Endpoint Security: Protect and Respond at Scale

Security threats have become part of the daily news landscape in 2016: ransomware attacks on hospitals and investment banks; geopolitical attacks on the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign; financial attacks on the Swift banking system; and critical infrastructure attacks that took down the Ukrainian power grid.

As our businesses, governments and personal lives become more and more digital, we continue to be under attack from many different vectors – and many of the attacks start (directly or indirectly) with malware targeting endpoints.

The pace and sophistication of these new threats is daunting. In 2015, Symantec reported more than 430 million new pieces of malware – that's more than one million new malware variants on a daily basis. Further, we expect 2016 to track an even more formidable number, as zero-day attacks accelerate and ransomware introduces a profit motive into the equation. These attacks are designed to enter the enterprise environment from many different vectors, making the endpoint ever more vulnerable and thus more essential to protect.

The only proper response to this rapidly worsening threat landscape is to innovate and integrate more defense mechanisms across multiple control points.

That's what Symantec is doing, together with our new compatriots from Blue Coat. No longer are you forced to stitch together dozens of point products from different vendors that weren't designed to work together. We are working to build the integrated cyber defense platform of the future, so you can fully orchestrate prevention, detection and response across endpoints, gateways, messaging and the cloud.

Today's launch of Symantec Endpoint Protection 14 (SEP14) represents significant innovation and integration for endpoint security, immediately available from the global leader in cyber security. Our endpoint protection software has well-established leadership in the industry, as evidenced by 14 years running in the Gartner Magic Quadrant and dozens of third-party awards. Our newest release delivers multi-layered endpoint protection in a single agent, including new innovations for advanced machine learning and zero-day exploit prevention, along with established technologies for file reputation and behavior analysis, firewall and intrusion prevention – all powered by the world's largest civilian threat intelligence network.

Let's break that down.

Multi-Layered Endpoint Protection

Endpoint protection requires quick analysis of threats in real time: evaluating files based on their attributes (static), how they behave (dynamic) and their global context (reputation). The security layers themselves are comprised of both proven and emerging technologies working seamlessly at the endpoint, including analysis of files, reputation and behavior along with firewall, intrusion prevention and exploit prevention. SC Magazine recently reviewed SEP14 and rated it as "the most comprehensive tool of its type that we've seen with superb installation and documentation."

Protection, Detection and Response in a Single Agent

SEP14 directly addresses multiple use cases including endpoint protection, detection and response capabilities in a single agent. Combined with APIs and built-in management capabilities, this allows customers to respond to threats quickly while reducing operational expenditures. SEP14 delivers this powerful protection in a lightweight package, building on industry-leading 99.9% efficacy, low false positives and a 70 percent reduced footprint over the previous generation through new advanced cloud lookup capabilities. And we haven't even scratched the surface on how SEP14 reduces Total Cost of Ownership and endpoint complexity.

Enabled by Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

SEP14 deploys advanced machine learning on both the endpoint and in the cloud, while taking advantage of additional artificial intelligence mechanisms in the cloud. Why does that matter? Machine learning allows us to detect unknown threats or evolving threat families during the early part of infection, in order to stop threats before they have a chance to execute. Our systems are always learning to distinguish between good files and bad files, leveraging prior intelligence and trained machines. There's a catch, however: the machines are only as smart as the quality of the data they use to learn. This fact lies at the very heart of why Symantec is poised to reinvent endpoint security – because we also have artificial intelligence in the cloud, pulling from our Global Intelligence Network, the largest civilian global threat intelligence in the world. This in turn leads us, inevitably, to the role of big data.

Powered by Big Data

Symantec collects threat insights from over 175 million endpoints and 57 million attack sensors across different organizations, industries and geographies. That all adds up to more than 3.7 trillion rows of security-relevant data. We leverage the collective intelligence from this diverse threat data and use it to teach our machines how to operate on the front lines of a global battle that changes every day, minute by minute. Beyond the Global Intelligence Network, SEP14 can also share intelligence with Blue Coat's Secure Web Gateway. As endpoint security learns from network security, and vice versa, threats can be identified and blocked at either control point.

Innovation and integration are essential to endpoint security. Our enemies are at work around the clock and around the globe looking for ways to steal information, disrupt business, extort money and maliciously interfere with normal daily life. But reputation is essential too, which is why we at Symantec are proud to have a global community with thousands of organizations and millions of people who place their trust in us to protect their most valuable digital assets.

We can't wait to show them what's next.

Learn more about SEP14 here and watch this space for weekly blog posts that drill deeper into key capabilities with insights from Symantec and third-party experts.

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