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Swimlane and Dataminr, Autonomous Response for Real-time Physical Risks

When you think of threats to enterprises, cyber threats likely come to mind first. While malicious actors, data leaks, and malware certainly cause severe damage, they aren’t the only major threats to organizations. Large enterprises – and their security teams – are also challenged with protecting employees and corporate assets from threats such as inclement weather events, social unrest, and other instabilities that could affect workplaces. These complex and volatile events can lead to the same downtime and profit loss seen with cyber attacks – and worse, they may put people in harm’s way.

Ensuring Employee Safety in Times of Emergency

Communication is critical in times of crisis – and much, much more complicated nowadays. In the case of critical infrastructure organizations, like energy providers, employees in the field are often spread out and hard to reach. Field technicians in various areas need to be updated in real-time as events like natural disasters or major road closures unfold. Time is of the essence, and most organizations don’t have the processes or people needed to execute effective safety communications.

Remote workers and traveling employees require that security teams monitor for physical risks globally – not just near their headquarters locations. Wildfires, storms, and extreme weather events can quickly worsen while workers are in-route to conventions and business meetings. The same can be said for geo-political tension and civil unrest, which have doubled in the past decade according to the Global Peace Index. These events are unpredictable, but the last thing anyone wants is a member of a corporation’s team to be caught in the crosshairs during such events.

A Joint Solution to Automate Real-time Critical Communication

When lives are potentially in danger, accuracy and speed of communication are the top priority. Both Dataminr and Swimlane focus on these two critical components with a new integrated solution.

Dataminr leverages 100,000+ different sources like news feeds and social media posts to generate alerts on worldwide events 45-minutes faster than other sources. Swimlane Turbine ingests these alerts in real time and visualizes the data in dashboards using widgets like Google Maps. Analysts can quickly determine the severity of the situation while low-code playbooks accelerate the response processes. These autonomous response processes are capable of warning each employee in the affected area by relaying the Dataminr alert directly to them. Turbine triggers these communications to be sent via SMS, PagerDuty, Slack, or whatever the company’s tool of choice is. From beginning to end, crucial minutes are shaved off of response times with the help of security automation.

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Below: watch a demo of the Swimlane and Dataminr integration.

In Action: Security Automation for OT Environments

As a leader in the energy industry, Oklahoma Gas & Electric understands the importance of real-time communication in the wake of natural disasters like tornadoes and flooding. That’s why the organization decided to pave the way for an innovative solution that automates the mission-critical process of employee emergency communication. Their security operations team uses Dataminr’s AI-based event and risk detection technologies with Swimlane’s low-code security automation to identify events, locate any employees in that area, and warn them promptly.

The Swimlane and Dataminr integrated solution enables the energy company to better protect their employees and assets by leveraging critical capabilities such as:

  • Real-time risk detection
  • Geo-location tracking of remote employees and assets
  • Automated communication for safety procedures

“We often focus on preventing cyber disruption, which does us little good if we are not taking care of our most important asset; our people. This integration between Swimlane and Dataminr greatly speeds up our ability to identify and call each employee that might be headed into something unexpected. This solution is also automated, offering around-the-clock monitoring at a granular level that used to demand a lot of our team’s time. Having that process automated really empowered our team to take time back, all while ensuring our protection is as robust as possible when it comes to our employees.” – Jason Nations, CISSP, Enterprise Security, OGE Energy Corp.

Benefits Beyond the SOC

Low-code security automation and artificial intelligence (AI) are powerful tools for the security operations center (SOC). By enabling analysts to respond to threats faster inside and beyond the SOC, security teams can prove the value of these investments – and most importantly, help more people. Key benefits of the Swimlane and Dataminr integration include:

  • Gain faster insight into physical risks

  • Protect employees and assets anywhere, anytime

  • Ensure consistent and timely communication in critical situations

The Swimlane and Dataminr integration empowers security professionals to protect employees and company assets, faster. This first-of-its-kind integration is especially beneficial for organizations in critical infrastructure and OT environments. Eliminate the time-sucking daily tasks SOC analysts face and gain immediate insights into world events. When seconds matter most, make sure your team is ready.

*** This is a Security Bloggers Network syndicated blog from Swimlane (en-US) authored by Mike Kay. Read the original post at: https://swimlane.com/blog/swimlane-dataminr-partnership/