It’s a Sweep: Symantec Endpoint Protection 14 Leads in Latest Analyst Ratings

It's been four months since we launched Symantec Endpoint Protection 14, and the positive reviews are rolling in – from customers, partners, analyst firms and testing labs.

As our CEO Greg Clark shared in our earnings call, SEP 14 is "off to a strong start" and we're seeing an "acceleration of new wins and pipeline" as customers and partners embrace our unified approach to endpoint security. No longer do you need a series of specialized agents doing piecemeal work to protect users against advanced threats at the endpoint. With SEP 14, we can deliver prevention, detection and response within a single lightweight agent – working across multiple devices and operating systems.

We'll share more about customer and partner progress in future posts. In the meantime, we want to share some exciting validation from the latest analyst reports and lab benchmarks:

• Gartner rated us in the Leaders quadrant for Endpoint Protection Platforms – the 15th consecutive time we've made their endpoint Leaders quadrant.
• AV-Test awarded us "Best Protection" for endpoints – making us the first company to win the award in both business and consumer categories two years in a row.
• NSS Labs rated us as "Recommended" for Advanced Endpoint Protection, with strong ratings for security effectiveness and total cost of ownership.
• IDC ranked us as the global market share leader for endpoint security, with 18.2% share of the corporate market and 27.6% of the combined corporate and consumer market (more than the next two players combined).
• Forrester rated us as one of the top three Endpoint Security Suites in their Q4 2016 "Wave" report.
• Radicati awarded us the highest ranking in its "Top Players" category for Endpoint Security.

All this feedback is particularly gratifying, since we invested in significant innovations to protect against evolving threats, all while improving product performance and enhancing orchestration with other protection technologies (including ATP: Endpoint and Secure Web Gateway). Here's some more detail on the analyst commentary and testing benchmarks:

Gartner: Magic Quadrant for Endpoint Protection Platforms (Jan '17)
Gartner puts us in the Leaders quadrant, both for "ability to execute" and "completeness of vision." Gartner notes that the endpoint market "is heating up again," and "given the rapid pace of innovation, EPP administrators should upgrade to latest version as soon as practical." They recommend doing a "configuration policy checkup" with existing vendors to ensure effective protection, while embracing important new features: "EPP buyers should look for vendors that focus on memory exploit protection, script analysis and behavior indicators of compromise. Ultimately, we believe that vendors that focus on detecting behavior indicative of attacker tradecraft (that is, tools, tactics and techniques) will be the most effective." They also note that EPP vendors are adding EDR capabilities: "Integrated EDR functions can provide an early warning that threats have bypassed malware detection, as well as an invaluable tool for investigating alerts and recovering."

AV-TEST Award Best Protection 2016 (Feb '17)

AV-TEST awarded Symantec "Best Protection" for 2016, making it the only vendor ever to win Best Protection for both corporate and consumer users for two consecutive years. AV-TEST concludes: "With virtually 100% malware detection in all six certification tests throughout the year, Symantec's Endpoint Protection demonstrates strong protection for corporate users above the industry average." (Readers should note that AV-TEST conducts both open and commissioned tests, so make sure you read the fine print on vendor claims. Symantec participates in the open tests that are completely controlled by AV-TEST, with no vendor influence on test methodology. We consistently outperform competitors in those real-world tests, which simulate what end users do and the attacks they normally face.)

NSS Labs Advanced Endpoint Protection Test (Feb '17)

NSS Labs gave us its "Recommended" rating in the labs' first-ever Advanced Endpoint Protection benchmark, with a 98.7 percent security effectiveness score. The new test is designed to determine the efficacy of advanced endpoint security, well beyond traditional anti-virus and firewall capabilities. This test evaluated our SEP 14 product together with ATP: Endpoint (for endpoint detection and response). Unlike many vendors, our products detected 100% of evasion techniques which is an important evaluation criterion. While some NSS results have been debated by other vendors, and we may have our own quibbles, we believe it's an important testing initiative that reflects the evolution of the market for holistic prevention, detection and response.

IDC: Worldwide Endpoint Security Market Shares, 2015 (Nov '16)

IDC's analysis showed Symantec leading the market with 27.6% share of an $8.5 billion endpoint security market, as of 2015. Symantec led both the corporate endpoint security market (18.2% share of $4.2 billion) and consumer endpoint security market (37.8% share of $4.3 billion). Symantec also held #1 or #2 market share in four of five subcategories of corporate endpoint security, including access and information protection (#1 with 23.0%), antimalware (#1 with 21.6%), server security (#2 with 26.3%), and security suite vendors (#2 with 17.8%). IDC also noted that the Blue Coat acquisition "could enable stronger Symantec endpoint protection ties between Blue Coat's cloud and web security gateways and its network packet recording and security analytics platform."

The Forrester Wave™: Endpoint Security Suites, Q4 2016 (Oct '16)

Forrester ranks Symantec as one of the top three vendors, concluding: "Symantec offers the most complete endpoint security suite on the market. Symantec's deep bench of endpoint security technologies spans a range of prevention, detection, and remediation capabilities. Almost every possible attack surface is covered when buyers utilize the full extent of this portfolio." Forrester sees additional strengths as Symantec continues to develop "advanced post-compromise detection techniques," and extends integration of endpoint protection with other Symantec and Blue Coat products.

Radicati Group: Endpoint Security – Market Quadrant 2016 (Nov '16)

Radicati places us at the top of its "Top Players" category, highlighting our approach to "multi-layered protection powered by artificial intelligence and advanced machine learning." The report calls out SEP 14's "many features" for both physical and virtual machines, and notes that the "level of granularity and flexibility in the management console is higher than many other solutions in the market." Radicati also notes our competitive pricing "given the rich functionality of Symantec's endpoint security platform."

It's been four months since we launched Symantec Endpoint Protection 14, and the positive reviews are rolling in – from customers, partners, analyst firms and testing labs.

As our CEO Greg Clark shared in our earnings call, SEP 14 is "off to a strong start" and we're seeing an "acceleration of new wins and pipeline" as customers and partners embrace our unified approach to endpoint security. No longer do you need a series of specialized agents doing piecemeal work to protect users against advanced threats at the endpoint. With SEP 14, we can deliver prevention, detection and response within a single lightweight agent – working across multiple devices and operating systems.

We'll share more about customer and partner progress in future posts. In the meantime, we want to share some exciting validation from the latest analyst reports and lab benchmarks:

• Gartner rated us in the Leaders quadrant for Endpoint Protection Platforms – the 15th consecutive time we've made their endpoint Leaders quadrant.
• AV-Test awarded us "Best Protection" for endpoints – making us the first company to win the award in both business and consumer categories two years in a row.
• NSS Labs rated us as "Recommended" for Advanced Endpoint Protection, with strong ratings for security effectiveness and total cost of ownership.
• IDC ranked us as the global market share leader for endpoint security, with 18.2% share of the corporate market and 27.6% of the combined corporate and consumer market (more than the next two players combined).
• Forrester rated us as one of the top three Endpoint Security Suites in their Q4 2016 "Wave" report.
• Radicati awarded us the highest ranking in its "Top Players" category for Endpoint Security.

All this feedback is particularly gratifying, since we invested in significant innovations to protect against evolving threats, all while improving product performance and enhancing orchestration with other protection technologies (including ATP: Endpoint and Secure Web Gateway). Here's some more detail on the analyst commentary and testing benchmarks:

Gartner: Magic Quadrant for Endpoint Protection Platforms (Jan '17)

Gartner puts us in the Leaders quadrant, both for "ability to execute" and "completeness of vision." Gartner notes that the endpoint market "is heating up again," and "given the rapid pace of innovation, EPP administrators should upgrade to latest version as soon as practical." They recommend doing a "configuration policy checkup" with existing vendors to ensure effective protection, while embracing important new features: "EPP buyers should look for vendors that focus on memory exploit protection, script analysis and behavior indicators of compromise. Ultimately, we believe that vendors that focus on detecting behavior indicative of attacker tradecraft (that is, tools, tactics and techniques) will be the most effective." They also note that EPP vendors are adding EDR capabilities: "Integrated EDR functions can provide an early warning that threats have bypassed malware detection, as well as an invaluable tool for investigating alerts and recovering."

AV-TEST Award Best Protection 2016 (Feb '17)

AV-TEST awarded Symantec "Best Protection" for 2016, making it the only vendor ever to win Best Protection for both corporate and consumer users for two consecutive years. AV-TEST concludes: "With virtually 100% malware detection in all six certification tests throughout the year, Symantec's Endpoint Protection demonstrates strong protection for corporate users above the industry average." (Readers should note that AV-TEST conducts both open and commissioned tests, so make sure you read the fine print on vendor claims. Symantec participates in the open tests that are completely controlled by AV-TEST, with no vendor influence on test methodology. We consistently outperform competitors in those real-world tests, which simulate what end users do and the attacks they normally face.)

NSS Labs Advanced Endpoint Protection Test (Feb '17)

NSS Labs gave us its "Recommended" rating in the labs' first-ever Advanced Endpoint Protection benchmark, with a 98.7 percent security effectiveness score. The new test is designed to determine the efficacy of advanced endpoint security, well beyond traditional anti-virus and firewall capabilities. This test evaluated our SEP 14 product together with ATP: Endpoint (for endpoint detection and response). Unlike many vendors, our products detected 100% of evasion techniques which is an important evaluation criterion. While some NSS results have been debated by other vendors, and we may have our own quibbles, we believe it's an important testing initiative that reflects the evolution of the market for holistic prevention, detection and response.

IDC: Worldwide Endpoint Security Market Shares, 2015 (Nov '16)

IDC's analysis showed Symantec leading the market with 27.6% share of an $8.5 billion endpoint security market, as of 2015. Symantec led both the corporate endpoint security market (18.2% share of $4.2 billion) and consumer endpoint security market (37.8% share of $4.3 billion). Symantec also held #1 or #2 market share in four of five subcategories of corporate endpoint security, including access and information protection (#1 with 23.0%), antimalware (#1 with 21.6%), server security (#2 with 26.3%), and security suite vendors (#2 with 17.8%). IDC also noted that the Blue Coat acquisition "could enable stronger Symantec endpoint protection ties between Blue Coat's cloud and web security gateways and its network packet recording and security analytics platform."

The Forrester Wave™: Endpoint Security Suites, Q4 2016 (Oct '16)

Forrester ranks Symantec as one of the top three vendors, concluding: "Symantec offers the most complete endpoint security suite on the market. Symantec's deep bench of endpoint security technologies spans a range of prevention, detection, and remediation capabilities. Almost every possible attack surface is covered when buyers utilize the full extent of this portfolio." Forrester sees additional strengths as Symantec continues to develop "advanced post-compromise detection techniques," and extends integration of endpoint protection with other Symantec and Blue Coat products.

Radicati Group: Endpoint Security – Market Quadrant 2016 (Nov '16)

Radicati places us at the top of its "Top Players" category, highlighting our approach to "multi-layered protection powered by artificial intelligence and advanced machine learning." The report calls out SEP 14's "many features" for both physical and virtual machines, and notes that the "level of granularity and flexibility in the management console is higher than many other solutions in the market." Radicati also notes our competitive pricing "given the rich functionality of Symantec's endpoint security platform."

Not Resting on Our Laurels

Endpoints have become the battleground for protecting users against advanced threats. We take that responsibility seriously, and we are committed to staying at the forefront of both innovation and integration on the endpoint. We have a long track record – including 15 years as a Leader in Gartner's Magic Quadrant – and don't plan to sit still or play it safe. Together with your input, we can make endpoint security a cornerstone of integrated cyber defense, protecting users and their data and messages wherever they roam.

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For more information, download and read the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Endpoint Protection Platforms and the Forrester Wave on Endpoint Security Suites.