What is Content Disarm & Reconstruction (CDR)

Today, almost all cyber attacks take place in order to access information. At this stage, the security of the files in which the information is moved or stored is of great priority. The malware word comes from the abbreviation of Malicious Software. This term refers to software installed for the purpose of damaging systems. Finding the source of malware is often difficult. The demand for advanced malware is generated by organized crime syndicates. For this reason, any security vulnerability in a software opens the door to cybercriminals. A malicious attacker who discovers a vulnerability can use it to break into the system and then gain unauthorized access to data. Any internet user can be the target of these attacks at any time and not everyone who uses the internet is aware of the importance of data security. Many users have a tendency to click on suspicious attachments. Sometimes even files that look harmless have the potential to contain malware.

New approaches to security are needed to successfully protect systems as attacks become aggressive. Cyber attacks are increase in hundreds of different ways such as FTP transfers, USB transfers, e mail attachments and e-mail redirects enable security solutions to create dynamic and variable structures. CDR technology has been developed to detect and eliminate malware and prevent data loss, as untrusted data communications or downloads of unknown origin can be dangerous. Thus, a threat element that can infiltrate the network by moving data over the network via USB, FTP or any other data transfer is easily destroyed by CDR. The purpose of the CDR solution is to protect networks from document-based malware, malware-bearing data, and other infected files. It applies the same set of processes to all data, rather than focusing on known threats or potential threats like today’s security products.

Content Disarm and Reconstruction solution treats all files as untrusted because it is Zero-Trust Protection and has a game changing working structure. It helps to clean data passing through network traffic without damaging the data itself or changing the file extension. It can be located either cloud-based or physically located on-premises. CDR models that are installed on the cloud stand out as the most preferred model in the network security market. Because the cloud-based Content Disarm and Reconstruction solution is more practical to maintain and update. Especially small and medium-sized businesses prefer security solutions over cloud platforms as it allows them to focus on their core competencies rather than investing their capital in network infrastructure. It is allocated for the management of the devices are reduced both the infrastructure and hardware costs and the effort of the network team. Additionally, it saves time and money wasted on preventing, detecting, analyzing and responding to cybersecurity incidents. In addition to security solutions, it can be considered as a new intermediate security layer.

False Positive is when an application that is responsible for verifying a group of data and removing the faulty ones cannot detect an error and allows the faulty data to pass along with the faultless ones. CDR technology does not allow False Positive situations to occur because instead of relying on databases of known signatures, the technology assumes all files are malicious and examines all files outside the approved firewall. It supports almost all known data structures and extension formats. Destroys and rebuilds data to match its properties. It destroys anything inappropriate that can be carried on the data and pose a threat to the network. The malware is automatically destroyed over data with this proactive approach. Thus, it removes all threats without any application or heuristics, without the need to detect and identify malicious files.

When CDR technology first appeared, a method was used in data transmission, such as converting the data to PDF format before the delivery of the data from the source to the destination. This method creates a new data type that cannot activate malicious code. The downside is that each converted data is difficult to work with with a PDF format and the data cannot be edited afterwards. A more detailed CDR method has been studied as it can hinder productivity in the projects being worked on and put users in a difficult situation. In this case, each file is reproduced in its own format to contain only the original data, and the original data is destroyed by fragmentation. Duplicate data is transmitted from source to destination and because it is generated by the CDR as a copy, it eliminates the vast majority of threats such as embedded software and presents the data functionally. This is done very quickly in real time, and the cleaned, reconstructed data is transmitted almost instantly. Thus, users continue to work uninterruptedly without feeling the background processes.

The working principle of CDR consists of 4 main steps.

• Data Analysis
  
  The data to be transmitted is divided into components and the data structure is validated according to its properties.
  
• Data Reconstruction
  
  Unknown and invalid file structures are repaired according to the file’s specifications and a new copy is created.
  
• Cleaning Data as it’s Built
  
  By removing high-risk file structures that do not belong to the data and have active content, the data is cleared from threats.
  
• Delivery of Data to the Destination
  
  Semantic checks ensure the integrity of the file. The secure and fully functional file is now delivered to the destination ready to use.