NordStellar review 2024

NordStellar is a new cybersecurity tool developed by Nord Security. The company is best known for its industry-leading VPN called NordVPN, so a new cyber threat management tool aligns with its ideology.

The launch of NordStellar comes at a time when cyberattacks on businesses are reaching new heights. Cyberattacks continue to surge, significantly increasing security breaches involving outside actors and financially motivated attacks. Additionally, incidents involving stolen data or compromised credentials have become more frequent than ever before. Data shows a significant rise in ransomware incidents, accounting for 25% of all security breaches. Additionally, identity-based attacks surged by 71% in 2023. A growing concern is that cybercriminals increasingly exploit various accounts, contributing to 30% of overall security incidents. This concerning backdrop is exactly where NordStellar is very useful.

So, what exactly is NordStellar, how does it work, and is it truly capable of helping businesses fend off data breaches, fraud, ransomware attacks, and unauthorized access? Keep reading my NordStellar review and learn more about this new cyber threat manager in the industry.

NordStellar overview

What is NordStellar?

NordStellar is a next-generation threat exposure management tool that stands out as a proactive solution compared to traditional, reactive cybersecurity tools. Created by Nord Security, the company behind NordVPN, NordPass, and NordLocker, NordStellar benefits from Nord’s established expertise in digital privacy and security. NordStellar is available as a platform and API, and in both cases, the main modus operandi is to expose and shed light on how cyber threat actors work and what they do with the compromised data.

NordStellar offers four different threat monitoring branches: data breach, dark web, account takeover (ATO), and session hijacking monitoring. These are serious threats that can cost various businesses a lot of money while also putting their user or client data at a high risk of exploitation. To sum up, NordStellar is an additional layer of security that monitors all possible data breaches and cyber threats while allowing its clients to maintain total anonymity.

Further on, I’ll explain how exactly NordStellar works and examine the four threat monitoring branches in more detail.

How does NordStellar work?

NordStellar has a comprehensive cyber threat library that makes it easy for the platform to recognize real-life threats aimed at your business or client accounts. By running various real-time and offline scans, NordStellar catches threats in the earliest stages possible, alerts the security team, or offers a valid solution to stop the threat from further escalation. NordStellar’s vast threat library – containing over 34,000 databases, 43 million malware logs, and billions of breached accounts and email addresses – enables it to proactively scan for and detect threats in real time. This comprehensive database allows NordStellar to catch threats early and alert security teams before they escalate.

As I mentioned, this is mainly possible because of the vast threat library accrued over Nord Security, NordStellar’s parent company, and years spent in the cybersecurity sector. Here are the exact numbers of the NordStellar threat data pool:

• 34k+ databases
• 43m+ malware logs
• 90bn+ breached accounts
• 90bn+ passwords
• 31bn+ email addresses
• 67bn+ cookies

All of this information has been kept anonymous while being used as examples for the data library. Then, from the data pool, each single file and its matches can be run through various custom-made search engines aimed to discover whether it is not available or visible in any of the following malicious sites where third parties could abuse them:

• Hacking manuals
• Hacking communities
• Ransomware blogs
• Dark web forums
• Combo lists
• Cybercrime Telegram channels
• Financial crime
• Illegal markets

If anything that NordStellar finds concerning appears in any of these places, the platform immediately informs the owner of the fact. This diminishes threat escalation and possible loss of data or even money.

What is Account Takeover (ATO)?

One of the biggest cybersecurity problems today is that organizations are often unaware of when and how their employees or users have been breached or compromised. This way, the sensitive information might’ve been circulating on the dark web for quite a while without any victim parties ever suspecting anything. And the threat actors are well aware of the fact. Their usual gameplay is to use the stolen or compromised credentials and cookies to access existing accounts. After that, they’re free to exploit this sensitive data in any way they deem useful.

NordStellar’s offered solution to ATO is to utilize the recaptured data from the deep and dark web and match it with the company’s existing accounts. If a match is found, the security team is alerted and provided with a quick solution to prevent further escalation.

Account Takeover (ATO) prevention

NordStellar’s ATO prevention system monitors dark web sources to detect compromised credentials tied to your company’s domain. Its API-based monitoring feature integrates security checks into login and registration processes, blocking compromised passwords in real time to prevent unauthorized access. The ATO monitoring solution is based on enterprise zero-knowledge API (Application Programming Interface), with all endpoints built using the k-Anonimity principle. If you’re hearing about it for the first time, this principle is a complex anonymization technique that protects an individual dataset by making it nearly impossible to be re-identified. Simply put, even if someone would get ahold of the data accrued with the k-Anonimity principle, they won’t be able to understand it, including NordStellar itself.

Another thing k-Anonimity is very useful for is to search for specific information, like hash prefixes, without ever disclosing customers’ data and compromising privacy. You can see how that works in the image below:

During ATO lookups, you can get information on leaked cookies by email and domain, which can detect and prevent session hijacking. Additionally, NordStellar can detect leaked passwords by email and phone. This proactive scanning is another excellent tool for ATO prevention and control. The biggest upside is that all of this scanning can be done in the background while offline, with compromised passwords reset automatically without any further security team intervention.

Lastly, the ATO monitoring feature comes with the Similar Password Engine, which detects the usage of passwords similar to those breached and prevents clients from using them.

What is session hijacking?

Recently, hackers and malicious actors found a new way to enact their crimes by stealing session cookies. In short, this is a type of session hijacking mechanism where the hacker takes over a user’s session via cookies to gain unauthorized access to a site. This could happen, for example, when an admin is logged into a site. Thus, the stolen session cookies would provide a clear gateway for the malicious actor to all login details and data stored on the site. What’s even more concerning is that the stolen session cookies serve as a loophole, enabling attackers to bypass passkeys or MFA, rendering them pretty much useless in the sense of protection.

NordStellar employs a unique process of preventing and stopping session hijacking. First, the program runs a continuous scan of the deep and dark web for stolen session cookies. If, during the scan, such session cookies attributed to the company or its clients are found, further investigation into the source, device, and other stolen information ensues. Once that is done, NordStellar invalidates any active sessions with the compromised cookies while also marking down users with known compromised devices. Once the process is complete, the stolen cookies can no longer bypass passkeys and MFA to gain access to that particular site.

Stolen session cookies could not only be used for snooping or gaining access but also to commit financial crimes by fund transferring or unauthorized purchases. On the other hand, session hijacking can also compromise your client’s data, which can be a severe blow to the company’s reputation. NordStellar promises to solve this problem and stop any possibility of session hijacking from occurring.

Understanding data breaches

Data breaches are the most frequently occurring type of cybercrime, with the average cost of a data breach in 2024 in the US mounting up to $9.36 million in damages. Data breaches vary in scale and can involve unauthorized data access, loss, or alteration of sensitive or personal information. Examples of data breaches include database hacks, employee errors, lack of encryption, or even such a slip-up as a misconfigured web app. Once such an infringement occurs, the malicious actors can gain access to all kinds of information, including:

• Client names
• Social security numbers
• Places and dates of birth
• Phone numbers
• Email addresses
• Home addresses

Understandably, a leak of such information could damage not only the company’s reputation but also cause actual harm to the people whose information becomes available up for grabs to fraudsters. Without the appropriate monitoring tools, a breach can go undetected for weeks, increasing the possible damage times.

How does NordStellar prevent data breaches?

NordStellar continuously monitors a vast range of sources, including over 20,000 Telegram channels, hacker communities, and illegal marketplaces. This broad reach ensures that potential breaches are detected early, helping to safeguard both customer and company data. Data leaks can happen in numerous ways, including brute force, malware, and social engineering attacks. Because breaches can happen in many ways, it becomes even harder to monitor them efficiently. So, here’s what NordStellar offers to do to prevent data leaks and breaches:

• Malware identification. NordStellar scans for and identifies whether any of your company’s data is available on info stealer logs located on the dark web and other cybercrime channels.
• Leaked data exposure. The platform marks down any exposed data available in cyber crime channels or information that has been made public.
• Scans of exposed credentials. NordStellar then examines sets of leaked credentials and passwords to identify any links to your organization.

Such data breach monitoring allows to easily gain insights on how, when, and why infringements occurred with alerts notifying the security team in time to make well-informed decisions. Additionally, proactive scanning can help identify weak security spots and help stop every threat from escalating and causing real damage.

The dangers of the dark web

The dark web is a hidden part of the internet that allows its users complete anonymity and untraceability. The dark web can only be accessed by using special software, like Tor or I2P, and can not be reached with regular browsers or search engines. Because it allows users to hide their identity and location, the dark web is often associated with illegal activities, including data breaches and selling leaked information to possibly malicious third parties.

So, for any company, dark web monitoring should be a crucial part of the cybersecurity net.

How does NordStellar monitor the dark web?

NordStellar dark web monitoring is designed to track down any keywords and mentions associated with your company across the dark web, including various forums, illicit markets, and hacker communities. This sort of monitoring helps identify the appearance of leaked data on the dark web and the instances it appears on, thus preventing leaks from turning into major events.

NordStellar continuously scans dark web marketplaces and other channels for compromised data linked to your business. To do the scans successfully, the program uses predefined sets of keywords and patterns to identify any mention related not only to the company itself but also to its partners and the industry as a whole. Lastly, the program can be set up to notify when it finds a matching keyword on the dark web. This, in turn, gives your security team a valid chance of stopping the data from appearing in a malicious third party’s hands for exploitation.

Dark web monitoring can greatly enhance the security of client and customer data while also detecting breaches in their early stages. Lastly, it gives an in-depth look into how malicious actors exploited previous vulnerabilities, making it easier for the security team to devise an even more robust cybersecurity strategy.

Additional NordStellar features – Similar Password Engine

The Similar Password Engine is heavily linked to NordStellar’s ATO solution and designed to increase its efficiency. In a nutshell, the Engine detects the use of passwords similar to the breached ones and prevents clients from using them. The engine generates similar passwords by relying on common password-cracking methods.

The engine can be implemented to perform password checks in login forms, password change forms, and registration forms. If it catches a breached password or a similar one, it automatically asks the user to change it or terminates the login action.

As you can see, the main use of this engine ties to ATO by preventing a client from using an easy-to-crack password. This is, in fact, a very common case for recurring data breaches and leaks.

Comparison to other cybersecurity solutions

Compared to other cybersecurity solutions, NordStellar stands at a unique place with an exclusive set of tools. For instance, CrowdStrike’s Adversary OverWatch offers very similar features, including dark web monitoring and session hijacking prevention, but NordStellar outshines it with more in-depth dark web monitoring. Darktrace, on the other hand, specializes in corporate network monitoring, which often triggers false positives, while NordStellar’s alerts are accurate. This is made possible because of NordStellar’s extensive threat library. Lastly, Tenable does not offer dark web monitoring and focuses on asset discovery and vulnerability management. Take a look below at how NordStellar compares to these solutions:

• Crowdstrike’s Adversary OverWatch provides similar features, including cross-domain threat protection, dark web leak monitoring, and session hijacking protection. In addition to these cybersecurity features, Crowdstrike offers cloud platform monitoring, a malware sandbox, and endpoint threat hunting – features NordStellar does not have. Be as it may, during my testing of the core security features, I found NordStellar to have a slight edge over Crowdstrike because of its simple-to-navigate interface and how the gathered info is presented.
• Darktrace specializes in corporate network monitoring and threat detection. While it does offer some level of dark web monitoring, it’s not its primary focus. Here, NordStellar outshines Darktrace, which is heavily focused on said monitoring. Additionally, Darktrace is known to give false threat alerts often. As such, each alert needs to be manually checked and verified. With NordStellar, I had no such issue. This might be because of a better-configured detection system and greater threat library.
• Tenable does not offer dark web monitoring, focusing instead on vulnerability management, asset discovery, and cyber exposure management via physical and cloud assets. Meanwhile, NordStellar offers external pen testing risk assessment with domain-based dark web monitoring, as well as vulnerability alerts. In short, these two software offer different approaches to cybersecurity monitoring.

Final thoughts

NordStellar is the newest addition to the Nord Security cybersecurity product package. This tool mainly aims to provide extensive data breach monitoring, including session hijacking and account takeover prevention. In my mind, every self-respecting company should take this extra step, if not for their employees’ and clients’ sake, for the possible millions of dollars such data breaches can cause.

So, is NordStellar a worthy choice here? Undoubtedly – yes. NordStellar has one of the largest deep and dark web data pools. Access to it can ensure the company’s security team is well-informed and has the necessary tools for action. NordStellar’s proactive approach to cybersecurity, especially with its dark web monitoring, continuous scanning, and comprehensive threat library, equips businesses to address cyber threats before they escalate. In a rapidly evolving threat landscape, this proactive security model is essential for effective defense.

Additionally, while it’s a relatively new product, it protects over 100 million consumers worldwide. So, if you’re looking for trust, then NordStellar has it. Lastly, the brand ensures they’ve tried and tested the product’s effectiveness. While that’s usually just fancy talk, let’s not forget the parent company, Nord Security, which operates such impactful tools as NordVPN and NordLayer.

FAQ

How does Nordstellar protect against data breaches?

NordStellar protects against data breaches by monitoring the open, deep, and dark web for any traces of leaked data tied to your business, company, or name. If NordStellar detects any such info, it immediately notifies the owner or blocks the stolen accounts by asking to reset the breached credentials.

What is data breach monitoring?

Data breach monitoring is a process of monitoring the open, deep, and dark web for any mentions of leaked data tied to your company. NordStellar is a great solution for that, as it has a comprehensive threat library and intense scanning methods.

Is NordStellar reliable?

NordStellar is trusted by over 100 million clients worldwide and is crucial in providing cybersecurity teams with insight to prevent any further data breaches. Additionally, NordStellar offers a multi-pronged approach to data monitoring so with it, you don’t need several different tools for varying purposes.

Is Nordstellar better than CrowdStrike?

Yes, NordStellar is better than CrowdStrike. NordStellar has a threat library comprising billions of data pieces, well-functioning software, and a user-friendly interface. Plus, it is less prone to false positive threat alerts.

What features does Nordstellar offer?

NordStellar offers constant dark web monitoring, session hijacking protection, account takeover, and data breach protection. Additionally, NordStellar has a Similar Password Engine that safeguards clients from using similar breached passwords.