Blue Coat Expands Security Collaboration for Encrypted Traffic Management

Blue Coat Systems, Inc today announced it has added seven new partners to the Blue Coat Encrypted Traffic Management (ETM) Ready Program, bringing the total number of partners to 17. This group of leading security vendors forms the largest industry collaboration to help customers expose and combat threats hiding in encrypted traffic while also protecting privacy and ensuring compliance. Launched in March 2015, the ETM Ready Program is designed to prepare and certify Blue Coat Technology Alliance Partners to integrate  SSL visibility solutions into the Blue Coat architecture, resulting in best-in-class security products to effectively detect and eliminate the hidden threats in encrypted traffic.

Today, the number of both business and consumer websites using SSL encryption as the default for securing all data in transit continues to grow. According to Blue Coat Labs research, of the top 10 most visited web sites, 100 percent of them use HTTPS, or encrypted traffic, rendering 100 percent of that traffic invisible to all security devices unless it is decrypted. The growing use of encryption to address privacy concerns is creating a perfect set of conditions for cyber criminals to hide malware inside encrypted transactions. In fact, Blue Coat researchers have found that it often reduces the level of sophistication required for malware to avoid detection; thereby making it easier for malware to get onto the network. The Blue Coat researchers found that over a typical seven-day period, out of 1.1 million new sites identified and classified, over 40,000 requests were newly-classified malicious HTTPS sites and 100,000 requests – or approximately 10 percent –  to Command-and-Control HTTPS sites were already infected.

About the ETM Ready Program

ETM Ready Program is designed to enable Blue Coat technology partners to build solutions that help combat security threats hidden in encrypted traffic while preserving privacy, policy and regulatory compliance. By integrating their products with the Blue Coat SSL Visibility Appliance, Blue Coat technology partners’ products can offer certified solutions to detect, prevent and eliminate the hidden threats in encrypted traffic.