Digicentre: Industrial Information and Mobile App Security

Cybersecurity professionals perceive artificial intelligence (AI) as a two-way street. On the one hand, AI has the potential to add extra layers of protection for critical data and infrastructure, but on the other, it can also act as a powerful weapon for hackers to thwart those defenses. Since AI brings along both strengths to be leveraged and weaknesses that can be exploited, the onus is on organizations to stay a step ahead of infiltrators. They also need to have a clear understanding of how exactly hackers use AI as an offensive data weapon and devise security strategies accordingly. Taiwan-based Digicentre helps organizations protect their corporate as well as personal data by leveraging AI and other modern technologies to monitor hackers’ activities and provide early warnings of security breaches. The company offers a wide range of network infrastructure services and comprehensive security capabilities that satisfy even the most demanding information security requirements.

Digicentre started out as the IT and security department of Gamania—a Taiwanese gaming company—and was responsible for planning and managing the operation and IT security of thousands of servers within Gamania’s internet data center (IDC). Since becoming an independent subsidiary of Gamania, Digicentre has been focusing on utilizing its vast operational experience to deliver sophisticated services for both corporate and mobile application security.

In the case of corporate or industrial information security, Digicentre prevents infiltrations as well as monitors unauthorized connections, quickly detects traces of hackers, and performs a thorough system investigation to avoid future breaches.

The company’s code review reduces information security risks during the development stage through comprehensive analysis. While automated vulnerability scans help effectively identify weak spots in the operating systems and networks, Digicentre’s penetration test simulates attack methods of hackers to further pinpoint information security vulnerabilities. To examine network architecture design and security strength from an intrusion point of view, the company also performs post-penetration tests by creating virtual invasion scenarios. Each of the resulting vulnerabilities is then backtracked to their roots and repaired to prevent the event from recurring.

“We track user behavior by simulating how corporate emails often get leaked, where hackers use phishing emails to trick employees into executing the files attached or lead them to enter passwords on phishing websites,” adds Paul Ding, general manager at Digicentre. The company’s corporate service portfolio also comprises a security operations center (SOC) that provides round the clock monitoring to raise the alarm against unauthorized connections.

Furthermore, as part of its mobile offering, Digicentre has developed an in-house anti-hacking service for mobile apps—appGuard—that offers anti-reverse engineering, anti-app tampering, blocking of debuggers, cheats and Trojans, and encrypted data storage. “Often, the lack of integrity checks allows hackers to re-package, modify, or infect apps with malware and then provide them for download on other platforms, which increases the risk of users using compromised apps. Our appGuard service— the Iron Man’s armor for apps—ensures that the apps published by developers are secure, thus protecting organizations’ reputation and interests as well as users’ rights,” points Ding.

Digicentre’s appGuard protects mobile apps against debuggers and blocks any attempts to insert malicious code, which prevents hackers from controlling apps’ operations and execution flow. Also, storing important data in an encrypted form guarantees the safety of personal details, transaction records, and electronic transaction certificates. The efficacy of appGuard can be exemplified by Digicentre’s project for a major bank in Taiwan, where the company helped them solidify their mobile app security and reduced financial frauds significantly.

Digicentre has further strengthened its mobile security offering with a smart sensing platform that provides big data security monitoring. “We are constantly innovating and improving our offerings along with expanding our market reach through collaborations. We are also looking forward to extending our services to the Southeast Asian market in the near future,” concludes Ding.