ZTNA Plus Web and Endpoint Protection

Symantec’s single security agent at the endpoint, eliminates agent sprawl, enables ZTNA capabilities and drives web protection.

Administrators wrestle with agent proliferation at the endpoint. It even has a name – agent sprawl. This sprawl creates higher costs for organizations of all sizes and industries. Yet, it persists. 

The unrestrained growth of Endpoint security agents has created extreme fatigue. But, there’s no denying agents are effective and can solve multiple use cases, such as:

• Remote and real-time monitoring of global assets and workers
• Monitoring of cloud and other virtual infrastructure
• Taking action without requiring credential release to central IT or credential swapping

But, the problem is: there are simply too many agents out there. Administrators wrestle with agent proliferation from multiple providers, knowing that sometimes they conflict with one another. And finally, companies incur high costs certifying, deploying and maintaining all of these agents, calling into question if they’re really worth it. There is even anecdotal evidence that some businesses have delayed adoption of revolutionary new security models like Secure Service Edge (SSE) because adopting this technology often requires certifying and adopting another agent. 

Symantec has changed that. The Symantec Endpoint Protection (SEP) agent uses a new architecture which goes beyond endpoint protection capabilities by including traffic redirection to Symantec SSE components including Symantec Cloud Secure Web Gateway (formerly WSS), Symantec’s Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA), CASB and more. With our approach, customers can adopt SSE using their existing SEP footprint that provides a secure, powerful, integrated SSE agent with lower overhead and quicker time-to-value.

With Symantec’s new single agent, the benefits of ZTNA are easy to harness, allowing organizations to quickly achieve VPN replacement, further reducing agent sprawl. Zero-touch provisioning is possible making deployment as easy as a policy change within the cloud management plane. In addition, the user experience is streamlined with single sign-on for access to all security services. Consequently, you can achieve ZTNA in your organization at your own pace and with fewer dependencies. 

Similarly, the benefits are much the same for rolling out Cloud SWG. Our Symantec web security technology leverages our leading proxy architecture combined with our hyperscale global network to deliver complete web traffic inspection, deep file analysis and comprehensive security policy enforcement for both on premises and remote users. 

With access to multiple security control points consisting of both endpoint and network elements in the cloud, the challenges associated with growing remote worker needs are easier to address. Detecting and responding to increasingly sophisticated and targeted cyber threats becomes more straightforward.

Beyond that, our single-agent approach:

•  Improves attack surface reduction
•  Enhances attack and breach prevention
•  Boosts Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
• Accelerates Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) adoption

What’s more is that further SEP integrations are on their way. Symantec will enable additional security solutions in this advancement, including DLP and AppNeta, Symantec’s Digital Experience Monitoring solution.  No full client reinstall and reboot is required, and there’s no confusion with multiple agents. Administrators will appreciate full policy control for the individual components that they manage.

Ultimately, the single agent approach brings lower cost and higher reliability. The Symantec agent is easy to deploy, update, and maintain. It runs on multi-year cycles rather than adhering to rip-and-replace rhythms.

Even better is that as SASE/SSE moves increasingly into the sights of many organizations, Symantec’s single agent innovation framework can now reduce the time it takes to get closer to this important and worthy goal.

Learn more about Symantec innovation here.