OCA Launches First Open Source Language to Connect Security Tools

On Monday, The availability of OpenDXL Ontology – the first open-source language for connecting cybersecurity tools via a common messaging framework has been announced by the Open Cybersecurity Alliance (OCA). The OCA comprises of like-minded individuals, cybersecurity vendors, thought leaders, end-users from across the globe with the mission of finding solutions to the problem of interoperability via tooling, coding and employing procedures and technology they all agree upon. The Project has IBM Security and McAfee as its initial contributors.

As the open-source code is made freely accessible in the cybersecurity ecosystem, OpenDXL Ontology allows any tool to acquire the ability to interoperate and communicate with various other technologies on its own by employing this language. Once this language is released, the need for custom integrations between individual products will be effectively eliminated, reducing the number of engineering resources spent on integration. These saved resources can be efficiently redeployed for other parts amounting to higher value functionality.

OpenDXL, also known as The Open Data Exchange Layer is an adaptive messaging system utilized by more than 4,100 vendors and enterprises to communicate and share intelligence to make accurate and informed security decisions. Any level of integration has to face a common challenge of accuracy and timeliness; when a product is refreshed, it requires all its integrations to be refreshed too. Now, the number of integrations a product will have depends upon the size of the product. More and more integrations given away for free of cost or a very low cost in the open-source space leads to a lot of dead code and hence creates a complex scenario.

In regard of that, the OCA claims that the release of the OpenDXL Ontology now provides, “ a single, common language for these notifications, information, and actions across security products that any vendor can adopt in order to communicate in a standard way with all other tools under this umbrella. This provides companies with a set of tooling that can be applied once and automatically reused everywhere across all product categories, while also eliminating the need to update integrations as product versions and functionalities change.”

While putting the whole idea into perspective, Brian Rexroad, Vice President of Security Platforms at AT&T, told “With the adoption of public cloud and explosion of connected devices, the ability for enterprises to quickly respond to threats across ever-changing technologies, and even beyond perimeters, is critical,”

“OCA is driving an industrial shift in interoperability with the OpenDXL Ontology to support security at scale.” he further added.