TRAVERSE Consultant: How to Protect Your Business from Cyber-Attacks
As a TRAVERSE consultant and network security firm, our experienced team helps our clients keep their business running efficiently. As you probably already know, there’s nothing more disruptive to daily operations than being infiltrated or shut down by cyber attacks. We keep up to speed with the latest technology to protect your business. We run across businesses that invest in legacy anti-virus, anti-malware and ransomware protection and it’s not always enough. Here’s why…
New Threats Outpacing Legacy Anti-Virus Software - A TRAVERSE Consultant and Network Security Expert Perspective
Anti-virus (AV) software was created over 25 years ago. Back then you had a new virus software updates every few months. I liken it to makes & models of cars. The anti-virus software would make note of the new viruses (new cars) by their model (signature) and watch to make sure those cars weren’t allowed on your computer. GREAT! Today, sticking with the car analogy, there are over one MILLION new viruses (car models) to protect yourself against every single DAY. Until a model of those million is seen to be doing something bad, it’s allowed. So you have a potential million new victims every single day using that legacy, signature-based protection.
What Are We Paying For?
So why do companies still invest in anti-virus software? The simple fact is 50% protection is better than nothing. Even legacy anti-virus software offers protection against some known bad websites and other protections whereas free or having no AV would be reckless. In keeping the car analogy, it would be like driving without collision insurance. Up to 80% of IT folks don’t focus on cybersecurity. If you only hear from them when you have a problem, the AV isn’t a problem until it lets something in to wreak havoc. Then he’ll fix it. Hey, you’re saving money that way, right? Think about that the next time an employee can’t make a deadline or worse, lose a customer because you’re waiting on a “computer fix.” There’s an opportunity cost with lost productivity. That includes your non-IT people performing IT jobs, just because they are “tech savvy.”
A Better Approach
Let’s keep going with the car analogy. Your AV should not only be looking for a “bad” model car, why not look at how the car is being driven? That’s exactly what SentinelOne and Sophos Advanced Endpoint Protection are doing. They look at behavior in addition to the signature of a program running to give you maximum protection. This also protects against “fileless” attacks as the criminals have figured out legacy AV needs a file to scan to catch malicious activity. No file, no protection unless you’re running the latest in advanced endpoint protection.
Ask Questions About Anti-Virus Now
Before your anti-virus renews, ask questions to ensure you’re getting the best value for the protection you’re paying to receive.
- Will this protect me against a file-less attack?
- Is the endpoint protection also checking for bad behavior?
- Will the endpoint protection roll back changes made by an attack?
- Will the endpoint protection give me forensics on what happened during the attack?
- Is there a Security Operations Center backing up my endpoint protection to catch never before seen attacks before I’m hit?
- Finally, does the protection offer a guarantee (backed by real money) that if I’m forced to pay a ransom, they pay me?
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