As cyber-attacks increase in number, sophisticated attackers are using memory-based and file-less attack techniques which cannot be detected or protected against using legacy host-based security solutions like WAF and EDR. This makes runtime application protection a necessity as a last line of defense to protect against the new generation of cyber-attacks. K2 Cyber Security has developed a patented deterministic technique of optimized control flow integrity (OCFI) that creates a unique “DNA” map of the application. The “DNA” map is used during runtime to validate that the application executes as designed and alerts on deviations of correct execution caused by memory-based attacks.
Sophisticated and advanced zero-day attack types such as return orientated programming (ROP), buffer overflow and memory-based attacks do not have any files or signatures to analyze which are the technologies legacy solutions depend on to detect attacks, rendering them ineffective against these threats as well as causing latency and the creation of a huge numbers of false alerts. Legacy host based or perimeter security solutions do not have visibility into application execution and cannot deterministically protect against memory-based attacks which requires knowledge of how applications function when executing correctly to detect these advanced threats.