Melbourne Australia, 19 September 2010 – Every year the internet further cements the fact that we are living in a global society and more importantly, a global marketplace. For many businesses, its boundaries are now global as the push for data to move into the cloud not only supports their IT infrastructure but also their security procedures and policies. Given that, cloud computing provides convenient and on-demand network access to shared computer resources and according to many experts is the way of the future for all large businesses.
Unfortunately by being connected to the internet, there are several risks for enterprises and small businesses. Sean Kopelke (Symantec) informs us that Symantec blocked an outstanding 3,050,000,000 attacks in 2010. This was just for Symantec products and is quite a frightening statistic. Kopelke summarised from the following attacks by cyber criminals;
Enterprises
– Targeted Attacks, Data Breaches, End-user disruption, DDOS attacks
Small Businesses
– Bank accounts, Business disruption
End-Users
– ID Theft, Scammed for dollars, Removal Costs
Governments
– Cyber Sabotage, Cyber Espionage, Hactivision
As opposed to the traditional threat landscape where individuals or groups were trying to achieve a notorious name on the internet, the new threat landscape is inspired by making money as opposed to the sometimes “harmless” viruses. Needless to say, the modern threat landscape is constantly changing and with that, criminals continue to adapt to new technologies such as social networking and mobile computing in order target individuals and companies by stealing information and resources.
More concerning is that some criminal organisations are targeting high profile members of companies in order to access their identity to steal and exploit information. One source reported that an executive was targetted by leaving an innocent USB drive in their hotel room. The executive unwillingly put this into his laptop which then ignited the process for the cyber criminals to steal their identity.
Symantec have also noted a high spike in the number of mobile threats and since 2009 to 2010, there has been a 42% increase. These attacks include web/network based attacks, malware, social engineering attacks and resource abuse. This is even more concerning as many users use mobile technologies to access to their business work.
However in this world of doom and gloom, Symantec have recently released Symantec Endpoint Protection 12 that includes three products of this family. Firstly, there is Symantec Endpoint Protection Small Business Edition that is for businesses with 100 users or less and allows them to maintain their own infrastructure with all data stored locally. Secondly, there the Symantec Endpoint Protection.Cloud for businesses aimed at companies with less than 250 users which includes a cloud based server with no management hardware needed. Finally, we have Symantec Endpoint Protection for companies of thousands of users which provided central management and is perfect for virtual environments.
Symantec Endpoint Protection 12 finally brings many of the features from their end-user products in order to encompass their Enterprise products. Version 12 boasts the following features that include Unrivalled Security (Powered by insight, real-time behaviour monitoring with Sonar to provide four types of protection), Blazing Performance (Up to 70% reduction in scan overheard, smarter updates, faster management) and is Built for Virtual Environments (Test and optimised for virtual environments, higher VM densities).
As you may have read, Insight is a very powerful tool when keeping your systems safe as it uses a reputation based system to detect unsafe files or those that may have been mutated by malware. By targetting all sectors of business, Symantec ensure that their products cover the entire market and should definitely be considered by IT managers and professionals for protecting their resources and data.
As the amount of data for businesses considerably grows and grows, this phenomenon has been dubbed the data explosion. Whether it’s duplicated data on networks, social networking or using mobile devices such as iPhones or laptops to access company data, protecting this sensitive data does provide a challenge to the IT professional.
Unfortunately when some laptops are out of the office or mobile phones for that matter, especially with the blurring of business and home, users of the Symantec.cloud web Security system provides additional protection such as anti-virus, url filtering or anti spyware for example.
As opposed to downloading documents directly to your mobile device which could pose a safety risk, accessing it via the cloud reduces the chances of attacks considerably. With that said, businesses must address mobile technology in their company policies in order to ensure that all facets are protected, considering that statistically there is a 35% more chance of a user triggering a web policy block when out of the office through torrent or adult sites for example.
Download Trialware: Symantec Endpoint Protection 12.1 trialware »
https://symantec-corporation.com/servlet/cc6?kuHiHJQTCTBQUVIpFxppgLlQgLlQHmVaVUVXLX
Symantec Endpoint Protection Small Business Edition 12.1 trialware »
https://symantec-corporation.com/servlet/cc6?kuHiHJQTCTBQUVIpFxppgLlQgLlQHmVaVWVXLX