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Panda Security announced the launch of Adaptive Defense, a cloud-based solution that provides endpoint protection against Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs), the ransomware Trojan CryptoLocker, and targeted attacks in enterprise environments.
APTs are next generation malware that use sophisticated strategies, such as multiple simultaneous attacks over an extended period of time with the primary objectives of industrial espionage or data theft.
Adaptive Defense’s remediation services and ability to incorporate into the customer’s existing security infrastructure offer an enterprise solution against nearly all types of malware.
“Traditional anti-malware is still necessary but it is increasingly ineffective. Companies must assume that they are already compromised,” Josu Franco, vice president of business development at Panda Security, told eWEEK. “Many new security companies are addressing this problem with investigation tools, which need skilled personnel to run the investigations and remediate incidents. With Adaptive Defense, we are providing a solution, which reduces the impact on IT and the requirement for skilled personnel. Adaptive Defense uncovers threats that are missed by the incumbent anti-malware product, transparently for the admin, with integrated remediation and without the need to perform manual investigations.”
Security professionals responsible for enterprises around the world can view the status of hundreds, even thousands of endpoints in real-time, as well as manage all settings from a single Web console.
“Ease-of-use is what can make a solution succeed or fail. The solution needs to deliver ease-of-use for the end user at the endpoint, or the solution will not be readily adopted,” Franco said. “Ease-of-use is also a requirement for reducing the burden on the administrator or the service provider. Some approaches, like whitelisting for instance, can be effective but they have a high overhead for the administrator.”
Franco noted that critical design requirements for Adaptive Defense were transparency for the end user and minimal management impact on the IT administrator.
Adaptive Defense automatically and continuously classifies all running processes using a combination of local intelligence, big data in the cloud and Panda Labs Research.
This approach enables automatic blocking of any processes identified as malware, automatic identification of abnormal behavior of a process, forensic information for investigation when needed, and automatic disinfection of identified malware when possible.
“We see a couple of trends in the evolution of threat prevention technology,” Franco noted. “First, there needs to be better integration between threat technology products, leading to better correlation and better prevention. They need to evolve from today´s siloed approach—a series of tools–to integrated security system. Open standards and sharing of intelligence will be required for this to happen.”
Franco said continuous, real-time monitoring, visibility and analytics need to become integral to any solution to add rapid, automated detection and response to existing prevention capabilities.
“Also, monitoring capabilities will expand to cover both outsider and insider threats,” he said. “The trend will be to integrate more events, like user behavior, for instance, within the same security system.”