The fight against cyber threats has long been a game of reaction—security teams scrambling to respond after attackers have already infiltrated systems, stolen data, or deployed ransomware. But what if cybersecurity could shift from reactive to proactive?
By Joe Lea, CEO
Cybersecurity Too Often Plays Catch-Up
Most security products today detect an attack once it’s already happening. Security teams rely on indicators of compromise (IOCs)—things like malicious IP addresses, domains, and attack patterns that have been seen before. But by the time these indicators are recognized and shared, the damage is often already done. The hackers have broken in, stolen data, and left traces for investigators to piece together after the fact.
Antivirus was declared dead in 2014 by Symantec, and since, endpoint detection and response (EDR) has reigned king. But this reactive approach leaves companies exposed, playing an endless game of catch-up against attackers who are constantly evolving their tactics. For example, attackers are now using AI and genAI to leapfrog traditional defensive solutions, moving at a pace not seen before and outpacing EDR. The consequences?
- Ransomware attacks shut down hospitals, forcing them to turn away patients.
- Banks and financial institutions suffer breaches, exposing millions of customer records.
- Government agencies are infiltrated by nation-state actors who remain undetected for months, siphoning sensitive intelligence.
Why does this keep happening? Conventional cybersecurity waits until there’s evidence of an attack already in progress before taking action. But what if we could predict these attacks before they start?
Augur Is a New Way Forward
As an industry, cybersecurity vendors have over rotated on detection to the detriment of prevention, writ large. We collectively gave up on proactive protection, rather than digging in and innovating on new ways to prevent attacks. This is where Augur steps in.
Instead of waiting for an attack to unfold, Augur predicts it before it happens. Augur as a verb means to foreshadow or foretell; this is the core, distinctive competence of our company. Our AI-driven predictive threat prevention platform identifies emerging cyber threats—tracking malicious infrastructure months in advance—so you can block attacks before they strike.
How does it work?
- Augur continuously monitors global Internet activity, tracking infrastructure changes that suggest malicious intent.
- It uses AI-driven behavioral modeling to detect when cybercriminals acquire IP addresses, register domains, or configure attack servers.
- Augur identifies these threats an average of 50 days before they’re used in an attack—sometimes even longer.
- With a continuously evolving knowledge base of adversary behavior built over a decade, Augur’s predictions are enriched with context like threat actor attribution, infrastructure profiles, and behavioral indicators.
- Augur integrates seamlessly with a broad range of cybersecurity solutions.
The result? Proactive protection that can genuinely prevent attacks.
- Instead of reacting to threats after they breach your defenses, Augur blocks them before they even go live.
- Instead of relying on intelligence about past attacks, Augur gives you foresight into what’s coming next.
- Instead of scrambling to recover from a breach, organizations can defend against attacks before they are breached.
- Instead of manually triaging alerts and intelligence, Augur can automatically block attacks at machine speed or you can integrate Augur intelligence with security ops workflows for faster, more intelligent responses that reduce mean time to respond.
This isn’t just a better way to do cybersecurity—it’s a fundamentally different approach.
How Augur Stopped a Major Cyber Attack Before It Even Happened
The MOVEit Ransomware Attack: A Cyber Disaster That Didn’t Have to Happen
In May 2023, a devastating cyberattack unfolded. Hackers exploited a vulnerability in MOVEit, a widely used file transfer platform, to steal sensitive data from hundreds of organizations worldwide. The attack compromised government agencies, major financial institutions, and global enterprises, causing financial losses, operational disruptions, and reputational damage.
For most companies, this was yet another "zero-day" nightmare—a vulnerability they didn’t see coming, exploited before they even knew it existed. Security teams scrambled to contain the breach, patch systems, and assess the damage.
However, some organizations had a different experience.
The Augur Difference: A 14-Month Head Start
- In March 2022—14 months before the attack—Augur detected the early signs of a cybercriminal group setting up infrastructure for an impending campaign.
- Augur identified a range of malicious IP addresses that were later linked to the MOVEit exploit.
- Augur’s AI-driven platform proactively blocked these IPs for its customers automatically long before any attack occurred.
- Augur customers were already safe when the rest of the world scrambled to respond because the attack infrastructure couldn’t reach them.
What This Means for Businesses
Most security teams operate under the assumption that zero-day threats are inevitable—that attacks will happen, and they just have to respond as quickly as possible. They’re scrambling to fortify their defenses against AI-enabled attackers moving at a pace not seen before. But what if you could predict zero-day attacks before they were even disclosed? What if you could head off AI-enabled attackers before a “Patient Zero” exists?
That’s precisely what Augur does.
By identifying cybercriminal behavior at the earliest stages, Augur prevents attacks months before they are launched. This preemptive approach is key to disrupting sophisticated campaigns that are increasingly AI-driven. For the companies using Augur, the most impactful breaches, like the MOVEit attack, was just another blocked attempt in their security logs.
The Cost of Being Reactive vs. Proactive
For years, companies have accepted breaches as inevitable—building up their layered defenses, hiring more analysts, and hoping to react fast enough when something goes wrong. The costs of this approach are staggering and the resulting complexity of a lacework of tools is hard to maintain.
The Financial Cost: Attacks Are More Expensive Than Ever
- The average cost of a data breach in 2023 reached $4.5 million, which climbs even higher for critical industries like healthcare and finance.
- Ransomware attacks can cost companies millions in ransom payments, lost revenue, and recovery efforts.
- Cyber insurance premiums are skyrocketing, with some insurers denying coverage to companies that can’t demonstrate proactive security measures.
But the financial impact is just the beginning.
Operational Cost: When Security Fails, Business Stops
- When ransomware locks up critical systems, hospitals cancel surgeries, manufacturing plants shut down production, and supply chains grind to a halt.
- The average time to detect and contain a breach is over 200 days—meaning hackers could be inside your network for months before you even realize it.
- Even after an attack is resolved, downtime, forensic investigations, compliance penalties, and legal fallout can cripple a business for years.
Reputation Cost: Trust Is Hard to Earn and Easy to Lose
- Customers are quicker than ever to take their business elsewhere after a data breach.
- 81% of consumers say they would stop engaging with a brand after a cyber incident that compromised their data.
- Regulatory fines and lawsuits for mishandling security incidents are increasing, especially in industries handling sensitive personal or financial information.
The question isn’t just “Can you survive a cyberattack?” it’s “Can you afford to be patient zero?”
Why Preemptive Defense Is the Only Solution
The organizations using Augur have been shielded from these consequences. By predicting and blocking threats before they launch, Augur users:
- Prevent breaches instead of responding to them
- Avoid operational disruptions and financial losses
- Protect their corporate reputation and customer trust
Reactive, detection and response focused security isn’t enough anymore. The cost is just too high.
The Human Side of Cybersecurity
Cybersecurity shouldn’t feel like chasing ghosts in the dark. But most security teams today are stuck in constant reaction mode—chasing alerts, investigating breaches, and trying to decipher what went wrong after the fact. That’s not how protection should work.
The best security isn’t about cleaning up the mess—it’s about making sure the mess never happens in the first place.
With Augur, security teams don’t have to be detectives scrambling to piece together an attack—they can be strategists preventing attacks before they unfold.
Cybersecurity Should Be a First-Mover Advantage
Right now, cybercriminals have the upper hand. They move fast, set up attack infrastructure before launching, and exploit the fact that most companies are stuck in a reactive loop, relying exclusively on detection and response technologies.
But what if security teams could move first? With Augur, you don’t have to wait to be attacked—you can make the first move. Imagine a world where:
- You block threats before they ever reach your systems.
- You don’t wake up to breach notifications because the attack was stopped months ago.
- Your security team focuses on high-value strategy instead of endless incident response.
That’s the difference predictive threat prediction makes.
