President & CEO Greg Oslan

Interview by Gulraiz Khalid

Greg Oslan brings to Narus a strong history of executive and managerial success. He also has a strong background in raising capital and consulting for growth companies. Prior to joining Narus, Greg was president and chief executive officer for Wireless Online, a provider of smart antenna solutions to the wireless industry. Earlier, he served as president and chief operating officer for CNET, Inc., a wireless operational support system company, where he effectively executed a turnaround strategy and acquisition. During his ten years with Ameritech Corporation, Greg was the director of wireless data marketing and director of business development for Ameritech Mobile Communications and held other management roles within the Ameritech Bell Group. He began his career with AT&T. Greg has consulted to many companies over the years successfully leading several through capital raising, restructuring, and divestitures. He also started an early stage venture capital fund in Dallas in 1998.

Greg earned his master’s degree in business administration from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and completed his bachelor’s degree in quantitative business analysis from Indiana University.
Greg was kind enough to speak to Teletimes. The conversation is given below:

Teletimes – Narus is the leader in real-time traffic intelligence. How long have you been in this market and how has it developed over the years?

Greg  Oslan – Narus was founded in 1997. Our real-time traffic intelligence system was first used by service providers (communications companies) for billing and billing mediation purposes. Since we monitor network traffic, the information is valuable to service providers and others who want to use our software to manage and protect the integrity of their IP networks.
Narus is a software company that, through its real-time traffic intelligence and analytics technologies, enables customers to identify and act on anomalous traffic in its network. Coupled with its unique algorithms and analytics, Narus enables carriers, governments and enterprises to manage and protect their large IP networks against cyber threats and the risks of doing business in cyberspace. Narus provides this information in real time, and can be used in large distributed networks because its software is massively scalable.

TT – Please talk in detail about the importance of traffic intelligence and how it can be helpful to ISPs.

GO – Today’s complex communications environment is a “perfect storm” of complicated network management and protection issues for service providers. ISPs are faced with an increase in network usage; a proliferation of new, complex and bandwidth-intensive applications; and frequent cyber attacks on their networks. Coping with these new trends requires a solution that is capable of meeting specific needs and flexible enough to grow and expand as needs change.

Through Narus’ real-time traffic intelligence and analytics technologies, its customers have the ability to see the traffic and data traversing on their network clearly from layer 2 through layer 7. Coupled with Narus’ unique algorithms and rules, Narus enables service providers to act swiftly on anomalous and malicious traffic so they can manage and protect their large IP networks against cyber threats and the risks of operating in cyberspace.

TT – Would you like to tell us about some of your major solutions such as the NarusInsight?

GO – Narus employs a four-phase approach to traffic intelligence:
i. Monitor traffic from the network through the application layer either directly off the wire or from other devices already embedded in the network.
ii. Analyze at macro or micro level across the entire network (s)
iii. Create actionable knowledge
iv. Take informed action based on business and operational policies
NarusInsight
NarusInsight is the most scalable, real-time traffic intelligence system for the protection and management of large IP networks. The ability to offer wide visibility across heterogeneous networks and provide deep insight into multiple layers of network traffic in real time is what separates Narus from all providers in the developing traffic intelligence market.

Cyber Protection Solution

The NarusInsight Solution for Cyber Protection provides real-time identification and mitigation of any unwanted or malicious traffic for the protection and management of large IP networks. Built on the NarusInsight Traffic Intelligence system, the NarusInsight Solution for Cyber Protection is used to analyze network traffic from service providers and government organizations around the world. It detects anomalous and malicious traffic and alerts network operators of the changes in behavior that signify attack or network-impacting activity. The alerts are analyzed in detail and the correct mitigation step is taken to block or cleanse “bad traffic.”

Intercept Solution

The NarusInsight Solution for Intercept delivers unmatched flexibility to intercept IP communications content and identify information, enabling law enforcement and government organizations around the world to deal with illegal and malicious activity in the multifaceted world of IP communications.  Built on the NarusInsight Traffic Intelligence system, the NarusInsight Solution for Intercept passively monitors multiple links on the network. It can be used by law enforcement agents and carriers. If a session matches the target criteria in question, it is captured for formatting and delivery to storage, law enforcement or directly to optional content rendering and analysis tools.

Traffic Management Solution
The NarusInsight Solution for Traffic Management has been designed for operators to enhance network control and efficiency by providing real-time identification and mitigation of unauthorized IP servers and services on the network. Whether they are deemed as unlicensed, unwanted or illegal, this solution puts the control back into the hands of the people who own the network assets.  Built on the NarusInsight Traffic Intelligence system, the NarusInsight Solution for Traffic Management identifies VoIP traffic independent of its source and can effectively reduce revenue leakage and theft of service. It can also be extended to other types of services including SMTP and DNS. It correlates usage records to identify traffic by network address, protocol type and packet statistics and then pinpoints offending gateway address ranges. As a final step, the Traffic Management solution provides detailed traffic statistics (layer-2 to layer-7) and session records associated with unauthorized or unlicensed servers in a visual format so operators can take mitigation actions should they choose to do so.

TT – Please tell us about the Narus STA platform in detail.

GO – A Semantic Traffic Analyzer (STA) is a network collector that passively monitors and analyses traffic directly from the network in real time. Semantic Traffic Analysis is a methodology that can analyze networks in real time by reconstructing user sessions by passively observing traffic on the network.

TT – What is the current level of competition you are facing and how have you managed to lead the market over the past years?

GO – The market is currently very fragmented with vendors supplying point solutions, siloed solutions and appliances. This means that not all cyber threats are caught (e.g. zero-day attacks). NarusInsight is backed by a significant number of patents- 30 patents have been awarded or are in the process of being granted. The keys to our success revolve around our passion for innovation, our hiring of very intelligent engineers and researchers and the ability to work with some of the brightest minds in universities and colleges around the world as part of the Narus Fellows Program which was established to develop new means to fight cyber crime.

TT – Who are your major customers? Do you provide solutions/equipment to ISPs only or law enforcement agencies as well?

GO – One third of the world’s traffic managed by the largest wireline and wireless carriers use Narus solutions to protect and manage the integrity of their IP networks. Narus has built a truly global footprint with carrier and government customers across the Americas, Europe, Middle East, Africa and AsiaPAC including Pakistan Telecom Authority, KT (Korea), KDDI (Japan), Raytheon, Telecom Egypt, Cable and Wireless, Saudi Telecom, and U.S. Cellular among others.

TT – What scale of operations is Narus currently active through in the Middle Eastern and South Asian markets? Do you plan to boost up the activity in these regions in the near future?

GO – Narus’ business is divided equally among Americas, Middle East/Africa and Asia. Narus will continue to invest in the Middle Eastern and South Asian markets as we see high demand for cybersecurity and traffic management solutions from ISPs and government organizations to protect and manage their critical infrastructures and to ensure the integrity of their IP networksin cyberspace.

TT – Boeing announced an agreement to acquire Narus Networks Private Limited. The acquisition follows a successful partnership between the two companies and advances Boeing’s strategy to offer world-class, scalable, state-of-the-art cybersecurity solutions. How do you see the future of Narus after the acquisition? Do you think that the acquisition will allow Narus to provide more easily to international customers?

GO – Narus is the latest in a series of strategic acquisitions Boeing has made in recent years to ensure that the company is a leading developer of world-class cybersecurity solutions.  Narus has developed integrated network behavior analytics, threat detection, and cybersecurity solutions that will help solve the enduring network needs of Boeing and Narus  customers today and in the future. The positive impact that Boeing will have is the credibility it brings as well as the extended international and global resources upon which Narus can draw.  This will afford Narus the opportunity to build and scale.