in each region, delivering customized cybersecurity solutions tailored to risk profiles and requirements of various industries, including retail, healthcare, gambling, financial services, manufacturing, crypto, and more.

The company’s global security leaders work in synergy with some of the industry’s most advanced technologies to offer detection and response capabilities that eliminate cyber disruptions agilely.

Group-IB’s Unified Risk Platform (URP) underpins its conviction to build a secure and trusted cyber environment by utilizing intelligence-driven technology and agile expertise that completely detects and defends against all nuances of digital crime. The platform proactively protects organizations’ critical infrastructure from sophisticated attacks while continuously analyzing potentially dangerous behavior all over their network.

The comprehensive suite includes the world’s most trusted Threat Intelligence, The most complete Fraud Protection, AI-powered Digital Risk Protection, Multi-layered protection with Managed Extended Detection and Response (XDR), All-infrastructure Business Email Protection, and External Attack Surface Management.

Furthermore, Group-IB’s full-cycle incident response and investigation capabilities have consistently elevated industry standards. This includes the 77,000+ hours of cybersecurity incident response completed by our sector-leading DFIR Laboratory, more than 1,400 successful investigations completed by the High-Tech Crime Investigations Department, and round-the-clock efforts of CERT-GIB.

Time and again, its solutions and services have been revered by leading advisory and analyst agencies such as Aite Novarica, Gartner®, Forrester, Frost & Sullivan, KuppingerCole Analysts AG, and more.

Being an active partner in global investigations, Group-IB collaborates with international law enforcement organizations such as INTERPOL, EUROPOL and AFRIPOL to create a safer cyberspace. Group-IB is also a member of the Europol European Cybercrime Centre’s (EC3) Advisory Group on Internet Security, which was created to foster closer cooperation between Europol and its leading non-law enforcement partners.