Apple's story in the business continues to unfold, this week with Jamf announcing plans to acquire mobile threat detection and response company ZecOps.
Already simple for the consumer, Jamf becomes safe from the government
Jamf is likely to reveal more about the motivations for the deal at its JNUC event for Apple administrators, which starts tomorrow. The purchase is the latest move by the Apple-focused enterprise MDM provider to supplement device management with an increasingly powerful set of tools for hardening device security.
From there, it seems inevitable that the addition of ZecOps technology will provide Apple's managed devices with greater awareness of the state of endpoint security, while also expanding Jamf's market.
ZecOps, declared one of the world's most innovative companies in 2021, is used to protect world-renowned companies, governments and individuals, including Bloomberg and the BBC. Identified a nasty iOS vulnerability in 2020.
“ZecOps is the only tool available that offers the ability to extract, deliver and analyze mobile device logs for signs of compromise or malicious activity,” said one customer, described only as “Department of 'state, a G7 government' .
Securing the business
Of course, it is in tune with the times. The pandemic has demonstrated the need for endpoint security, as criminals have begun targeting users to undermine corporate security systems. ZecOps is expected to extend Jamf's existing mobile security capabilities by adding advanced threat detection and incident response.
Ideally, devices should be able to act and react when a recognized exploit is committed against them. This seems like the way to go, given that ZecOps gives iOS users the same level of threat defense that Mac users already get with Jamf Protect.
It provides iOS devices with detection information for the types of sophisticated mobile threats that Apple's lockdown mode is intended to prevent. Not only that, but a user can run both lockdown mode and ZecOps software. (You must install the profiles for ZecOps/Jamf Protect and/or any VPN services you use on the device before enabling lockdown mode.)
Mobile devices now account for 59% of global website traffic, and according to the 2022 Verizon Mobile Security Index, nearly half (45%) of businesses say they have been compromised in the last 12 months .
The addition of the software means Jamf can help speed mobile security investigations from weeks to minutes, leveraging known indicators of compromise at scale and identifying sophisticated 0-click and 1-click attacks at larger scale.
Threat detection for the rest of us
Jamf CEO Dean Hager Jamf explained why this is important: "We believe ZecOps has created a differentiated solution that addresses a very important need for many organizations: the ability to detect and thoroughly investigate threats that target mobile users so they can confidently use these powerful devices for work,” he said.
"This capability further drives our goal to continue bridging the gap between what Apple offers and business needs."
What Jamf Earns
ZecOps is a sophisticated solution that enables advanced threat hunting by capturing and analyzing iOS and Android device logs at the operating system level. This critical data can accelerate incident response by enabling automated or on-demand mobile cyber investigations.
The solution was designed to manage the vast amount of data contained in iOS logs to identify potential zero-day or one-click or zero-click attacks. According to Jamf, ZecOps "does the heavy lifting for SOC teams, saving months of investigative work." It does this by automatically creating a timeline of suspicious events and a compromise to help show how and when devices are affected.
The idea that the technology can access your device logs may make some users uncomfortable, but companies point out that the system's log collection is limited to low-level system and diagnostic data. It does not include personal data such as photos, videos, text messages and call logs.
"We founded ZecOps to detect hidden 0-click and 1-click attacks," said Zuk Avraham, co-founder and CEO of ZecOps. "By partnering with Jamf, we are able to offer our customers truly powerful mobile threat intelligence and threat detection capabilities that will keep up with the changing threat landscape without compromising the user experience."
Corporate News for IT from Apple
This is just the latest in what now promises to be a series of exciting articles involving Apple in the business this fall, as we head to Apple Mac and iPad event announcements/press releases next month. (Right now, the speculation is that there may not be an Apple event.)
Jamf last week confirmed support for Jamf Pro for Virtual Mac on AWS. Open the doors to JNUC 2022 in San Diego tomorrow.
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