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Symantec's Managed Security Services Puts Better Security Within Reach
Budgets are tight and the competition for great talent is worse than ever. Here’s a way to vault those seeming obstacles in the way of better security
For state and local agencies, the obstacles to better cyber security are stubbornly persistent. Over the last five years, an annual survey by the National Association of State Chief Information Officers has found that the top three barriers cited by state officials have remained the same: Insufficient budget, inadequate staffing and the increasing sophistication of threats.
Those challenges are exacerbated by the widespread adoption of cloud computing and other technologies that introduce new risks that must be addressed, further taxing agencies’ already limited resources.
Symantec's managed security services (MSS)—which provide 24x7x365 security monitoring powered by real-time security analytics on a subscription basis—offers a new approach, enabling agencies to strengthen their cyber posture while maximizing security spend and augmenting in-house security staff when budgets are tight and the ability to find and hire talent is difficult.
Three overarching issues are driving adoption of MSS in state and local government, including:
Cloud adoption. In recent years, many agencies have invested in cloud-based solutions, seeing them as a way to bring in new services without having to take on the cost and headaches of building and managing the underlying infrastructure. But those solutions, while they might not reside on premises, are still an integral part of an agency’s enterprise—especially from a cyber perspective. Agencies need to have visibility across their cloud-based solutions, with the ability to detect, track and respond to threats just as they do for on-premises systems.
Stealthier attacks. Cyber attacks are getting stealthier, making them more difficult to detect by traditional tools. One trend is the use of “living off the land” tactics, in which hackers use pre-installed system admin tools as an entry point into a system. This tactic has been around for many years, but its use is on the rise. According to Symantec’s 2019 Internet Security Threat Report, there was a significant jump in activity with a number of tools. For example, the study found a 1,000 percent increase in malicious PowerShell scripts blocked at the endpoint. Because these tools are trusted, it often takes a long time to recognize that something is wrong. That’s a challenge when cyber teams are already stretched thin trying to deal with more known threats.
Data overload. Today’s enterprises generate a wealth of data that, in theory, can be used to uncover suspicious anomalies and potential threats. But the volume of data can be overwhelming, making it difficult to sift through and prioritize threat data. According to research by the Enterprise Strategy Group, 50 percent of organizations collect 6 terabytes of data each month to feed their security analytics tools, but they are only able to investigate 1 percent of the critical alerts. Consequently, data breaches often are not discovered until long after they occur, giving malicious actors more time to do damage or to make lateral moves into other systems.
MSS: A New Approach
MSS changes the cyber equation. Symantec Managed Security Services is a comprehensive, advanced threat detection service that is built on a close partnership between our MSS analyst teams and our customers. Together, we build a security monitoring program that is tailored to an organization’s specific issues.
Because we segment our MSS offerings by industry and geography, our customers work with teams who understand the unique threats in their environment and who can work with their in-house staff to address the demands of their daily operations.
Our MSS offerings also give customers access to the expertise of 500 cyber professionals working in six SOCs around the globe. Our cyber experts gather intelligence by monitoring 175 million endpoints and 95 million attack sensors, giving them real-time insight into the larger threat environment, accelerating a customers’ ability to detect and mitigate emerging threats across their entire enterprise, whether on-premises or in the cloud.
Finally, MSS helps agencies to manage their cyber budgets more effectively. Because MSS is a service, not a product, it shifts cyber spending from capital expenditure to operational expenditure, which typically is more predictable. It also makes it easier to adapt to changes in operations or requirements: Rather than buying new equipment and hiring new experts, an agency simply modifies the terms of the agreement.
Ultimately, it all comes down to the return on investment. MSS is not a work-around for agencies who find themselves short-staffed and under attack. It is a strategic approach to driving more value into an agency’s existing cyber operations and positioning the agency for better security in the long term.
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Symantec, a Division of Broadcom, Ranks Best-in-Class on CRN’s 2020 Annual Report Card
Solution Providers Recognize Symantec as a Top-Class Channel Provider of Data Security
I am pleased to announce that Symantec Enterprise Division, Broadcom (NASDAQ: AVGO), has been named a winner in the Data Security category of the 2020 CRN Annual Report Card (ARC) Awards by CRN®, a brand of The Channel Company. One of the most prestigious honors in the IT industry, the award acclaims the company’s success and efforts in earning high solution provider satisfaction with the products and services it provides to their channel partners.
Symantec has been an industry-leader in all cyber security categories for more than 10 consecutive years. Our portfolio has best-in-class solutions for Endpoint Security, Identity Security, Information Security and Network Security, delivering end-to-end security across on premises and cloud infrastructures through an Integrated Cyber Defense Platform and Integrated Cyber Defense Exchange (ICDx) for complete and effective integration of Symantec and Partner solutions.
One of the most prestigious honors in the IT industry, the award acclaims the company’s success and efforts in earning high solution provider satisfaction with the products and services it provides to their channel partners.
Now in its 35th year, the CRN ARC Awards recognizes and celebrates best-in-class vendors that are committed to driving channel growth and demonstrate outstanding channel performance. It also provides the channel community with candid feedback from solution providers. This feedback is essential for revamping vendor product offerings, bolstering partner support programs, and improving partner communications to help foster successful long-term relationships.
"Developing a successful vendor-channel partner relationship is dependent on how well vendors can meet their channel partners’ expectations, and we're thrilled to be able to recognize these vendors who go the extra mile to make sure they are delivering best-in-class products and program offerings to their channel partners," said Blaine Raddon, CEO, The Channel Company. "CRN’s Annual Report Card not only offers tremendous insight into channel opinions of their vendor partners, but also provides vendors with actionable feedback that plays a pivotal role in shaping their channel strategy. Congratulations to the award winners and we look forward to honoring them at our XChange 2020 conference this August.”
As Art Gilliland, GM and SVP of Symantec Enterprise Division, stated, "Since becoming a division of Broadcom, Symantec is even more focused on protecting the world’s largest enterprises from today’s greatest cyber security threats. This sharper focus is enabling deeper innovation at a faster pace, which means a more secure defense posture for our customers. It also translates directly to more executive-level engagement, tailored service, and greater value for our partners and their overall cyber security investments." This award is a testament of our commitment to industry leading products and to our partners helping deliver those products.
Under the new model, customers benefit from access to partners with enhanced technical skills, greater efficiencies around pricing and transacting, and the ability to develop stronger relationships with their partners.
As we move forward, we aim to build stronger relationships with valued partners who are committed to our solutions, and to provide those partners with capabilities and best in class technology to grow their businesses through simplified pricing, better margins, and richer benefits.
Our goal is to provide a positive experience for customers regardless of how they choose to transact with us - and we have enabled all of our partners to sell across and into all segments based on customer preference. Under the new model, customers benefit from access to partners with enhanced technical skills, greater efficiencies around pricing and transacting, and the ability to develop stronger relationships with their partners.
Winners of the coveted 2020 CRN ARC Awards were recognized in the ARC Winner’s Circle during The Channel Company’s XChange+ Virtual Experience that was held at the end of August. Additional coverage of the CRN 2020 ARC results can be viewed online and will be featured in the October 2020 issue of CRN Magazine.
Important Insights From Symantec Partners:
Francisco Criado, Vice President, Global Security Solutions, TechData:
We work with Broadcom to really drive simplicity, scalability and predictability for everyone, while helping partners become proficient in multiple security domains to expand their share of wallet.
Sean Steele, Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Infolock:
The new Symantec is leaner, more agile, and better able to innovate, and that’s good for customers and for long-time partners like Infolock.
Jeremy Wittkop, CTO, InteliSecure:
In a period of unprecedented change, customers need a partner, a trusted advisor, someone who can help them navigate through the disruption with a viable long-term strategy. Broadcom and InteliSecure can provide this to customers.
To learn more about the value of Symantec Solutions and Partner Program:
Watch Symantec Executive Partner Roundtable with Art Gilliland, SVP and GM Symantec’s Partner program
Register and Watch Catalyst 2020 on demand until October 29th 2020 for exclusive content on Symantec’s award winning portfolio and Partner program.
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Symantec 2021 Cyber Security Predictions – Looking Toward the Future
As you think about what is important for the enterprise in advance of a new year of cyber threats, here are the trends and activities to keep in mind
If you were asked to name the biggest cyber threat of 2020 you might say COVID. It’s certainly been the dominant subject of social engineering, taking off in March, just as the virus (medical, not malicious) exploded into our consciousness. But that’s the thing. Unlike the real world, it’s not COVID that is a threat. It’s just something that’s on all our minds and so makes for the perfect bait, the enticement to click on a link, download an attachment or send money to a scammer. Social engineering is the means, not the threat.
But there is a single word that describes the threat landscape in 2020. That word: Ransomware. There has been no bigger threat to a business or organization, or anything quite as profitable for a cyber criminal in 2020. There is a simple reason for this. Extortion is profitable. And cyber criminals are working to maximize those profits.
This blog is looking at the future and predictions for what’s ahead. It’s no surprise that the past plays heavily into these predictions. And while not all of our predictions are specifically about ransomware, they all are heavily influenced by the directions ransomware is driving the threat landscape.
Predictions are just that, they don’t come with a guarantee of certainty. But we can be certain of when ransomware will go away - as soon as people stop paying the ransom. This threat ends when it becomes unprofitable. Until then, here are our predictions for the coming year.
Ransomware gangs will continue develop new tactics to pressurize victims
If 2019 was the year that targeted ransomware attacks began to proliferate, 2020 was the year that targeted ransomware groups began to develop their tactics and find new ways to pressurize their victims into paying.
The original template for a targeted ransomware attack already posed a significant threat to most organizations. Unlike older crypto-ransomware operations, which were designed to be spread indiscriminately, targeted ransomware groups focus on one organization at a time and try to encrypt as many computers as possible on the victim’s network, in addition to wiping backups where available. Encrypting most, if not all of the machines on the victim’s network allowed attackers to present a high value ransom demand, anything from several hundred thousand dollars to several million.
We predict that the coming year will see ransomware gangs become increasingly aggressive in finding more ways to tighten the screws on victims.
While targeted ransomware attacks can be difficult and time-consuming to perform, the potential returns are enormous and there has been a proliferation of groups carrying out these kinds of attacks.
During 2020, attackers began to find more ways of maximizing their revenues. In January, the Maze ransomware gang began stealing data from its victims’ networks prior to encryption and threatening to publish that data unless the ransom was paid. The tactic allowed the gang to put pressure on two kinds of victims who may not have ordinarily opted to have paid a ransom: organizations who may have been well prepared and able to restore their network without having to pay for a decryption key, and organizations who decide that the cost of losing their data is lower than the risk of paying a ransom. The success of the tactic was demonstrated by the fact that several other ransomware gangs immediately began to incorporate it into their attacks.
We predict that the coming year will see ransomware gangs become increasingly aggressive in finding more ways to tighten the screws on victims. We are already seeing some evidence of this with reports of at least one gang threatening DDoS attacks on victims, while we at Symantec, a division of Broadcom (NASDAQ: AVGO), observed the Sodinokibi ransomware gang looking for Point-of-Sale networks.
Attackers will begin to find ways to further exploit working from home
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought about a radical change in how many people work. Offices across the world have shut and, wherever it has been possible, employees have shifted to working from home. What initially seemed to be a temporary measure is looking more permanent and many companies are now adapting to a long term, if not permanent, work from home model for the majority of their employees.
This presents a considerable challenge to security professionals. Employees who were sitting in a single office, on a single network, are now at home, using home networks and internet connections and remotely accessing company systems. A decentralized workforce could, in theory, represent more potential avenues of attack. Combined with the fact that the shift to remote working was largely unplanned, it’s easy to see why cyber criminals may be wondering if there are opportunities to exploit.
An early indication of this is the level of interest that attackers displayed in a number of recently patched vulnerabilities in VPN and virtualization software. Multiple warnings have been issued by attackers attempting to exploit vulnerabilities in Pulse Secure VPN (CVE-2019-11508, CVE-2019-11510, CVE-2019-11538, and CVE-2019-11539), Palo Alto GlobalProtect (CVE-2019-1579), Fortigate (CVE 2018-13379), and Citrix ADC servers and Citrix network gateways (CVE-2019-19781).
By way of example of how attackers are quick to attempt to exploit these flaws, there was a spike in exploit attempts for the Citrix vulnerability immediately after its disclosure, peaking in February with over 492,000 attempts blocked by Symantec.
Close co-operation of cyber crime gangs
Co-operation between cyber criminals isn’t a new phenomenon. The cyber crime eco-system tends to be quite segmented and actors usually specialize in one malicious activity, rather than handle attacks from end-to-end. It’s a world where malware authors, malware distributors, exploit kit creators, money launderers, and many more actors frequently interact.
However, what is new and potentially worrying news, is some of the biggest actors in cyber crime coming closer and closer together, in particular some of the biggest botnet operators and ransomware authors. For the past number of years, Emotet (and until very recently Trickbot) have been among the most powerful botnets, stealing credentials from infected users and selling their services to malware authors looking for a distribution channel.
Meanwhile, targeted ransomware (ransomware attacks where most, if not all of the computers at the victim’s organization are encrypted) is among the most lucrative cyber crime niches, sometimes earning attackers millions of dollars from a single attack.
However, what is new and potentially worrying news, is some of the biggest actors in cyber crime coming closer and closer together, in particular some of the biggest botnet operators and ransomware authors.
A recent Organized Crime Threat Assessment from Europol said that the relationship between Emotet, Trickbot, and the Ryuk targeted ransomware group was now so close that it was possible the three belong to the same overall structure or that they have become smarter at co-operating with each other. “The relationship between Emotet, Ryuk and Trickbot is considered one of the most notable in the cyber crime world,” it concluded.
That’s an assessment that we at Symantec would agree with. Emotet has the reach and is capable of infecting large number of organizations, while Ryuk has one of the most potent payloads currently circulating.
While the relationship itself is a concern, there is also the danger that other large cyber crime actors will copy their example and also team up.
While there is no crystal ball for what 2021 will hold, history is a strong indicator that attackers will continue to refine their methods to take advantage of global events and the adoption of new technologies. Learning from the past to protect our future can be key to an organization's cyber security endurance.
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Symantec Adaptive Protection in 3rd Party Evaluations
What does it all mean
Introduction
Symantec Endpoint Security Complete includes Adaptive Protection (AP); a new groundbreaking technology that provides protection against living off the land (LotL) cyber attacks, which leverage legitimate software and functions available in the system to perform malicious actions.
LotL cyber attack operators explore systems for tools, such as operating system components or installed software, then leverage what they find to conduct the attack, often without leaving any artifacts or traces (classified as fileless). Previously, it was very challenging to provide protection against LotL attacks. This is because most computers are general purpose machines, equipped with a rich operating system, such as Microsoft Windows, and filled with powerful applications, tools/utilities, and techniques to run a wide variety of tasks in a wide variety of ways. It is important to note that all of these are trusted and legitimate mechanisms for performing necessary tasks on these machines. Most, if not all, users and IT administrators take advantage of some of these applications, tools/utilities, and techniques, in some ways. However, that leaves all of them available for cyber attack operators to use, in all ways.
How Adaptive Protection Works
Adaptive Protection monitors an organization's environment for a period of time to determine which applications, tools/utilities, and techniques are actually used, and in what ways (behaviors), within that organization. This usage will vary from “never used” to “occasional” to “often”. AP makes it easy for the administrator to see and visualize the usage analysis and policy recommendations, then block the application/tool behaviors not necessary for business operations in their environment. AP removes these unnecessary behaviors from the pallet available for attackers to utilize. This has many benefits, and can be done with a high level of precision so there is no impact to business operations and productivity.
Adaptive Protection tailors the machines throughout the organization to permit only what is necessary to perform their desired business activities, reducing the attack surface greatly, and making a unique exact-fit security profile. Moreover, this exact-fit security profile is further adapted at the organizational group level, meaning that even within a company, the attack surfaces vary from group to group. Attackers, with no outside knowledge of a given target’s profile, cannot make use of a generalized scheme of attack. Additionally, since each group within the organization can have a different attack surface, lateral movement becomes increasingly difficult; what works on one machine may not work on another.
For more details on this feature and its benefits please see “How Symantec Adaptive Protection Marks a New Chapter in Security Defense”
One Size Fits One – A New Era for Endpoint Security
Most endpoint security solutions use a “one size fits all” approach to their protection. While this is simple to manage, it does lead to the situation where if you can beat one machine’s protection, you can beat them all. Attackers can work to craft their attack against a given product within their own network, confident that the same attack will work on all machines running that same security product. Adaptive Protection breaks that paradigm – one size fits one is the new era of endpoint security.
AP allows for every machine within a group to run a unique protection profile that continuously adapts to changes within the customer’s environment as well as the threat landscape. Targeted and general purpose attacks will likely have great difficulty operating, because one or more steps in their attack chains can be blocked by AP.
The 3rd Party Testing Problem
Adaptive Protection is a great capability for our customers; however, it causes great difficulty for 3rd Party testers. Like attackers, 3rd Party testers assume a uniform configuration for a security product prior to testing it. This is presumed to be an accurate representation of a customer’s environment. However, testing occurs in simulated environments, which do not perform real work. As such, Adaptive Protection does not have the opportunity to observe, analyze, and adapt; thus, a test environment is not representative of what a customer’s environment will look like. This means that test results derived from a non-representable environment, are not representative of what a real customer of Symantec Endpoint Security with Adaptive Protection would see. Moreover, since every real environment will be different, there no longer is any way to extrapolate results from one test environment to any given customer’s environment. Simply said, there no longer is any way to simulate the “real world” in a “3rd Party real world test”. Even the concept of “typical environment” no longer exists.
Adaptive Protection tailors the machines throughout the organization to permit only what is necessary to perform their desired business activities, reducing the attack surface greatly, and making a unique exact-fit security profile.
Adaptive Protection effectively breaks all generalized real world tests. See our Blog “It’s Time to Put Tests to the Test”. In our data analysis, for any given environment, 66-75% of all AP behaviors are never observed and can be set to “Deny” with no impact to normal business operations. However, the specific set of 66-75% behaviors vary greatly from organization to organization, and even vary from group to group within an organization. This means there is no “typical” environment. Results from any one environment almost certainly do not represent the results from another. Without the ability to extrapolate results, the value of the results from any 3rd Party test is greatly diminished. It is simply not possible to evaluate how well a product will function in a given environment without actually testing it in that environment. Given that Adaptive Protection includes nearly 300 application/tool behaviors that are monitored and configurable (which will grow over time), it’s computationally and practically impossible to simulate all the possible configurations.
How to Solve the Problem of Testing Efficacy with Adaptive Protection
Given that 3rd Party testing will remain, and given that every configuration is unique, what can be done? Clearly, some “simulated” configuration is necessary. But, how do you do that? It is important that the method utilized to author the AP policy, must be simple to communicate, and be fair.
The best proposal to date to partially address this problem is to utilize another component of a competent 3rd Party test: The False Positive (FP) test. In this proposal the FP test takes on the role of “normal business operations”. While not really accurate, it does put the configuration control into the hands of the tester. Here’s how it would work:
The FP test is run, with Adaptive Protection in "monitor mode". Any detection events from this test for Adaptive Protection Behaviors are considered as “normal business operations”.
All AP Behaviors without detection events (those that did not fire in the FP test) are then switched into “Deny” (blocking) mode.
(Optional) The FP test is run again, and there should be no difference in the blocking (i.e. no blocks should occur). Steps 1 through 3 should be done quickly, so as to prevent normal security company operations from affecting the results.
The Protection test is run.
Any blocks from Adaptive Protection are counted as blocks.
As stated, this is an imperfect proposal, because there is nothing that will actually yield real results short of using an actual configuration from a company – and those results would still only apply to that company. However, this does provide “a way” to include this valuable feature.
Here are the pros:
Somewhat simulates the way Adaptive works in the real world.
Allows for the feature to be tested without a “canned” configuration (canned configurations are not able to simulate anyone in the real world).
Gives the tester control over the configuration in their test.
Here are the cons:
The FP test could be overly broad or overly narrow, resulting in a strange configuration.
Violates the precept that TP/FP testing should be under the same configuration. This is mitigated by full disclosure in the methodology.
What Does It All Mean Going Forward?
As stated earlier, this does not solve the problem with real world tests no longer being real world. Simulating the real world, while difficult to begin with, is now simply no longer possible. You can simulate a real world environment, but not the real world. This compromise is merely that: a compromise. It does not make the results any more accurate for your environment, but it does create a reasonable guess to a theoretical environment, one derived from observed and simulated real world actions. It is also crucial that the configuration used be posted along with the report. This transparency should already be present, but it is more important than ever, if the results have any hope of being consumable.
For consumers of 3rd Party tests, it involves a little more work. They must compare the tested configuration to their own, and assess how closely it matches. The closer the match, the more relevant the results.
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SymantecAI: Now Enriched by Google Vertex AI
New partnership simplifies and streamlines enterprise security
Generative AI has created a social awakening to new business capabilities that few outside of IT had imagined. What’s more, an accelerated adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies and use cases are inspiring IT teams to push the envelope of what’s next. Whether those teams are new to AI, or are like the Symantec team, who began embedding AI and machine learning (ML) into solutions more than a decade ago, it’s an exciting time to be innovating and driving value from AI technologies.
While Generative AI is exciting, cybersecurity professionals must ultimately remain focused on the basic principles of eliminating threats and protecting data. And when the security technology changes, they know that the vendor partnerships they make today will impact their security long into the future. They need to be assured that someone else isn’t building a better mousetrap that will make their decisions look bad. Consequently, they are eager to know that their security partners deeply understand AI technologies and have plans to take full advantage of its potential to create security solutions. A long history of successful innovation isn’t enough, they want to know “What’s next?”.
Symantec by Broadcom, is introducing new capabilities to SymantecAI - our advanced suite of security solutions powered by AI technologies. Taking advantage of our strong relationship with the Google Cloud team, SymantecAI has tapped into the power of Google Vertex AI, a machine learning platform that greatly extends Symantec’s AI-powered security portfolio. With our Google partnership, the best of AI is coupled with the best of security intelligence and controls. Our new capabilities make our customers, enterprise cybersecurity professionals, far more effective and efficient at their jobs. Threat hunters will gain attack prediction capabilities with actionable recommendations. Network teams can use data to optimize the deployment of their Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) solution. Security Administrators will quickly write better policy rules. And everyone will benefit from getting faster access to the specific content they need for operations, research, and troubleshooting.
New Security Use Cases
SymantecAI is an advanced suite of security and productivity solutions powered by AI technologies that increases security by simplifying the analysis and remediation of threats, ensuring better data protection, and streamlining security operations. Customers who adopt these capabilities will realize clear and tangible benefits across a wide array of security use cases:
Security Response teams will quickly get detailed threat descriptions, script file analysis and binary file analysis for selected content.
Threat Hunters will better predict the next attack chain steps, get quick incident summaries and proactive guidance for adaptive features.
Network teams will see content policy language (CPL) policy summarization for their Secure Web Gateways while gaining assistance to either compose or optimize rules, while enjoying a natural language interface for reporting.
Email Security will leverage SymantecAI to enhance effectiveness by using AI for tuning as well as leverage it for quicker and enhanced analysis on submissions.
Web Isolation will enable script analysis to understand if downloaded scripts are malicious and provide actionable insight to customers.
ZTNA will benefit from faster ZTNA deployments with modeling suggestions based on VPN logs, Layer3 logs, organizational structure from ldP/Active Directory.
Endpoint customers will have an AI assistant to summarize, prioritize, incidents and events. SymantecAI will also help them detect problematic policy rules.
DLP Innovation Lab will use AI/ML for data classification such as Source code, Tax, Legal and financial documents for better out of the box data classification.
Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB) will be enhanced by SymantecAI to detect and recommend remediations for security posture issues and automate Gatelet generation.
Symantec Enterprise Cloud Platform A technical knowledge interactive AI chatbot will be invoked from product consoles. Source data includes technical documentation, user guides, knowledge bases, etc.
This is just a shortlist of what we’re working on in our continued commitment to embedding AI technologies.
Our partnership with Google Cloud’s Vertex AI platform
Symantec has a long and successful relationship with the Google Cloud team and our engineers have done extensive work together to train the cybersecurity-specific Large Language Model, called SecPaLM 2, on all of Symantec schema and formats used to store security events and incidents, without exposing actual events or customer data. This enables us to deliver new functionality in Symantec products that automatically and quickly analyzes and describes the impact of customer security events, and proposes specific remediation steps, all in plain English.
The Google Cloud partnership helps SymantecAI deliver an entirely new set of Generative AI-powered tools that help Threat Hunter teams to more rapidly and accurately analyze suspicious files submitted by our customers. Team resources will be much more efficient and react to threats much faster as these tools can quickly determine if a file is clean or malicious, as well as provide a detailed explanation of exactly what the file does, for both script files and binaries. This improves the speed and accuracy of customized threat analysis that we deliver to our enterprise customers daily.
SymantecAI is built upon a rich history of innovation and our customers should take comfort that our development teams not only have a deep understanding of what’s possible, but we also have the vision, know-how and experience to bring it to life in a secure and effective way. That’s why enterprises with an eye on the future choose Symantec. To learn more, read the Symantec position paper: AI, Automation and Cybersecurity.
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Symantec and Anomali: Anomali Match Cuts Through the Noise
Aggregating data to identify and remediate APTs quickly
How often does it happen? You’re hard at work tracking down indicators of compromise (IOCs) when your CISO asks about a threat that has just been discovered – but which has actually been in the wild for six months. To find out whether your organization has been breached, you’ve got to scan historic data – if you have it. As scenarios like this become commonplace, cyber security analysts are becoming overwhelmed. There are simply too many attacks – and too much information‐ the proverbial needle in the haystack.
Symantec, as a division of Broadcom Software, believes that one of the keys to being able to not only identify if you have been breached, but do so in the fastest way possible is to ensure you have unified control points, security telemetry, analytics, and operations in one enterprise system. This is referred to as XDR, Extended Detection and Response and works well as you also leverage telemetry from all of your threat vectors.
Symantec also utilizes the Global Intelligence Network (GIN) for unparalleled visibility and protection. Applying artificial intelligence to analyze over 9 petabytes of security threat data, Symantec offers the broadest and deepest set of threat intelligence in the industry. This level of visibility across endpoint, email, and web traffic allows us to discover and block advanced targeted attacks that would otherwise go undetected.
Applying artificial intelligence to analyze over 9 petabytes of security threat data, Symantec offers the broadest and deepest set of threat intelligence in the industry.
When you have been breached, time is of the essence. Every second a threat remains active, malware can do its work, data can be exfiltrated and financial losses can add up. To mount an effective cyber security defense, you must identify breaches quickly. But the ability to review historic data is also essential. You need to do both. Fortunately, Anomali Match is here to help.
As the name suggests, Anomali Match equates the profiles of advanced persistent threats (APTs) to threat actors, then performs a retrospective search over hundreds of millions of events, turning up more matches for detailed investigation and remediation. By cutting through the noise, Match makes security analysts more efficient. Instead of sifting through reams of false positives, analysts can focus on threats that pose a clear and present danger.
Anomali Match
Match works hand‐in‐glove with Integrated Cyber Defense Exchange (ICDx), a software layer that normalizes telemetry data from a broad spectrum of threat vectors. ICDx brings that telemetry data together in one place, where it is fed into Match.
Match then applies artificial intelligence (AI) technology, including Machine Learning (ML) algorithms to the data in search of APTs. When threats are identified, automated workflows perform blocking and remediation through Symantec Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR).
To mount an effective cyber security defense, you must identify breaches quickly. But the ability to review historic data is also essential. You need to do both. Fortunately, Anomali Match is here to help.
Match helps complement existing security tools to increase threat detection and response. For example, SIEMs can struggle with handling threat intelligence at scale, and when threat intelligence platforms slow down performance, users tend to avoid them. However, Match is designed to perform at scale while retaining contextual information from the threat intelligence platform. And you might think that with the ability to correlate millions of events in real-time, Match would be a complex task to implement. Not so. In just four clicks, you can enable Match to pull data from ICDX.
With the ever‐increasing volume of threats and the correspondingly high noise level, it’s impossible to analyze each indicator of compromise (IOC) individually. With Match, you can identify threats quickly, scan historic data and apply defensive measures where they are most needed. Threats are multiplying and information overload is continuing to build. There’s simply no time to lose.
Delivering on Outcomes of XDR: How to Know in Seconds If You’ve Been Impacted
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Symantec and Aurora: A Winning Combination
SASE and Zero Trust – the next big thing is here
This is the 2nd blog in a 3-part series. You can read the first blog here.
SASE and Zero Trust
Adaptability is critical to business success always, and especially this past year. At Aurora, we are amazed by how we have seen customers adapt to the challenges they have been presented. Most notably, our customers are working remotely, storing and accessing data in the cloud, and shifting their business models to accommodate the “new normal.”
With every change in the way a business operates, new challenges can arise. As a security consulting company, it is our responsibility to provide the services and consulting required to make sure that our customers are conducting business in a way that is as secure as possible. Our customers are constantly adapting to changes in technology and therefore require updates to their security portfolio to match. They frequently ask us: how can my security portfolio reach the demands of today? Lately, this has led to several conversations surrounding Secure Access Service Edge (SASE).
By implementing Symantec solutions, we can help them achieve an environment that is compliant with the SASE framework, helping them to be better protected.
The SASE architecture is designed to enforce security at a network level and enables uniform security across all platforms regardless of endpoint of SaaS capabilities. It has been identified as the next era of security, helping users be better protected from anywhere. We recognize that security is different for every organization. Aurora uses a consultative approach to help our customers meet their business goals and address their complex security challenges. By implementing Symantec solutions, we can help them achieve an environment that is compliant with the SASE framework, helping them to be better protected.
But where does SASE fall within the Zero Trust framework?
Since 2010, the Zero-Trust model has been the de-facto security approach that should be supported and implemented by the controls available in the SASE architecture. Zero Trust is centered on the belief that organizations should not automatically trust anything inside or outside its perimeters and must verify everything to connect to its resource before granting access. Combining Symantec CloudSOC CASB and Symantec Secure Access Cloud enables the controls required by the Zero Trust framework. In this case, both the SASE framework and Zero Trust frameworks can operate as a duo, helping you to establish a stronger security posture in the cloud and on-premise.
Of course, Zero Trust starts with a well-defined strategy. Aurora works to help our clients achieve the best business outcomes. We start with the question: who needs access to what? We then prioritize the capabilities of your current environment, conduct an assessment to see what your posture is, and then provide the best consultative engagement when implementing new solutions like SASE.
See Aurora and Symantec panelists discuss SASE here.
To speak with someone today, contact [email protected]
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Symantec and Bay Dynamics: Two Tech Leaders Under One Roof
The investment in Symantec Enterprise Division continues
Our enterprise customers just got a lot safer.
Late last year, Symantec’s parent company Broadcom acquired Bay Dynamics, a step that further bolstered the ability of our industry-leading data protection technology to help protect our customers’ vital information.
Bay makes software that lets businesses quickly spot threats to their information by offering automatic prioritization and clear visualization of any users and entities that might represent threats. The company’s Risk Fabric analytics platform gives businesses a central point of behavioral analytics to help protect and defend their data from malicious attacks.
But the partnership between the companies, which stretches back years, represents the culmination of a close and productive collaboration. In fact, Bay was one of a handful of Elite partners participating in the Symantec Technology Integration Partner Program, whose select roster had automated access to Symantec’s wide range of cyber security products and data streams.
But the partnership between the companies, which stretches back years, represents the culmination of a close and productive collaboration.
Now that expertise will be more directly integrated into Symantec’s broad product portfolio, particularly its Integrated Cyber Defense platform which includes: Data Loss Prevention (DLP), Cloud Security, Endpoint Security, Encryption Solutions and more.
This acquisition was motivated by a desire to ensure that customers continue to have the best possible experience with Symantec’s information security products. As Broadcom continues to invest in Symantec Enterprise Division, we also wanted to help customers who relied on Bay to provide threat analysis. By taking this technology in house, we’ve guaranteed that this asset will receive sufficient future investment. It now clears the way for us to adopt a more integrated approach than was possible when we were separate organizations. In doing so, we’re able to help Bay’s big customers think about the broader contours of an integrated cyber defense vision that draws on the two companies’ combined strengths.
Let’s take a closer look:
DLP
The success of Data Loss Prevention – from deployment of accurate policies to targeted investigation and response – is critical to today’s modern enterprise, given the sheer complexity of Information Protection within the context of today’s evolving requirements. In directly aligning with Symantec’s information centric security approach, Bay Dynamics has a proven track record of helping customers translate the massive potential of DLP into prioritized, targeted visualizations, actions and workflows that enable organizations to simplify and operationalize information security. By optimizing investigation of DLP incident and alert data in this fashion, Bay Dynamics allows organizations to realize the desired impact of information security faster and more consistently, enabling broader DLP deployment— all while increasing maturity and decreasing overall time to value.
ICD
Bay Dynamics was an early adopter of Symantec's Integrated Cyber Defense Platform, providing innovative solutions with cohesive analytics across Symantec's DLP, Endpoint Protection, and Web Security capabilities to detect threats and focus breach prevention efforts where they will have the greatest impact, on-premise and in the cloud.
Zero Trust
The acquisition of Bay Dynamics also furthers Broadcom's commitment to Zero Trust security. Bay Dynamic's analytics, context, and ability to remediate issues as they map to behavior and the threat activity's kill chain position will be powerful new capabilities in Symantec's Zero Trust platform.
Our goal boils down to a single pursuit: Provide customers with great outcomes. And Bay’s technology provides a great outcome to customers.
If you don’t have these capabilities in house and so struggle achieving a strong compliance and security posture, the good news is that it’s within reach. Talk to your account manager to learn how to buy one integrated solution to give you comprehensive analytics – and peace of mind.
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Symantec and Demisto: Responding at Scale with the Right Information at the Right Time
Improving response by integrating security information from Symantec's products into Demisto's orchestration, automation, and response
Security systems are very good at collecting data about potential threats and security events. Yet, all systems are prone to inundating analysts with false positives—in some cases, making it more difficult, not easier, to detect the true threats. Just as often, alerts leave analysts will little guidance on the appropriate next steps for response.
Research has found that security teams review over 12,000 alerts per week on average, leading to alert fatigue. Analysts have put the blame on both the technology and a relatively lack of expertise, with 46 percent of workers feeling that their security tools generated too many alerts and 79 percent of analysts blaming a lack of experience or head count. A direct outcome of rising alert volumes is that the mean time to respond (MTTR) remains high, with incidents requiring an average of 4.35 days to resolve.
This leaves analysts with two basic problems:
Separating out the right information from the large volumes of security data at your disposal, and
Determining the proper steps for standardized response instead of leaving incidents in SOC purgatory.
In our quest to bring more context to security events and more speed to security response, Demisto has integrated Symantec’s deep security intelligence into our automation and orchestration product, allowing single analysts and cross-functional teams to improve investigation quality and accelerate response across their security tool stack.
Our aim is to give analysts investigating a suspicious event as much context as possible in the same workspace. Unless absolutely needed, analysts do not want to shift from one console to another in the midst of investigation—that leads to a fragmented process. Instead, Demisto pulls in information from a variety of sources, integrating them into a multi-faceted analysis of a single incident. Our product also integrates with a range of enforcement and response tools, enabling analysts to maximize the utility of their security tools from a central location.
Coordinating ingestion, enrichment, investigation, and response across hundreds of products and sources, Demisto’s security orchestration, automation, and response (SOAR) platform helps security teams reduce their mean time to respond (MTTR), a critical metric that companies need to decrease to improve their security posture.
Demisto integrates with multiple Symantec products including Symantec Endpoint Protection (SEP), Advanced Threat Protection, Messaging Gateway, and Managed Security Services to centralize visibility and serve security teams across the incident lifecycle. These integrations enable teams to harmonize endpoint protection, threat protection, and incident monitoring actions through automatable Demisto playbooks. Demisto’s orchestration can also further enrich Symantec’s data with intelligence from over 200 other security products.
Demisto joined Symantec’s Technology Integration Partner Program (TIPP) in 2017 and through TIPP and together with Symantec, we are able to serve our customers better. As Peter Doggart, Symantec's VP of Business Development explains about TIPP, "While many partner programs exist today, we have decided to focus on the technical integration aspect of partnership. This is the single most important aspect of making a difference in security. By working to integrate our Cyber Defense Platform with Demisto, our customers can take full advantage of automation workflows and increase productivity in their SOC."
Our strong and long-standing integrations with Symantec have led to multiple enterprise deployments and helped customers automate attack investigation and response. One telecom customer utilizes Demisto’s integration with Symantec Endpoint Protection (SEP) for malware enrichment and response. When correlated alerts come from a security information and event management (SIEM) system, Demisto combines the alert information with context from SEP. This alert triggers a playbook that queries multiple threat intelligence tools to get IOC reputation. The playbook then gathers endpoint details and runs both behavioral analytics using a customer-owned security tool and Demisto’s dissolvable agent on infected endpoints. These actions help extract a wealth of data from the endpoint—such as file details and memory dumps—and integrate the information into Demisto for the security team’s perusal.
Demisto’s platform also provides closer collaboration for deeper investigations. In the previous use case, the telecom customer utilizes Demisto’s War Room to view playbook task results, collaborate on plans of action, and run follow-up security commands in real-time.
The need for inter-product connectivity in security is apparent today. The granularity and openness of Symantec’s APIs have made our integrations easy to set up and refine with time. In fact, Symantec’s APIs coupled with Demisto’s Build Your Own Integration (BYOI) capabilities have empowered customers to build their own Symantec integrations within the Demisto platform. A healthcare customer created their own Demisto integration with Symantec DeepSight Intelligence and are leveraging threat data within their playbooks for incident enrichment.
With cyber security workers still in short supply, security teams will be understaffed for the foreseeable future. If analysts spend time manually reconciling data across sources and performing repetitive actions, dangerous threats are bound to slip through the cracks. Organizations need a tool stack that aggregates security data and drives that data to response in a standardized and scalable manner.
Symantec and Demisto users can use our integrations to gather relevant intelligence and enforce response actions in an automated fashion. Executing high-quantity and day-to-day processes at machine speed gives teams more time to take the decisions that really matter. With alert numbers not showing any signs of dropping, improving response speed is the best answer we have.
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Symantec and Fortinet: Two Leaders Come Together to Do What Leaders Do - Lead
Teaming up on endpoint-firewall collaboration to help customers better battle growing security threats
We’re in the midst of one of those great tech transitions that take place periodically, as we bear witness to the stunningly fast business transition to the cloud. It may not qualify as the proverbial “overnight sensation” – but just look at how far the cloud’s come in such a short time.
Consider that in 2009, Forrester found that 37% of big companies were “not interested” in the cloud while another 39% expressed interested but still had no immediate plans to go further.
Fast-forward to the present: IDC estimates that almost half of IT spending will be related to the cloud this year, “reaching 60% of all IT infrastructure and 60 to 70% of all software, services and technology spending by 2020."
That also speaks to a shift with major security ramifications. Given how data now regularly zips across far-flung networks as users access their information from a variety of devices, both inside and outside of the office, the emergence of the cloud underscores the urgency to ensure that data remains every bit as secure as it was in the era when information got stored within an organization’s four walls.
At Symantec, we’ve worked hard to equip customers with the tools they need to safely navigate that journey as they move much of their security stack to the cloud. In fact, we designed our cloud-delivered Web Security Service, part of our Secure Web Gateway solution which is a recognized leader in the industry, to provide network security service customers can easily deploy to defend against advanced threats.
But while our service features broad capabilities, we are always searching for opportunities to expand its enterprise-class functionality. One area is in next generation firewall protection. That’s part of the backdrop for the announcement of our expanded partnership with Fortinet. (PRESS RELEASE) We are working closely to integrate Fortinet’s best-in-class next-generation firewall with our market leading cloud security platform, enabling us to deliver significantly improved security outcomes for our customers. And it does not stop there.
We also announced that Fortinet's firewalls and Security Fabric will integrate with our leading endpoint security solution - Symantec Endpoint Protection (SEP). This means that customers using SEP with our Integrated Cyber Defense platform capabilities and Fortinet's firewalls will have enhanced visibility from Symantec's threat telemetry feeding into Fortinet's Security Fabric. This integration will also allow Fortinet to act on SEP signals, automatically kicking off remediation actions when threats are identified.
The upshot: Two technology leaders working together to provide customers with enterprise-class capabilities across cloud, network and endpoint security that make a real difference. These unique product integration gives IT managers an enhanced ability to provide enterprise-class robust security controls for all of their network and Internet traffic.
It’s hard to overstate the significance behind the collaboration of these important platform companies. Promises are easy to make – but this one will be easy to measure. Ultimately, the payoff will be better security outcomes for our joint customers via the most complete and robust integrated platform in the market.
Just what our customers need as they bet big on the cloud.
Click Here to Learn More About Symantec's Web Security Services
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Symantec and Google Cloud Enable Pure SaaS Zero Trust Service
Cloud partnership delivers pivotal innovations for secure remote work
When a large organization commits to implementing a Zero Trust policy, they’re on the hook for upfront investments to make sure their infrastructure can do the job. But as they deploy SASE services, they also discover that they’re now on the hook for even more costs as they face a myriad of new service and compliance challenges.
Help is on the way.
Today, Symantec, part of Broadcom, is excited to announce that we are working with Google Cloud to deliver customer-focused innovations that will simplify the deployment, management, and maintenance of secure, Zero Trust access to private applications and corporate resources.
This work spells relief to enterprises tasked with operating multiple hosting environments, including company data centers, co-location sites, and private cloud hosting. Our collaboration will effectively remove the infrastructure complications that crop up as organizations look to provision new users or control the high cost of managing complex connectivity methods like VPNs or IPSec tunnels for all employees when they were designed for limited use by road warriors.
This initiative expands Symantec’s partnership with Google Cloud to include integration with Google’s Cross-Cloud Network solution. The integration with Cross-Cloud Network will speed the deployment associated with securely managing access to private applications and resources critical to business operations. It will do this by eliminating the complexity of these solutions and reducing compliance headaches. What’s more, it will change how Zero Trust gets delivered to customers, who no longer need to shoulder these sundry burdens because they'll be handled by the Google Cloud infrastructure.
“Google Cloud is simplifying complex networks by providing Cross-Cloud Network, an open, secure and optimized network platform to accelerate building, delivering, and securing applications and remote user access across hybrid and multi-clouds. ” said Muninder Sambi, VP/GM, Google Cloud Networking “We are excited to partner with Symantec to help enterprises secure access for hybrid workforce everywhere throughout Google Cloud’s planet-scale network with presence in over 200 countries and territories.”
Symantec's collaboration with Google Cloud will accelerate the onboarding of remote user access to applications and cloud resources in Google Cloud, other clouds, and on-premises using Symantec Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA).
Google Cloud’s planet-scale network helps customers reduce network complexity, enhance user experience, and control costs.
With this innovative approach, Symantec and Google Cloud eliminate the need for customer-deployed connectors and will transform our ZTNA solution into a pure SaaS service for the increasing number of enterprises adopting Google’s global network to connect remote users and applications.
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Symantec Behavioral Isolation: Security Against Sophisticated Attackers
Proactively eliminate potential attack pathways via custom attack surface reduction
Ensuring your company is secure can seem like an overwhelming job today. Headlines are full of stories with words like: SolarWinds, Ransomware, Insider Threats and Phishing - the stakes couldn’t be higher. Symantec, as a division of Broadcom, recognizes these challenges, and provides solutions and products to help protect the Enterprise.
Over the past few years, Symantec has observed a shift in the threat landscape towards targeted attacks utilizing increasingly sophisticated techniques. These include a wide range of living-off-the-land tactics with attackers taking advantage of native applications, tools and services already present on targeted systems. This allows the attackers to achieve their goals without needing to create and deploy their own binary files on disk— operating fileless, so to speak—or to blend in with the daily work of a system administrator who uses the same dual-use tools. Given this, it is critical to lock down trusted applications and dual-use tools so that they are allowed to only exhibit behaviors that are deemed legitimate for your company’s needs using Behavioral Isolation.
Behavioral Isolation provides the visibility needed to make informed decisions regarding which behaviors can be blocked safely within your enterprise without loss of user productivity or negatively impacting business operations.
Behavioral Isolation utilizes machine learning on Symantec’s global threat telemetry to identify behaviors exhibited by cyber security threats that may appear legitimate under certain circumstances and hence evade traditional protection technologies. Additionally, it will monitor a company’s environment over a period of time, learning whether these behaviors are common for the specific company, understanding the impact of potentially blocking them and allowing the administrator to manage these behaviors accordingly.
Behavioral Isolation provides the visibility needed to make informed decisions regarding which behaviors can be blocked safely within your enterprise without loss of user productivity or negatively impacting business operations. This results in effective attack surface reduction that is unique to your company, making it increasingly difficult for attackers to move laterally and manifest their attack.
Behavioral Isolation takes a three-pronged approach to neutralizing malicious attacks by:
Identifying app behavior that is potentially risky based on continuous analysis of our global telemetry
Gaining better visibility of the environment and enabling improved policy management of the identified risky behaviors
Reducing the potential attack surface by blocking behavior that is uncommon and allowing behaviors that are common to take place with or without monitoring
The basis upon which Symantec derives its strength in behavioral isolation is from telemetry captured from its Global Intelligence Network (GIN), one of the world’s largest civilian security threat intelligence networks. Symantec’s GIN has gathered information from 175,000,000 endpoints and more than 126,000,000 attack sensors to combat attacks and isolate improper actions from potential security breaches. Corporate confidence in Symantec’s expertise can be seen in the fact that we serve 90% of the Fortune 50 companies, and eight out of every 10 companies in the Fortune 500.
As of December 2020, only a relative few of the SolarWinds customers affected had an active attacker in their networks, but every one of those customers remained compromised by the Sunburst incident.
One of the most-notable sophisticated targeted attacks of late is the Sunburst/SolarWinds attack of 2020. Approximately 18,000 SolarWinds customers, including 100 that were also Symantec customers, had their networks breached by a Trojan downloaded into their supply chain operations. As of December 2020, only a relative few of the SolarWinds customers affected had an active attacker in their networks, but every one of those customers remained compromised by the Sunburst incident. The Sunburst attack leverages several "living off the land" tactics and techniques.
Behavioral Isolation includes 4 different application behaviors that were utilized during the Sunburst attack. Setting any of these behaviors to “deny” will break the attack chain. These behaviors are:
Wscript launching rundll32
WMI launching rundll32
Powershell launching an encoded command
Rundll32 creating a non-PE executable
While attackers may use only a few behaviors to launch an attack, Symantec has identified more than 180 distinctive activities. Seventy of them are most commonly utilized in attacks.
Symantec looks specifically for the outlier behavior that under normal circumstances is rarely, if ever used, and shuts down that pathway. This blocking of specific actions from otherwise trusted processes can break the chain of an attack and also increase the awareness of what to look for in potential attacks. The set of behaviors exposed through the feature is continuously updated based on the evolution of the threat landscape.
With Symantec’s new Behavioral Isolation capabilities, security teams can take the steps necessary to contain an attacker’s attack efforts and shrink the potential attack battlefield. And fortunately for enterprises across the globe, Symantec is helping to change the rules of the game for attackers.
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Symantec Blogs: Year in Review
A recap of some of the best stories of the year in cyber security from Symantec
When it came to cyber security, 2018 was chockablock with news. New threats, new trends and new ideas about how organizations might put in place more robust defenses. Here’s a quick catch-up on the past 12 months with a selection of stories chronicling the changes that affected the security world.
January
Your Next Big Security Worry: Fileless Attacks
'Congratulations, you won' Malware Scam Crosses Over to Android
Why Biometrics Are About to (Finally) Put an End to Password-only Authentication
February
Repeat After Me: Users Still Are Your Weakest Link
If You’re Moving to the Cloud, Don’t Settle for Half Measures
Help! A Hostile Nation-State Just Targeted Me
March
What to do when Botnets Go Berserk
ISTR 23: Insights into the Cyber Security Threat Landscape
Browser-based coin mining without a browser?
April
No rest for the weary: Mobile malware scourge is worse than ever
There Are No Heroes: The Industry-Wide Move to Integrated Cyber Defense
New Orangeworm attack group targets the healthcare sector in the U.S., Europe, and Asia
May
Think Blockchain’s Automatically Secure? Think Again
Cyber Miners: From Minor Nuisance to Major Security Problem
Navigating the Risky Terrain of Active Cyber Defense
June
Machine Learning: Symantec’s Past, Present, and Future
WannaCry: Lessons Learned 1 Year Later
Why Phishing Continues to Spear Victims
July
Buyer Beware: IoT Security is in Your Hands
The Last Integration: Why This Needs to Happen Now
Invested Millions in Cyber Security Technologies. Now What?
August
Office 365 Brings its Own Set of Challenges to Data Protection
Time for Top-Down Approach to Healthcare Cyber Security
Why IT is Giving `Zero Trust’ a Close Look
September
Why Lingering IT/OT Divide Invites New Security Risks
The Quiet Revolution Spurred by Behavioral Biometrics
Formjacking: Major Increase in Attacks on Online Retailers
October
State, Local Gov’ts. Vow 2018 Won’t be Rerun of 2016
Manufacturing in Cyber Security Cross Hairs: How It Fights Back
SamSam: Targeted Ransomware Attacks Continue
November
When it Comes to Ransomware Demands, Just say No
Cyber Security Predictions: 2019 and Beyond
DevSecOps: Bridging the Gap Between DevOps and Security
December
Seedworm: Group Compromises Government Agencies, Oil & Gas, NGOs, Telecoms, and IT Firms
On the Front Lines of Incident Response, It’s a Little Like “Groundhog Day”
Can Cognitive Tools Succeed Where Humans Have Failed?
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Symantec: Building a Zero Trust Organization
Forrester recommends implementing a PAM program for enterprises looking to achieve a Zero Trust organization
In their recent report, A Practical Guide to Zero Trust Implementation, Forrester recommends that organizations implement privileged identity management (PIM) as one of the foundation steps for adopting Zero Trust. As a PIM vendor, this is a recommendation that we can certainly support. But I can see how some customers may not see the connection between PIM and Zero Trust.
Much of the Zero Trust discussion is focused on network access and software-defined perimeters, so where do PIM technologies fit into this model? I had the opportunity to address this question with one of the lead authors of the report, Merritt Maxim, the Vice President and Research Director of the Security practice at Forrester during a series of web chats on privileged identities.
Here are some highlights from our discussion:
Ensuring Least Privileged Access
One of the three core tenets of Zero Trust is to ensure least privileged access, and there is too much access to data in the typical enterprise today. Merritt pointed out that too many individuals – and especially those who have been with their organizations for a long time – are over-privileged. This is true for regular business users as well as those who have access to privileged accounts.
PIM technologies have been used for years to help reign in access to privileged accounts because these accounts often have elevated, and in some cases, unfettered access to sensitive data and critical infrastructure. This not only makes these dangerous if they were to be compromised by an external hacker, but are often the target of malicious users for this very reason. Additionally, the credentials to these accounts are often shared by multiple users, which increases the risk of compromise.
PIM technologies vault these credentials and force users to positively identify themselves, often using multifactor credentials, before granting access to the privileged accounts. This also addresses another tenet of Zero Trust – Identity Every User and Device Requesting Access. Many privileged accounts do not use multifactor credentials, but protecting access to these credential via a PIM technology allows you to leverage this level of authentication. Furthermore, all activities performed by the user can be monitored and recorded, which helps to quickly identify unusual behavior and provide accountability. This data can also be leveraged by Identity Governance and Administration (IGA) technologies to help determine which privileged accounts users really need to do their jobs. If a user has been given access to an account, but has not accessed that account in six months, maybe that access is not needed and can be removed (i.e., ensuring least privileged posture).
Automate Everything
DevOps is one of the current IT trends, and speed and agility is at the heart of this trend. How can we digitally transform our organization? We need to be able to develop and deploy applications faster with greater emphasis on user experience. Security is generally viewed as a speed bump in this process. When everyone is saying go, security says stop, which is why it is so critical that organizations adopting DevOps embed security into this process. In terms of PIM technologies, this needs to occur in two parts of DevOps.
First, we need to remember that privileged accounts are not just accessed by real people. Numerous applications are also given privileged access to sensitive resources and data by embedding associated credentials into scripts or by using a run-time configuration file. This is especially true in more sophisticated IT shops where CI/CD practices are introducing automated processes that see no human intervention at all. These automation tools often leverage hard-coded administrative credentials that are ripe for theft and misuse, often with little to no security protecting them at all. Worse, in many cases, one set of credentials are used to access your cloud infrastructure (i.e., one userid and password is used to access every AWS instance in both development and production environments), which compounds the danger if these credentials are compromised.
Symantec PAM is just one component in the Symantec Zero Trust platform, an integrated cyber defense solution that combines market leading endpoint, network, identity and data security technologies into one integrated platform.
PIM technologies have long provided a capability called App-to-App Password Management (AAPM), which allowed organizations to remove hard-coded passwords from applications, scripts, and files, and instead require these applications to call out to request a privileged password from the PIM solution. Unfortunately, for many organizations, they had already deployed hundreds of applications with hard-coded passwords, and to find and remove these was too costly and too much trouble. So to avoid the negative connotation that was associated with AAPM, vendors and analysts have renamed this capability as “Secrets Management” and have associated it with DevOps to further increase its coolness, but it is essentially the same thing that has existed in many products, including ours, for many years. But maybe we can learn from our past mistakes, and stop embedding passwords, both in our DevOps toolchain and in new applications that are coming off the CI/CD pipeline.
The second part of where PIM technologies intersect DevOps is in securing the apps and underlying infrastructure that is being created. One of the biggest concerns with protecting privileged accounts is “shadow IT”. How can we protect privileged accounts for systems that we do not know about? One option is to continuously run discovery tools and hope you find these new systems; however, in a DevOps world, wouldn’t it be easier to have PIM protection implemented at the same time that a new app is being created? Automatically provisioning the new privileged accounts into the PIM tool so they are protected immediately. This requires two things – training the DevOps teams to include this level of security into the DevOps scripts, and the REST interfaces for privileged task automation within the PIM tool.
PIM Architecture: Proxy, Agent, or Hybrid
Understanding the importance of PIM technologies, not only with Zero Trust and for DevOps, the question that comes to mind, which PIM architecture to implement – a proxy-based one, an agent-based one, or a combination of the two. Merritt pointed out that a hybrid model may be needed; there is no “one size fits all” solution and different architectures lend themselves best to different problems. For example, we have customers who do not believe that proxy-based solutions address PCI compliance, and therefore, deploy agents on any servers that are storing or processing PCI data. This stance varies from customer to customer, and for this reason a hybrid approach is the best because a single deployment model is just not flexible enough to handle every use case for the digital enterprise.
The Final Tenet of Zero Trust
And this leads us to the final tenet of Zero Trust – assume breach. Zero Trust recognizes the fact that persistent attackers will eventually find the means to breach your defenses. And for this reason, the Zero Trust model assumes that a breach will occur, and that mechanisms need to be in place to minimize the damages from a breach.
There are two mechanisms that PIM technologies provide that help to address this tenet. The first is threat analytics, which monitors all privileged user activities and develops usage and behavior profiles, so that if a hacker manages to compromise a legitimate user’s account, or a legitimate user turns rogue, the system can detect the changes in behavior and immediate initiate mitigating actions. The second has already been mentioned, and that is to integrate the PIM technology with your IGA solution to provide ongoing review and certification of all users with access to privileged accounts and credentials. We call this Privileged Access Governance.
Symantec PAM
Hopefully, you now understand how PIM technologies help with Zero Trust. So the next question is – do you already have a PIM vendor and if you are happy with them. If the answer is NO to either question, then maybe you might want to consider Symantec PAM.
Symantec, a division of Broadcom (NASDAQ: AVGO), PAM is designed to prevent security breaches and establish Zero Trust by protecting sensitive administrative credentials, controlling privileged user access, proactively enforcing security policies and monitoring and recording privileged user activity across virtual, cloud and physical environments.
Symantec PAM also offers the following competitive differentiators:
Fast time-to-protection. Quickly deploy the solution as a hardened device or virtual appliance. Easily configure the solution through an easy-to-use console to achieve faster-time-to-protection and reduced implementation costs.
Enterprise performance and scalability. As one of the most efficient and scalable privileged access management technologies, the solution can handle and record significantly more simultaneous connections than other solutions can. This scalability supports large-scale deployments with minimal infrastructure.
Automated risk mitigation. The solution monitors all privileged user activity, analyzes it in real-time, and can trigger automatic mitigation actions when unusual behavior is detected. The solution enables an immediate response to potential risks without any human interaction.
Flexible deployment architecture. The solution supports agent-based and agentless deployment options, which can be used individually or jointly to provide a comprehensive strategy to address privileged access management challenges.
Total cost of ownership. The solution offers best-in-class total cost of ownership because the solution is quick to deploy, easy-to-use, and scalability. Additionally, the new portfolio license agreement offers flexibility and lower, predictable costs, for your organization.
And finally, Symantec PAM is just one component in the Symantec Zero Trust platform, an integrated cyber defense solution that combines market leading endpoint, network, identity and data security technologies into one integrated platform.
The Symantec Advantage
Funding for IT projects, and especially for new systems where the value may be unfamiliar to business leaders is challenging. Selling a privileged access project is easier from an outcome-oriented perspective as these projects are more focused than general access management projects and provide critical security for the most sensitive systems and data in the company.
New privileged access management systems, such as Symantec Privileged Access Management, that are based on principles of least privilege and zero trust, can play a foundational role in building a Zero Trust organization by allowing customers to:
Maximize your investment: Symantec PAM combines the benefits of privileged access to new business use cases across the entire enterprise with the lowest cost of ownership.
Protect hybrid enterprise: Symantec PAM controls privileged access across all IT resources, from cloud to mainframe, and complements Symantec Endpoint and Network Security solutions.
Address Regulatory Compliance: Symantec PAM provides many of the controls governing privileged access that are mandated by emerging data privacy laws and regulatory and industry compliance mandates.
Flexible deployment model: Symantec PAM provides the flexible deployment model the modern hybrid enterprise requires with a single solution that can be implemented on-prem, in the cloud, or in a hybrid environment.
When considering a PAM solution, the question is Why Symantec? Why should I consider your solution?
There are four areas that we normally highlight when customers ask us this question:
Quick Time to Protection
Enterprise-Class Scalability
Defense-in-Depth Protection, and
Leadership
Thank you for your engagement. Please look for more blogs on the subject of privileged access in the future. And feel free to reach out at any time with any questions or to join in the conversation.
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Symantec CEO Greg Clark: CNBC Interview on Cyber Security Threats
Password extortion, email vulnerabilities highlight an “ever-present threat in the IoT.”
Households are now connected in ways we never imagined – our cameras, phones, cars, even our refrigerators can talk to each other. “With this connectivity come vulnerabilities as more and more malware platforms make their way into our homes,” said Symantec President and CEO Greg Clark. Clark discussed these threats and how they’re surfacing in the home when he sat down with CNBC's Squawk Alley. Here’s an excerpt from that interview:
Q: Every year around this time it seems there’s a new wave of malicious threats on security, which hit security budgets hard. What’s different this year?
A: The cyber crisis continues. We definitely have a new set of threats that are showing up. I think it’s a testament to the fact that it’s ever-changing and the partners that you pick to help you defend it are really important. Cyber defense is a continuously moving target. There are a bunch of things that that should be there for the long haul. At Symantec, we put those things together and we deliver them to you integrated. What’s important is that there are a bunch of problems that emerge that are not solved and it takes a vibrant startup community and investment community around that to address some of those.
Really, it’s the sum of big cyber investments like we have at Symantec and some of the other big players in the industry as well as the vibrant startup community. The combination of those things integrated is what we call Integrated Cyber Defense. I think it’s very important for our customers and partners in really addressing a bunch of the crisis. Net is that it moves all the time and so there are all kinds of different things that need to happen. The big transition at the moment, from cloud to mobile, new attack surface, new methods of beating people and stealing information. It’s definitely a very vibrant time for cyber defense.
Q: In the PC era, there was security software installed on the PCs, and we could feel like we could trust that. In the smartphone era, there were app stores that were supposed to be restricted, and the security applied at that layer. We felt like we could trust that.
A: The injection of consumer IoT in the enterprise and all through the home is important. What we found in the last couple of years at Symantec where we’ve been putting things like the Norton Core product into the home is that the number of resident malware platforms that are in there is substantial. There is definitely an ever-present threat in the IoT. We’re addressing that threat. I think what people have to also realize it’s not just about antivirus or your PC or your mobile phone endpoint.
Q: In the IoT era, there are going to be cameras everywhere, microphones in the home, sensors in the car. Where do we go to actually know whether all of this stuff is secure?
A: There is a resonant threat in the network now and many consumers in the world have seen an email from somebody who has their mail password. When they’ve got your mail password extortion is rampant targeting consumers. Also, account takeover on things like Uber is rampant. It’s important to protect yourself in the network. Make sure that if you’re roaming around on other infrastructure you have a VPN engaged. These are very serious items right now and we’re seeing a lot of threats coming into that space. It’s not just on the endpoint, it’s also in the network, it’s in the IoT, and it’s in the home. Definitely, a different set of solutions are required now than what we saw ten years ago.
Q: Globally, where are the biggest threats coming from? Is it cyber criminals, or is it countries like North Korea or China or Russia that you hear reports of hackings?
A: We’re always going to see from now on cyber espionage. Espionage has been going on for hundreds of years and it will continue in cyber space probably forever. Big corporations, governments, there’s some heavy lifting that needs to be done there. We’re very invested in that at Symantec. Then on the consumer side, people at home and smaller businesses, there is definitely an extortion and ransom crisis going on there.
The US government has been addressing that with some great support for us around consequences by saying to third world countries, where a lot of these guys are resident, if you don’t have cyber laws on the books in a few years you may face US sanctions. We’re starting to bring some consequences which is very helpful. But it’s in two spaces. There are organized criminals stealing from people and companies and then there’s a bunch of nation-state activity. I think they’re with us for a long haul.
Symantec CEO Greg Clark Discusses Security Threats
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Symantec Cloud Firewall Service: Enhancing our Leading Cloud-Delivered Secure Web Gateway
Fortinet and Symantec partner to extend advanced protection for all ports and protocols of traffic
More than ever, as our work streams and co-workers become unbound from offices, expanding our breadth of cyber protection has become paramount. That’s the genesis of Symantec Cloud Firewall Service (CFS), now integrated into our industry-leading Symantec Web Security Service. Web Security Service (WSS) which features an advanced proxy architecture that provides lock-down security for an enterprises’ data, apps and users—wherever they go. Cloud Firewall Service is its wingman—fortifying internet security for traffic that doesn’t require a browser such as VoIP, remote access tools, and online gaming.
To build an enterprise-grade cloud firewall, we turned to a best-of-breed partner, Fortinet. They are known for their FortiGate next-generation firewall (NGFW) architecture, featuring deep inspection for identifying attacks, malicious flows, and other threats. Fortinet’s robust firewall was recognized as one of the leaders in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Network Firewalls report in 2019.
Next Generation Now
We believe the time is right for a smart, cloud-native firewall. Symantec Cloud Firewall Service provides real-time and intelligent protection, establishing control of network traffic over all ports and protocols, regardless of where enterprise users are located.
And these days, roaming workers may have diverse protection needs. For example, an IT admin in Chicago needs Secure Shell Protocol (SSH) to log into a Dallas server, while her colleagues in the Marketing team may never need SSH. In other scenarios, CFS can apply policies to inhibit unauthorized access from work devices to undesirable sites. CFS draws from the Fortinet’s database of 3,000 plus applications.
Symantec Cloud Firewall Service provides your team with insight about what’s happening and where. Monitoring data connections is easy with CFS dashboards, and you can generate reports (at no additional cost) that analyze traffic details on the applications you choose, and the protocols you support. Centralized management and reporting roll up into the Symantec Web Security Service online portal.
Symantec Cloud Firewall Service provides real-time and intelligent protection, establishing control of network traffic over all ports and protocols, regardless of where enterprise users are located.
Forming insights enable your team to fine-tune firewall security by customizing policies for specific business needs. You can allow or deny access for authenticated users or groups, set source or destination criteria, or configure policy to block traffic based on any TCP/UDP port.
Cloud Firewall Service also empowers you to update network security tactics as needed. Many organizations still backhaul internet traffic to scan it in their data center—even though it can diminish performance, impact the user experience and drive up cost. Now, with Symantec Cloud Firewall Service, there’s no need to backhaul roaming or branch office traffic to enable protection from advanced threats. If you choose, you can establish a single policy framework that no longer differentiates between roaming users and brand office deployments.
What’s Next?
Given the current circumstance, it’s likely most of us are part of a distributed workforce, working from home offices for an extended period of time. It’s a stark reminder that while cyber security requirements can change, our basic needs do not. Rather than impose centralized firewall access, logic dictates that we enable remote firewall access—regardless of where our teammates are located. Extending coverage to roaming users in addition to those in branch offices enables you to implement a consistent policy framework.
Now with CFS, you can build adaptive trust models that assess business intent, permissions, and track network locations that reduce risk exposure.
Together with Symantec Web Security Service, you have a broad set of capabilities including a Secure Web Gateway, anti-virus scanning, Sandboxing, Web Isolation, CASB controls, Data Loss Prevention and email security. Now with CFS, you can build adaptive trust models that assess business intent, permissions, and track network locations that reduce risk exposure. This provides you with the tools to ensure compliance with all of your organization’s information and web/cloud access policies.
We are here to support you as everyone adapts to changing work conditions in unforeseen circumstances. The addition of the Symantec Cloud Firewall Service solidifies our cloud-delivered Secure Web Gateway (WSS) leadership as a comprehensive, cloud-delivered, network security service. Cloud Firewall Service is globally available now and in WSS data centers. Click here to find out more.
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Symantec CloudSOC Mirror Gateway: Solving the Unmanaged Device Problem
Securing SAAS access from BYOD agentless devices
There are significant obstacles for organizations to overcome in ensuring unmanaged devices are protected with Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB) controls. Using CloudSOC Mirror Gateway overcomes these; providing a simple way to secure cloud access from unmanaged devices.
Cloud applications are awesome and provide great value to organizations with employees who want to work collaboratively to solve problems fast. The security aspects of using SaaS workloads is typically taken care of by a Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB), which provides visibility, data security, and threat protection. The CASB governs granular access controls, applies data loss protection, detects malware, and generally keeps a security eye on users to identify compromised accounts or other high-risk activity. In order to provide real-time controls, CASB solutions can act as a ‘man-in-the-middle’, steering all network traffic to the SaaS workloads in question via the CASBs infrastructure. This allows the CASB solution to inspect and enforce the defined policies in real-time.
The BYOD Problem
In the world of managed devices, the security puzzle is solved. Using an agent on the corporate device or via proxy chaining, ensures all traffic is steered to the CASB solution, and consequently through the security controls on to the cloud application. But how do you achieve the same experience for an unmanaged device?
Some organizations are making use of a reverse proxy. However, this solution requires a vanity url which is prone to outages and the CASB vendor has no control over all the URLs maintained by the different cloud service providers. In addition there are some technical limitations with enforcing traffic steering without an agent on unmanaged devices.
A Better Approach - Mirror Gateway
Symantec CloudSOC Mirror Gateway (an add-on feature for CASB), solves the unmanaged device security problem. It enforces the same level of security controls on an unmanaged device, without needing an agent, as could be achieved by a managed device. All of this while maintaining a seamless user experience and removes the need to constantly update the ‘URL rewrite’ rules whenever the cloud application changes.
How It Works
A successful login to the corporate Identity provider from an unmanaged device is identified by Mirror Gateway. The user’s session is then seamlessly redirected to a dedicated Isolation chamber running a remote browser, rendering images of the data back to the user while all of the browser traffic is continuously inspected.
Users on unmanaged devices using Mirror Gateway are accessing the SaaS application directly from the remote isolated browser so no url rewriting is required. Using the isolated browser also provides the ability to limit copying and pasting. File downloads and uploads originating from an unmanaged device can be blocked while the actions are audited by the full CloudSOC CASB capabilities and controlled by the same policy engines as managed devices.
Mirror Gateway is a unique way to enforce CASB protection inline. It doesn’t matter if your user has a managed endpoint or an unmanaged device. CloudSOC CASB enforces extensive, context-driven inline cloud controls over more functions for more cloud apps than is possible by other CASB solutions.
Reach out to us via your account teams and one of us here at Broadcom will be happy to schedule some time with you to demo and discuss it.
Watch Mirror Gateway in Action
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Symantec Cloud Workload Protection Suite Named Product of the Year by CRN
Cloud security has never been more critical – with particular ramifications for the channel
CRN has recently released its annual list of Products of the Year and we are proud to share that the Symantec Cloud Workload Protection Suite has been named Product of the Year for Cloud Security by CRN magazine. We released Symantec Cloud Workload Protection Suite mid-year, and that it won the award so soon after its introduction underscores the relevance of this offering in the marketplace. What makes this award especially important to Symantec is the way the winners are chosen—solution providers, like you, vote on which product you believe is the best in class. Here’s how CRN describes it: CRN editors looked at the best new products and major updates of 2018 and then turned to solution providers to choose the winners based on technology, revenue and profit opportunities, and customer demand.
The industry recognition goes hand in hand with the feedback that we’re getting from customers and partners alike. It re-emphasizes that we’re on the right track for protecting organizations on their journey to the cloud, especially those who have adopted a hybrid or even multi-cloud infrastructure combining on-premises, public and private clouds.
The award also highlights the sizable market opportunity there is for the channel in cloud security. There is strong growth in workloads moving to the cloud, but one of the key concerns of IT professionals is how to keep this new expanded perimeter secure. We have data that shows that 50 percent of customers have delayed cloud adoption due to cyber security concerns, even though 80 percent of them are looking to migrate their workloads and storage to the cloud.
Traditional on-premises security tools simply do not have the cloud-native integrations required to protect and scale workloads and storage in dynamic cloud environments. Symantec Cloud Workload Protection Suite was designed to address this growing security need. It includes integrations with leading public cloud providers. A single cloud-based console protects workloads across public clouds, private clouds, and physical on-premises data centers. The solution supports physical on-premises servers, virtualized private clouds, and public cloud platforms including Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform (GCP). The protection scales automatically as enterprises’ use of cloud platforms grows.
The opportunity it offers Symantec partners is significant. As more customers move to the cloud, they need expert help and guidance about how to keep their cloud deployments secure. The Symantec Cloud Workload Protection Suite increases our partners relevance in guiding and advising them about how to keep safe on that journey.
The Symantec Cloud Workload Protection Suite is an example of the kind of investments Symantec is making to increase cyber security in an increasingly cloud-enabled world. Making sure that customers can reuse security policies across various on on-premise, multi-cloud, and hybrid cloud environments is vital for many enterprises. Symantec and Symantec Partners are uniquely positioned to address this demand, given the breadth of supported use cases for multi-cloud hybrid environments.
The suite is available on multiple platforms and environments, including on Symantec’s Security Cloud Platform, public cloud providers’ marketplaces, as well as on our standard corporate price list. Symantec Partners can learn more about CWP Suites here.
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Symantec Content Analysis: Multi-layered Threat Protection
Offering more flexibility and scalability
Over the summer, when Symantec, a division of Broadcom (NASDAQ: AVGO), rolled out its new Secure Web Gateway (SWG) solution, it also announced the decoupling of hardware appliances into separate hardware and software components to offer more convenience to customers. In a follow-up move, Symantec Content Analysis (CAS) is similarly being decoupled to offer customers more purchasing flexibility and scalability.
Paired with Symantec ProxySG, Secure Messaging Gateway, Symantec Endpoint Protection, Security Analytics or other third-party tools, CAS offers customers a unique way to determine whether something is malicious and then prevents bad files from getting to an endpoint and causing damage.
I caught up with Mitch Merrifield, from Symantec’s Network Information Security team to learn more about the changes, including the simplification of the CAS licensing program.
Q: What are the terms of the new enterprise licensing that’s being announced?
A: Our new CAS enterprise licensing allows a customer to buy hardware and software separately. The licenses are based on the total processing capacity that customers need. That offers clear advantages when we think about flexibility, scalability, and cost savings. For example, you can now deploy using a single license, either on hardware in a virtual environment or even in the public cloud. And scaling becomes a lot easier since the customer will be able to add more capacity at any time to their license and deploy more based on the same license. Also, customers can resize their existing deployments. They can aggregate them all in one place. They can split up their instances. And so, any way that an organization needs to deploy Content Analysis, they can now do that with a single license.
Q: From now on, they won’t need to buy capacity before they need it?
A: Exactly. So, when it comes to disaster recovery, you won’t find licenses sitting idle; they can be purchased and spun up on demand.
Q: On the subject of licensing issues, what were you hearing from customers?
A: Two things. Hardware was being sold as a monolithic appliance. So once customers purchased capacity for that appliance, they held it for whatever their depreciation time was. There was limited flexibility; whether it accomplished what they needed in the next year or the year after that didn't matter. They just bought a big thing. The difference now is that when they buy hardware, they only need to install the software they need today and then add more capacity over time. They could even reduce capacity and save money on licensing if they find they won’t need that capacity in the future.
On the software side, they were buying a fixed license, but each time that they needed more, they had to buy a new license. Take an example: if they had 400 virtual Content Analysis instances, then they had 400 licenses. Now they have one license. And that license renews just once a year, instead of 400 renewals every year. So from an administrative point of view, it's just a lot easier. This simplifies procurement purchasing management, and deployment management.
Paired with Symantec ProxySG, Secure Messaging Gateway, Symantec Endpoint Protection, Security Analytics or other third-party tools, CAS offers customers a unique way to determine whether something is malicious and then prevents bad files from getting to an endpoint and causing damage.
Q: On a big picture level, why will customers find this a better approach to threat detection?
A: Simple, single layer defenses are no match for sophisticated attacks that can evade basic protections. SOC and IR teams are getting inundated with alerts. There’s just too many for them to handle effectively. Sandboxing can certainly provide some help in detecting unknown threats, but they are often slow and don’t offer real-time protection. If your threat intelligence is limited, so will your ability to detect a threat and some attacks may go undetected for extended periods. Security organizations invest heavily in a number of technologies. But if there is weak integration between tools, you are stuck with an entirely manual process and remediation is slow.
Q: So, what makes this a better approach to threat detection?
A: Content Analysis basically delivers what we call multi-layer file inspection, and the intention is to prevent unknown threats from getting into an organization. This happens by having sources like ProxySG and Secure Messaging Gateway and other tools that can send content to Content Analysis for deep inspection. We use a number of words, like interrogation and analysis and scanning, to basically determine whether specific content is malicious and should be blocked. The goal here is to work with various termination points to identify that content as far away from the endpoint as possible. When it works with the proxy, the idea is that we'll find it at the network level and determine that something is malicious and be able to prevent that file from causing malicious activity before it gets to the endpoint.
Q: On a day-to-day level, how would a multi-layered approach play out?
A: It would feature multiple types of scanning and analysis, so you’re better protected against targeted malware attacks, Trojans, and web spyware and the rest. Also, identifying malware using mobile techniques lets a SOC team prioritize and dramatically reduce the number alerts that it has to address. This is a big differentiator as the technologies that we have within Content Analysis and ProxySG can very quickly identify malicious things and help defenders rapidly make decisions. The upshot is that fewer things need to go to sandboxing.
Q: How does this compare with other approaches used for threat detection?
A: Other organizations might use a more single layer, simple approach and say, `Well, that's good enough.’ Our approach features multiple layers that are more effective at finding malicious content. All those capabilities that have previously been on some kind of legacy hardware are now available on this new platform that we announced for ProxySG. It’s the same hardware platform; Content Analysis can sit side by side with ProxySG or by itself. It can also be deployed as a virtual appliance or in a customer’s cloud environment, all with the same license.
Q: What happens when the system determines that a file contains malicious content?
A: If something’s determined to be malicious, the system will basically communicate back to ProxySG which can then terminate the session. That’s the use case where Content Analysis is attached to ProxySG. At the same time, the content might have come from an endpoint where it could get inspected. The content might have come from Symantec Security Analytics where it could get inspected further. And the steps after detection in each case may be different.
Q: Can you offer an example of this type of threat protection in action?
A: Sure. We have a large Fortune 20-sized company that experienced close to 42 billion web requests over a 30-day period coming through. And our secure web gateway core component did what it was supposed to do. It analyzed the traffic, categorized the websites and blocked 48 million malicious sites. Some 2.4 billion files were then sent to Content Analysis for inspection. Of those, 539,000 files ended up in the sandbox – of which only 389 risky files were identified – a very manageable number for this customer’s IR team. They were so excited with the results that they created their own version of this funnel slide to show to their board and convey the effectiveness of their Symantec solution, powered by Proxy and Content Analysis.
Q: That seems like a huge saving in time for the SOC team, would you agree?
A: Massive. It meant that their security operations and response teams had far fewer files to deal with so they didn’t have to waste time and resources. Before they deployed this process, they were dealing with 4,000 events on a monthly basis. Now it's down to less than 400 risky files that are identified as needing deeper investigation. This is what makes Symantec Content Analysis unique.
Content Analysis: Multi-layered security for effective defense against advanced threats
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Symantec Crowned Fastest Endpoint and Best Protection Five Years Straight
Latest results from independent lab AV-TEST once again prove Symantec technology is unsurpassed
The prestigious AV-TEST Institute recognized Symantec Endpoint Security (SES) for both the 2019 Best Protection and the 2019 Best Performance awards. This is SES’s fifth straight Best Protection award, and SES’s first Best Performance award. Notably, SES is the only enterprise endpoint product to win both awards, demonstrating that with the right technology, security does not need to require compromises in user productivity.
“Symantec, now an Enterprise division of Broadcom continues their dynasty of Best Protection for the 5th year in a row. Extending their head and shoulder lead over the industry in Best Protection, Symantec reached new heights as the only product to also win the very challenging Best Performance category,” said AV-TEST CEO Andreas Marx.
Symantec, now an Enterprise division of Broadcom continues their dynasty of Best Protection for the 5th year in a row.
AV-TEST performs rigorous assessments that use the latest attacks that are brand-new and active in the threat landscape. Throughout 2019, SES was subjected to thousands of these zero-day attacks. SES blocked every single attack, with no misses. While the security software is working, AV-TEST measures performance by carrying out typical workday tasks using critical enterprise applications. SES ranked first among all enterprise competitors in the performance testing.
As a customer-driven company, Broadcom invests $4.7 billion in R&D annually and we couldn’t be happier to put that kind of engineering investment muscle to work to continue to stay ahead of threats and the competition. Our cloud-driven analytics, expert-driven machine learning, and passion for protecting customers enables us to lead AV-TEST and we will continue to drive innovation as part of the Broadcom family.
Attacks are always changing, so it takes relentless focus to stay ahead. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. The AV-TEST awards recognize not only excellence but consistency – no small feat, and one we know our customers appreciate.
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Symantec Data Center Security Provides Zero Day Protection
Keeping your Microsoft Exchange servers protected
Microsoft has released patches to address four critical vulnerabilities in Exchange server CVE-2021-26855, CVE-2021-26857, CVE-2021-26858, and CVE-2021-27065. Proxylogon is the name given to the two vulnerabilities (CVE-2021-26855 and CVE-2021-27065) and the technique to chain them together to gain unauthenticated access to the server. Meaning that attackers can take over servers even without knowing any valid account credentials.
The impact is considered severe, as successful exploitation can lead to remote code execution, stealing of sensitive information and further lateral movement in the organization network. These vulnerabilities are actively exploited in the wild. The broader security community has come together to defend Exchange users, with several detailed publications on this, including one from Symantec. They are assisting globally affected users by providing in-depth analysis of the techniques used by threat actors, available protection coverage, and further guidance to look out for indicators of compromise with mitigation strategies.
While the best course of action is to apply the Microsoft Exchange patches as soon as possible, as of March 22nd, there are still reports of a few thousands unpatched servers in the US that are potentially vulnerable.
Symantec Data Center Security default Intrusion Prevention policy provides zero day protection for customers running Exchange servers.
The Symantec Data Center Security (DCS) Intrusion Prevention default policy provides zero-day protection for Microsoft Exchange servers. There are also additional DCS controls available for a more comprehensive lockdown.
DCS Intrusion Prevention System provides zero-day protection including: operating system lockdown, application control and application isolation for physical and virtual server workloads. The underlying sandboxing technology and policy driven behavior controls for operating systems and applications, provide proactive protection against unknown threats without relying on continuous signature updates. The same technology stack has powered multiple Symantec security solutions such as Critical System Protection, Data Center Security and Cloud Workload Protection for over fifteen years, protecting the critical infrastructure for our customers globally.
The default DCS Windows hardening policy with its predefined sandboxes for Microsoft Exchange and IIS application, prevents several attack techniques used by the threat actors during and post exploitation. The defense in depth strategy provides protection at various points of the attack sequence.
DCS Windows hardened policy controls:
File protection prevents deployment of web shells on Exchange Servers to locations mentioned in the threats such as Exchange installation paths %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V15\FrontEnd\HttpProxy\owa\auth\
Software Install restriction prevents download of powercat and other attacker tools
Privileged Process Access Control prevents credential theft by blocking lsass process memory dump via procdump, mimikatz
Default hardened policy does not allow IIS server sandbox to initiate connections to the internet thereby preventing attempts of data exfiltration to C2 servers.
Customers can further enable additional DCS controls for a more targeted lockdown:
Prevent suspicious proxy execution via child processes using living off the land techniques. Enable Sandbox Execution controls to prevent suspicious child processes from getting launched for IIS and Exchange worker processes. Add *\cmd.exe, *\powershell.exe, *\powershell_ISE.exe, *\rundll32.exe, *\net.exe to the list of programs that should not be launched by IIS and Exchange. Additional dual use tools can be referenced from the pre-defined Global Policy list of processes that services should not start. If there is a need to run a specific tool, then exceptions based on cmdline arguments and/or username can be added depending on IIS and Exchange usage in the deployment.
Prevent further arbitrary file writes from w3wp.exe and UMWorkerprocess.exe and their child processes by adding *.zip,*.rar,*.7z,*.php, ,*.asp,*.aspx,*.asmx,*.asax, *.jsp,*.js to the Read only Resource list. Block modifications to these files, in the IIS and Exchange sandbox. Exceptions can be added based on IIS and Exchange usage in the deployment.
Reduce the attack surface for IIS and Exchange by configuring the network controls at the application level in the IIS and Exchange sandbox to accept connections only from trusted IPs and limit outbound connections.
This information is evolving and we will keep this updated as there is new information. As discussed in this article, Data Center Security with its several layers of default and customizable prevention controls can be used for protecting your mission critical assets from the rapidly evolving threat landscape.
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Symantec Data Loss Prevention Cloud: How To Achieve Comprehensive Cloud Security
5 Questions Security Practitioners Should Be Asking
Productivity apps moved quickly to the cloud, outpacing a clear understanding of what a comprehensive security solution should be. A classic: cloud first/security second problem. To correct this, security professionals should be asking these five critical cloud security questions:
Can I accurately detect all sensitive data in my organization, does the offering support all detection technologies such as OCR or form recognition technologies?
Do I understand the risk each and every user presents with regard to data loss?
Do I have superior visibility and can I secure all the data in sanctioned and unsanctioned apps?
Is there an easier way to manage my DLP policies across all channels, web, cloud and email and avoid wasting effort in policy duplication?
Can I detect various types of malware and protect against threats in the cloud?
How do you solve these five critical cloud security questions?
Expand on the capabilities available in Symantec Data Loss Prevention Cloud. It is recognized as one of the most comprehensive cloud and data security products in the market today, as recently acknowledged by Forrester.
1. Can I accurately detect all sensitive data in my organization, does the offering support all detection technologies such as OCR or form recognition technologies?
By integrating CASB with Data Loss Prevention, Symantec DLP Cloud brings deep content inspection and comprehensive detection technologies including OCR, Scalable EDM, and advanced fingerprinting detection. It also uses context analysis to provide an understanding of the location, movement, and exposure of sensitive data, so you can prevent data leaks and exfiltration attempts within Office 365.
2. Do I understand the risk each and every user presents with regard to data loss?
Symantec CASB continuously monitors risks like data loss, use of unsanctioned applications, malware, device security posture and compromised accounts. This allows us to identify and tackle risks, before it’s too late. It gathers frequent data from cloud applications via its API integrations (Securlets), endpoints and gateway integrations (Gatelets). We apply risk scores to users and if they go over a certain threshold determined by the admin, adaptive access controls are in place to either reduce someone’s access privileges, reduce privileges for sharing data, and prevent data from being shared with external entities.
And Symantec Data Loss Prevention Cloud just got better. We are pleased to announce that we now provide content inspection support for MS Teams through the Microsoft 0365 API Securlet. We can now scan messages and DLP policies can be extended to MS Teams and apply appropriate remediation actions to protect from data loss/exfiltration.
3. Do I have superior visibility and can I secure all the data in sanctioned and unsanctioned apps?
With Symantec DLP Cloud, you gain deep transaction visibility in order to control Shadow IT. Because we know risky transactions can slip “under the radar”, we provide the capability to collect, view, and control all transactions from sanctioned or unsanctioned apps, with options for managed and unmanaged devices. API integrations and inline traffic analysis is used to monitor and control use of sanctioned SaaS platforms. Risk scoring is provided for over 37,000 apps using hundreds of security mechanisms, compliance certifications, and other metrics.
4. Is there an easier way to manage my DLP policies across all channels, web, cloud and email and avoid wasting effort in policy duplication?
Creating the policy rule set to protect this data from scratch is labor intensive however Symantec CASB saves all this effort. Simply extend your existing Symantec DLP policies to your managed cloud environment, ensuring consistent protection and compliance posture.
Simple integrated policy creation and maintenance workflows dramatically reduce our customers’ cost of ownership over time.
Using the Microsoft 0365 integration, the following actions are available:
Scan and review documents in OneDrive and Sharepoint Sites, Emails, and messages in Teams for sensitive content and malware
Create policies for remediation such as removing sharing permissions, quarantining files with sensitive data, prevent users from accessing, downloading, uploading or sharing documents with unauthorized parties, blocking sensitive messages in Teams
Review alerts and incidents
5. Can I detect various types of malware and protect against threats in the cloud?
Cloud Malware is on the rise. Recent reports put the amount of malware delivered via the cloud at 61%, while malicious Office docs were used in 43% of all malware downloads, up from 20% a year ago. It’s fundamental now for every organization to have a comprehensive set of threat protection capabilities. This includes technologies like file reputation, file scanning, and sandboxing to detect malware hidden in data and documents that live in the cloud. Symantec DLP Cloud does this.
Symantec DLP Cloud is CASB and DLP working in tandem, providing a single control point from which security teams can configure DLP policies that secure SaaS apps, control access to web destinations, identify shadow IT and prevent malware.
Learn More
To learn more about Symantec DLP Cloud and how it can protect your business, contact us here or read more here for more product information.
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Symantec Data Strengthens Context for Anomali Threat Platform
Threat intelligence firm Anomali enhanced its services by integrating with Symantec's DeepSight security information network.
As companies try to gain visibility into the threats targeting their systems, they are inhibited by a common problem: The sheer volume of data. A few years ago, they perhaps only had to worry about thousands of new indicators every day. Today, security teams may need to sift through hundreds of thousands of new indicators every day.
In 2018, two-thirds of companies consumed cyber threat intelligence data, according to the SANS 2018 Cyber Threat Intelligence survey. The top-three uses of threat intelligence are for detecting threats and attacks, prioritizing vulnerability remediation prioritization, and for incident response.
Yet, correlating disparate data into credible threat information is a tough problem. Often, it is beyond a human being's ability to process or to correlate. Even with machine learning, such an influx of data can overwhelm systems and result in false positives.
Today, security teams may need to sift through hundreds of thousands of new indicators every day.
Anomali solves that by using security, network, and threat data from a variety of sources to give companies additional context and more reliable threat intelligence. We take everything coming in, give it as much context as possible, and let the machine do the heavy lifting. Analysts in security operations centers (SOCs) are overwhelmed with data, so paring down that information into the high-quality signals of potential threats is not only desirable, but necessary.
As part of that effort, we integrate with other services that can give us internal context and insight into the security state of a business's environment. If you have a vulnerability scanner you can bring in the data about your environment and where those systems reside.
When you see these things coming in from Symantec's ecosystem, you can instantly have the context of what information is critical, rather than get alerts on threats that do not impact your systems.
Symantec has an incredible footprint with millions of sensors deployed worldwide. With the DeepSight product, we satisfy our users’ need for access to everything else they are doing with threat intelligence.
Because modern application programming interfaces (APIs) allow easy integration, bringing the Symantec DeepSight intelligence into our platform was fairly straightforward. Going forward, as Symantec brings new data products into their portfolio, we aim to incorporate those that are beneficial to the Anomali ecosystem.
If Symantec's ecosystem continues to evolve, there is going to be a lot of opportunities to find the pieces of overlap to tap into more data and gain extra visibility. In addition, there are a lot of extra different types of enrichment that will allow us to bring people more information about different threats, and some exciting ways to bring different tools into the environment.
With companies increasingly asking for threat intelligence systems to prioritize their analysis and incident response activities—more than three-quarters of firms directly import threat intelligence into their security information and event management (SIEM) systems, according to the SANS report—it becomes increasingly important to find more sources of data to add context to threat services. Yet, more data can mean more confusion, so using a system that adds context and can prioritize threats for companies is essential.
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Symantec Discusses Securing Private Mobile App Data in the Cloud
HospitalGown and Azure Blob Service: Mobile Security Relies on Data Security
We’re living through a historic era as organizations rapidly migrate their data to the cloud. The advantages are many – not the least being the flexibility now enjoyed by employees, who, no matter their location, are free to use a myriad of mobile devices to access the information they need.
But no tech transition unfolds without growing pains and that applies as well to our increasingly cloud-and-mobile-centric world. In fact, researchers from the Modern OS Security Team at Symantec have discovered that more than half of all enterprise mobile devices contain at least one application that fails to protect users’ private and highly sensitive data in the cloud.
Put another way, it means that your private data was very likely exposed to the world without you, or as is often the case, the app developer, ever knowing ‑ that is, until it’s too late.
This latest discovery focuses on a new variant of the HospitalGown data exposure which occurs when app developers fail to require authentication or expose access keys to resources or files using Microsoft Azure storage services.
Beware of the Blob
The new HospitalGown data exposure occurs when app developers fail to require authentication or expose access keys to resources or files using Microsoft Azure storage services.
Microsoft cloud services have grown at a rapid pace bringing higher adoption by app developers. As we have seen in the past, that growth potentially brings with it an increase in data leaks, often from app developers continuing to overlook or ignore basic security practices.
In 2017, researchers on Symantec’s Modern OS Security Team (previously Appthority) discovered HospitalGown, named for data leaking through back-end data stores that are unsecured. HospitalGown results from app developers’ failure to properly secure back‑end servers with firewalls and authentication, leading to data exposure. Our initial report revealed that weakly secured back-end databases were being accessed via apps used by employees, partners and customers and resulted in numerous security risks, including extensive leaks of sensitive data, easier data access and ex-filtration, and increased risks for spear phishing, social engineering, data ransom and other attacks.
What our latest research suggests is that this not only puts the app customer data at risk ‑ but also threatens the security of the entire enterprise.
The main focus and findings will cover the most popular and widely used datastore we found in use, Azure Blob service. App developers use the Azure Blob service to serve or store images, documents, log files, or backups for disaster recovery and archiving, easily accessing the objects from anywhere in the world via HTTP or HTTPS, and widely supported with client libraries for mobile platforms.
More than half of all enterprise mobile devices contain at least one application that fails to protect users’ private and highly sensitive data in the cloud.
Even though Microsoft adequately documents and provides the tools to protect resources and objects using the Azure Blob service, some app developers continue to ignore or understand how to properly secure files stored in the cloud.
Moreover, it takes little effort for attackers to locate open files and objects stored using the Azure Blob service. Cyber criminals can then gain access to millions of private mobile data app records by simply accessing the unguarded file.
That was the case here and it doesn’t make for a pretty picture. Apps connected to unsecured Azure Blob services have exposed more than 200 million data records, including: 1.6 million user and employee IDs with credentials and passwords. Other findings include the following:
460 mobile iOS and Android apps – over 1.1 billion Android downloads, alone — are leaking files from 223 unsecured Azure Blob service accounts
Multiple app categories are impacted including tools, productivity, health and fitness, communication, finance and business apps
More than 200 million database records are exposed, including: 1.6 million user and employee IDs with credentials and passwords
Thousands of PHI (Protected Health Information) records (patient names, health symptoms, and medical history)
Millions of GPS location records and vehicle tracking information (name and car registration numbers)
Thousands of documents containing corporate contracts, invoices, and inventory costs and tracking data
Research Methodology
In late 2018, we continued to look at techniques we've developed identifying back-end servers connecting to mobile apps. We then looked at the most popular data stores across hundreds of thousands of mobile apps we've analyzed and identified the back-end services to which they were sending data. Using these findings, we identified Microsoft cloud storage solution, "Azure Storage", highly popular among app developers. Azure Storage currently includes four different services:
Azure Blobs (optimized for massive amounts of data, streaming video and audio, and storing data for backup)
Azure Files (store files accessible to SMB, primarily used for on-premise or internal apps)
Azure Queues (store lists of messages)
Azure Tables (store NoSQL)
The type of Azure storage service, account, and accessible resources are identifiable within the URL used by the app when connecting to the cloud service. The URI format includes the Azure account name, storage type (blob, table, queue, or file) and specific resources and REST API operations. For example, an app accessing an Azure Blob document in the container "human_resources" with account "acme" would use the following URL:
https://<acme>.blob.core.windows.net/human_resources/reviews/wilecoyote.docx
We looked across all our apps identifying the app using this URI format to connect to Azure storage services. In total, we found 8225 mobile apps connecting to over 25000 different Azure accounts. Azure Blob Storage was the most widely used by mobile app developers, by far, as seen in the following table,
Total Apps: 8225
Next, we looked at security controls (authentication and authorization) available and best security practices recommended by Microsoft. In almost all cases, we find developers failing to secure data entirely (no authentication) or improperly securing data by doing exactly what the security documents say not to do. From looking and comparing how app developers are accessing cloud resources with Azure storage services, this looks to be the case yet again. We found close to 1 in 4 app developers using the Azure Blob service exposing files without any authentication, and worse, app developers including hard-coded shared access keys exposing all files and directories under a Microsoft Azure account. Again, exactly what the security best practice documents instruct app developers not to do.
In a potential threat model, a bad actor could:
Parse strings and/or look for network connections from apps that are connecting to Azure Blob services
Parse app strings looking for hard-coded account access keys, following the format of "AccountName=<account>,SharedKey=<Access Key>=="
Query Azure blob service "https://<account>.blob.core.windows.net/?comp=list" retrieving the full list of exposed files and containers
Our research team applied this threat model to over 2.8 million iOS and Android apps found on mobile devices in enterprises. We then pulled a list of exposed containers and files for each account, storing part of the data in a secure location for further analysis.
To determine the impact of the data being leaked, we evaluated the type of sensitive data exposed. We used Data Loss Prevention (DLP) techniques to identify confidential or sensitive information. These included the types of files and data contained, identifying patterns that characterize sensitive data such as credit card numbers, passwords, corporate sensitive data, etc. After running the analysis across all apps, we had a clear picture of the impact and scale of the data exposure.
Compared to previous HospitalGown findings focusing on data and files used by the mobile app, this picture stretched into the enterprise, often exposing internal files and sensitive data in use by the enterprise connected to the mobile app. Full corporate database backup files were exposed - often side by side - with less sensitive files used and accessed by the mobile app. Further, we found corporate internal documents, financial tables, customer invoice and billing details (including full credit card numbers and SWIFT codes), internal employee documents, medical records and other highly sensitive files leaked from exposed Azure Blob Storage containers.
Defanging Threats to Enterprise Data
When internal company data gets leaked, organizations lose intellectual property, damaging their viability and competitiveness. Indeed, the app leaks we found included corporate private keys and access credentials. With this information in hand, cyber criminals have free reign in a corporate network and can potentially exfiltrate sensitive intellectual property, such as patent information and plans for future products.
Organizations can protect themselves from HospitalGown by following best practices for sharing and using resources from the cloud storage provider. Microsoft publishes a security checklist and guidance for Azure Storage that can be found here. In particular, developers should never reuse cloud shares meant for user data with internal corporate data, and should ensure all shares are appropriately locked down with permissions designed for the data being stored.
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Symantec DLP 15.8 Enables Discovering Sensitive Information Across Web Applications
Important Enhancements to Symantec DLP Discover Web Server Scanner
We are continuing with our blog series on the upcoming DLP 15.8 release; a release that further increases the operational ease of protecting data. To help organizations scan data on a wide range of websites and web applications, we are excited to tell you about the enhancements made to the Symantec DLP Discover Web Server Scanner.
Symantec DLP Web Server Scanner
Today, enterprise information can be found in multiple places on the web: in SharePoint, OneDrive, Confluence, Jive, and more. Therefore, customers have a need to find sensitive information across any and all of these repositories, and then ensure the right protection is in place.
The ideal approach to discover sensitive information in these repositories is for DLP to have an API based integration with the repository. This integration would give DLP complete control in finding sensitive information and also take protective actions. However, this approach has practical limitations, and only a subset of these applications can be supported using an API based integration. Which means that this leaves customers with no visibility across a wide array of applications.
To help organizations scan data on a wide range of websites and web applications, we are excited to tell you about the enhancements made to the Symantec DLP Discover Web Server Scanner.
The enhanced Symantec DLP Web Server Scanner solves for this limitation and provides customers with the visibility that’s needed. The Web Server Scanner is a general purpose tool which can be used to scan websites and web applications for sensitive information. The scanner takes a best effort approach to scan the website content and find sensitive information.
What’s New?
With the release of DLP 15.8, we have made several, important enhancements to the Web Server Scanner:
The Web Server Scanner is now bundled with the DLP Discover/Detection server, removing the need to separately deploy and install the scanner. This reduces the time and effort to set up, manage and execute scans. Also, when it comes to information detection technologies, the enhanced Web Server Scanner is on par with those supported by DLP Discover/Detection server. It supports all DLP detection techniques including Sensitive Image Recognition (SIR).
We have extended support for scanning websites using versions up to TLS v1.3 (the latest version). In addition it includes the ability to support container file types like zip, word, etc. handled differently by certain repositories like Jive.
We have also enhanced the manageability via Enforce management console, so now customers can start/stop a scan, specify the websites they would like to scan, which in turn simplifies the management of scans from Enforce.
Customers Are Protected
At Symantec, as a division of Broadcom, we are committed to help our customers find and protect sensitive information wherever it resides. These improvements to the Web server scanner are an important step in that direction, and is just one of the many improvements available in DLP 15.8. Read this blog for an overview of some of the benefits of DLP 15.8.
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Symantec DLP 15.8: The Power of Integration
Streamline DLP Incident Remediation with ServiceNow
As we embark into 2021, we all need to look forward to something new, something better, something that will shift our focus from the unpredictable 2020. One thing that we’re sure will bring some excitement is Symantec DLP’s 15.8 release, available in early February 2021.
One of the exciting features of this upcoming release is End User Remediation, a built-in solution for decentralized incident remediation using ServiceNow. End User Remediation enables customers to engage anybody in their organization for incident remediation. They can choose to select certain types of incidents or all incidents. For example, some Symantec customers we have spoken to, would like to delegate all low and medium severity incidents to the frontline managers. Some others want to engage the file owners for remediating all DLP Discover incidents. With End User Remediation, decisions on incidents can now be made with better context, in turn, reducing the workload on InfoSec teams without losing compliance oversight.
One thing that we’re sure will bring some excitement is Symantec DLP’s 15.8 release, available in early February 2021.
The Need for Better Incident Management
Over the last few years we are seeing an increased use of DLP across Endpoint, Storage, Network, and SaaS applications. Enterprises with central InfoSec teams are struggling to keep up with the volume of incidents and are forced to prioritize what to remediate. As a result this can lead to many DLP incidents remaining unremediated, causing data loss risk to an organization. Additionally, they are not aware of the context of the policy violation and are not in the best position to remediate the incidents. Incorrect remediation could break business processes in the organization thereby impacting the day to day operations.
Decentralizing incident remediation enables more people to be engaged so that more incidents can be resolved. And engaging the correct users reduces the overall data loss risk associated with incorrect remediation.
DLP End User Remediation with ServiceNow
DLP End User Remediation with ServiceNow provides a superior and comprehensive incident remediation process. There are two steps involved to configure and deploy the solution:
A simple one time configuration to be done in the DLP Enforce management console, where, customers identify incidents to be remediated, what incident information will be made available to the remediators and what remediation actions they can take.
Deploy the Symantec DLP End User Remediation (EUR) app in ServiceNow, where workflows can be defined and there is complete flexibility to model a remediation process based on your organization’s requirements.
Real World Scenarios
We have developed this solution to cater to the multiple use cases that our customers need to solve. Below are some of these examples that have been shared by some of our large customers where the EUR solution can help solve their problems. For example:
Involving line managers to determine the severity of the incidents generated by their employees. This would help organizations quickly identify the most critical issues.
Quarantining emails with sensitive content and have the sender’s manager review the quarantined email and decide if it can be allowed or rejected.
Enabling the file owners to remediate any sensitive files that might be stored on a network share, SharePoint or a SaaS app like Dropbox, etc.
Capability to define workflows, specifically to take care of situations like the remediator being “Out of Office” and the remediator not taking action within the stipulated time, automatic enrollment of the policy violator for privacy training, etc.
How to get started?
To start using End User Remediation, customers will need to be using Symantec DLP 15.8 (available in February). There is no additional licensing requirement for DLP. Customers will also need to have ServiceNow and the DLP End User Remediation application will need to be deployed in their ServiceNow environment.
What’s Next
Symantec DLP End User Remediation offers many benefits. The key takeaway is that it helps remediate more incidents by engaging more users and reduces the risk associated with incorrect remediation.
Along with End User Remediation, there are many more interesting features lined up in DLP 15.8 and over the next couple of weeks we will be sharing insight into some of those.
Watch this space for more blog posts!
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Symantec DLP 16: Helping Achieve Your Cybersecurity Goals
Reduce risk, improve productivity, and increase agility
As cyberattacks and cyber risk become more relentless and more complex, cybersecurity must become more robust and easier to use.
Symantec Data Loss Prevention (DLP) 16 embraces that philosophy, and the soon to be released new version will have capabilities that provide a clear pathway to enable organizations to implement a Zero Trust security architecture so they can reduce risk, improve productivity, and increase agility.
Symantec DLP 16 is expected to become generally available to customers in the coming weeks, after a successfully received customer beta program. The release addresses key requests from customers, who have been heavily involved in beta testing. In line with their feedback, Symantec DLP 16 provides a host of new capabilities that will make networks safer and the lives of DLP administrators easier, including enhanced incident response, improved compliance, high-speed discovery, and enhanced and new support for non-Windows platforms.
Digital transformation and work-from-home have dramatically improved the productivity of business users, but these trends have also challenged organizations’ ability to maintain visibility on data movement and user activities.
Zero Trust as a Priority
For such reasons, 80 percent of C-level executives have Zero Trust as a priority for their organizations, according to a survey by the Cloud Security Alliance. Also, according to IBM’s “2022 Cost of a Data Breach” report - just 41% of organizations in the study said they deploy a Zero Trust security architecture. The other 59% of organizations that don’t deploy Zero Trust incur an average of $1 million USD in greater breach costs compared to those that do deploy. While the need for Zero Trust is apparent, actually accomplishing Zero Trust raises many questions:
How can organizations extend protection to remote, unmanaged devices?
How can they minimize the risk from non-Windows platforms like Linux?
How can they incorporate user behavior and risk profile in protecting their sensitive data?
How can they ensure that Incident Response reacts quickly while also remaining compliant?
Symantec DLP 16 supports Zero Trust by combining device location (network status), user risk, data discovery, and consistent, unified policies that allow dynamic data access decisions to be taken.
Policy Targeting
Creating precise policies that allow accurate detection of sensitive data has long been a challenge for many organizations. Symantec DLP 16 addresses this important issue in several ways. The new release provides more ways to find sensitive information without complex policy tuning, with a new feature to automatically identify structured Personal Identifiable Information (PII) in documents and emails. Additionally, DLP 16 now enables customers to incorporate user risk behavior in their DLP policies as well as response actions so that they can achieve fine-grained control of potential data loss based on an employee’s user risk score.
Furthermore, the new release provides more granular policy targeting capabilities, and extends its Microsoft MIP classification integration to Windows Outlook Email Speed is a critical element in responding to incidents effectively. The best response and accurate triage depends on quick access to the most relevant information. At the same time, certain sensitive data should not be shared with Incident Response teams.
Symantec DLP 16 supports Zero Trust by combining device location (network status), user risk, data discovery, and consistent, unified policies that allow dynamic data access decisions to be taken.
Symantec DLP 16 handles this delicate balancing act in several ways. The technology provides more context about network incidents and masks sensitive data in those incidents. Report views can be customized and data exported to Excel to allow intuitive data analysis. Incident remediation can also be plugged into external tools via APIs.
Given the growing complexity of the cyber landscape, DLP administrators need simplified solutions for their countless daily tasks.
For example, keeping the DLP deployment up-to-date is more difficult when endpoints need to be coordinated with other teams. DLP reduces the friction of deploying the latest endpoint updates with its new Live Update feature. This gives DLP administrators a centralized place, DLP News, to receive Symantec product notifications and information specific to their deployment.
Fast File Scanning
In addition, Symantec DLP 16 provides administrators with enhanced support for Linux, macOS, remote devices, and Edge browser. The coverage for these threat vectors is further increased with fast file scanning. With high-speed scans that can achieve one terabyte of data scanned per hour, Symantec DLP 16 can address compliance requirements to scan large files on a regular basis.
In this new release, there are also more capabilities and flexibilities in providing lists of incidents, so security personnel know which issues to focus on. Security teams can quickly filter through thousands of incidents that users generate in a day and understand which ones deserve close scrutiny.
Companies will want to incorporate DLP into their entire security strategy to deliver on automation and complete integration with Security information and Event Management (SIEM) orchestration and User Entity Behavior Analytics (UEBA) systems. Toward this goal, DLP 16 provides 6 new APIs covering policy management, response rule automation, and administrator and role management, so the technology can be easily customized into the wide security system.
Symantec DLP 16
The capabilities in this release are critical elements for developing a Zero Trust security framework to protect organizations as the business and cyber landscapes undergo constant and rapid change. The stakes are enormous. Companies without a high degree of Zero Trust maturity, whose users are coming from remote networks, are seeing higher breach costs. If an organization takes the appropriate steps, not only does it have security outcomes – in the case of a breach, the impact to the organization is also lower.
In this complex and challenging cyber landscape, Symantec’s products will stand beside you to provide the data and information to fortify your defenses and respond to your needs. Please watch for future blogs as we explore these new enhancements to Symantec DLP 16 in more detail.
To learn more about Symantec DLP 16, please join us on September 22, for a webinar featuring guest speaker Heidi Shey (Forrester Principal Analyst, DLP). We will explore “What’s Next for DLP?” by discussing problems that are causing customers concern, how the market is adopting Zero Trust, recent innovations in DLP, and the outlook for the future.
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Symantec DLP Gives You Power to Query and Filter Incident Data
Using the Symantec DLP RESTful API to extract and index Symantec DLP Matches
Data Loss Protection (DLP) Programs are complex. Just think about the huge volume of sensitive data, being accessed by users in many locations, across different devices and data locations (endpoint, storage, email, and cloud). DLP Systems also create many different data incidents and being able to search for specific data is an important requirement for customers. For example, SOC engineers need to verify if Symantec DLP has previously detected specific national data identifiers (like US Social Security Numbers), credit card numbers, addresses, or other personal identifiable information (PII) data instances.
Adding to this complexity is the need to respect the various privacy regulations in force. According to Gartner, "By 2023, 65% of the World's Population Will Have Its Personal Data Covered Under Modern Privacy Regulations". With the advent of such regulations, Symantec DLP can augment our customers' ability to address data owners' requests for deletion, correction, the right-to-be-forgotten, and other business processes.
Symantec’s DLP solution, as part of Broadcom Software, has long provided customers with ways to integrate incident data.
We are proud that Symantec DLP has helped our customers detect and protect information for years, finding the needle in the haystack through our comprehensive set of detection technologies. However, as the regulatory requirements of privacy have increased, the problem has gotten harder, and customers need to be able to identify not just the needle in the haystack, but a particular needle among millions of needles.
Symantec’s DLP solution, as part of Broadcom Software, has long provided customers with ways to integrate incident data. With the release of DLP 15.7, we delivered a new set of RESTful APIs with multiple advantages over previous solutions. The APIs have been progressively improved as follows:
A native, flexible, powerful, and well-documented RestAPI
The ability to query incidents across different types
Fully-fledged filtering capabilities
(For more information, click here)
A good way to understand the capabilities of the RESTful API is through an example. indexSymantecDLPMatches.py does the following:
Sends data to ElasticSearch or Splunk
Queries across multiple incident types, with specific filters to control which incidents have been already processed.
Provides telemetry for control (i.e., processed incidents, amount of matches extracted)
NOTE: While the use cases are primarily driven by the need to identify PII, the example applies to other important types of information (like, for instance, source code). The example does not provide matches for VML or image-based incidents.
Prerequisites:
ElasticSearch and Kibana
Splunk with HEC
Python 3.8
indexSymantecDLPMatches.py is written in Python 3.8
Symantec DLP 15.8 MP1
A user with API privileges (Example)
Before implementing this or any other similar functionality that involves extracting Symantec DLP matches, customers are strongly encouraged to:
Ensure appropriate access, authentication, encryption, and data protection controls for the systems that will store the extracted DLP matches. Enterprise Search solutions provide such capabilities.
Test and validate that the extraction process does not adversely impact the performance of the Enforce server
NOTE: The code is a) an example and b) provided as-is, we do not know your computing environment so you need to assess the script’s function and performance before implementing it.
Symantec is excited to introduce the release of DLP 15.7, delivering a new set of RESTful APIs with multiple advantages over previous solutions. To learn more or contact us, please visit us here.
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Symantec DLP named Top Player by Radicati Group 2021
Once again, Symantec DLP has been recognized as a leader in the market
We are delighted to report that The Radicati Group has named Symantec DLP as a Top Player in the Radicati Data Loss Prevention - Market Quadrant 2021. Symantec maintains a very strong position and marks further validation of our long-held leadership, spanning many years, in the information protection market.
As the figure above shows, The Radicati Group follows a rigorous and clear process, assessing vendors against two dimensions, Strategic Vision and Functionality. We are naturally delighted to have been recognised so strongly on both aspects of our solution.
Symantec, as part of Broadcom Software, offers customers a full, and integrated, DLP solution. As well as market leading levels of accurate data discovery, our solution is able to protect data flows across many different data locations and channels, including on-premises, endpoints, storage, web gateway, email gateway and cloud. Because policies can be created centrally and managed via the DLP Enforce console, customers are able to efficiently manage our solution.
A complete DLP solution for on-premises and cloud
Over the last two years we have simplified the way we offer our DLP solution, offering customers a DLP Core and DLP Cloud solution. This approach provides our customers with a full suite of technology (including User Entity Behavior Analytics, Sensitive Image Recognition and Cloud Access Security Broker) to secure their on-premises, or cloud based data. The complete nature of Symantec DLP’s solution underpins many of the strengths recognized by The Radicati Group.
Find out more about the full protection offered by Symantec Information Security on our website or contact us here.
* Radicati Market QuadrantSM is copyrighted November 2021 by The Radicati Group, Inc.
Reproduction in whole or in part is prohibited without expressed written permission of the Radicati Group. Vendors and products depicted in Radicati Market QuadrantsSM should not be considered an endorsement, but rather a measure of The Radicati Group’s opinion, based on product reviews, primary research studies, vendor interviews, historical data, and other metrics. The Radicati Group intends its Market Quadrants to be one of many information sources that readers use to form opinions and make decisions. Radicati Market QuadrantsSM are time sensitive, designed to depict the landscape of a particular market at a given point in time. The Radicati Group disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy or completeness of such information. The Radicati Group shall have no liability for errors, omissions, or inadequacies in the information contained herein or for interpretations thereof.
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Symantec Edge SWG and Proxy: It’s Upgrade Time
Five key benefits will leave your security strategy in a far better position than before
Upgrades are part of life – when it’s time, we’re best off making the most of them. It’s true that upgrades involve planning, commitment, and some work - but after the upgrade is done, you can point to new features that will serve your organization well now and in the future. That’s particularly true of the Symantec Edge Secure Web Gateway (SWG) Operating System 7.3 (SGOS), which is replete with capabilities that will more than compensate for the task of upgrading. Here are five key benefits:
High-risk isolation. Too often, even knowledgeable users click on a bad link, compromising their system and opening the door for advanced persistent threats (APTs), ransomware, and potentially millions of dollars in costs and reputational damage. It doesn’t have to be that way. Symantec Web Isolation takes web traffic that is either at a risk level greater than 5 or uncategorized, and sends it to a safe, isolated environment hosted on Google Cloud Platform that delivers amazing performance and scale. Users receive only images of the web site while the traffic is evaluated further. Isolating questionable content so that it never reaches a user’s system will go far to help you implement a zero-trust cybersecurity strategy, because that unknown or risky content is in fact never trusted and reaches the user. Some users pay extra for this capability from a specialized vendor, but with Symantec Web Protection it’s included at no additional cost and available when you upgrade your Edge SWG appliances to SGOS 7.3.
Good-bye to Java. While Java is a great programming language and has been useful to the Symantec environment over the years, it is becoming an untrusted platform that requires regular updates. This complicates management and makes the maintenance of a fully secure environment difficult. Moving on from Java will do away with the need to download current versions. Instead, we’re implementing cloud-based, web-native management that will simplify tasks while giving you a consistent look and feel.
Aggregate Health Status Monitoring. As networks add more devices and locations, monitoring becomes more challenging. In SGOS 7.3, we’re including the ability to observe granular health status based on proxy services such as Domain Name Service (DNS), Internet Content Adaptation Protocol (ICAP), network reachability, and more. This will help signal to upstream load balancers the availability of the proxy and services. If there are issues with a proxy, you can stop pushing traffic toward it and reroute it, saving troubleshooting time and labor.
Transport-Layer Security (TLS) 1.3. Symantec has always delivered leading encrypted traffic management capabilities and full TLS 1.3 support in SGOS 7.3 is in keeping with that commitment. Moving to the latest version of TLS will enable you to avoid the vulnerabilities of earlier versions. With TLS 1.3, you’ll be able to maintain the greatest possible security by adhering to the latest cipher suites, as well as using proper cipher management and strength controls. And because we support TLS 1.3 in both on-premises and cloud SWG offerings, you can move readily between Edge and Cloud SWG.
Universal Policy Management. As organizations disperse their IT infrastructure across hybrid clouds, management headaches multiply. To simplify administrative tasks, we incorporated deployment flexibility in SGOS 7.3 so you can manage all your SWG instances, whether on-premises Edge appliances or Cloud SWG, with the same security and acceptable use policies. And because your policies follow the user regardless of where traffic is inspected, you will be able to better support branch offices and remote users via cloud SWG.
Also consider
With any new release, stability is a valid concern. However, Symantec’s Cloud SWG has been running SGOS 7.3 for months, establishing a solid track record. Because it has worked well for millions of users in a cloud environment, it is safe to say it will work well for you in your own environment. More importantly, SGOS 7.3 is the long-term release (LTR). That means that all forthcoming enhancements – including features you will need in the future – will be built on 7.3.
Finally, it’s important to remember that end-of-life is also part of life. On December 31, 2023, Broadcom will end support for SGOS 6.7. That means if you call with an issue after that, you will be asked to upgrade. Wouldn’t you rather plan your upgrade on your own terms? There’s plenty of time to schedule it – if you start now.
To learn more, visit our growing Symantec Web Protection video playlist for a for a peek at High Risk Isolation and other features you might be missing.
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Symantec Edge SWG Performance Monitoring
See how teams running Symantec Edge SWG (formerly ProxySG) can gain comprehensive observability, so they can effectively address issues and optimize performance
For today’s network operations teams, optimizing both network security and performance is
more vital than ever. However, meeting these objectives keeps getting more difficult.
Business services continue to rely on increasingly complex, dynamic, and multi-cloud network
environments. In these environments, it gets ever more difficult to authoritatively track and
manage performance and ensure security policies are consistently adhered to. For teams
running secure web gateways (SWGs), also referred to as proxies, these challenges can be even
more pronounced.
Understanding Symantec Edge SWG Processing Performance
Symantec Edge SWG (formerly ProxySG) runs on premises, and is available on either a physical
or virtualized appliance. When teams are running Edge SWG appliances, they can be challenged
to understand what specific internal services may be affecting performance. The solution’s
advanced policy engine and sophisticated rules can introduce processing overhead, which
comes at a cost from a performance standpoint. Most teams can benefit from additional
visibility into the details of this processing.
Where Traditional Monitoring Falls Short
Within most enterprises, teams have been leveraging traditional monitoring solutions to track
various network devices, such as proxies, firewalls, and routers. These tools support tracking
device availability (up/down), CPU utilization, memory, sessions, and other types of aggregated
statistics.
While traditional monitoring approaches are necessary to gain visibility into the health and
status of devices that comprise the network, they don’t provide a complete and holistic view.
More specifically, traditional monitoring solutions lack in-depth visibility into Edge SWG.
Fundamentally, they lack the ability to get in-depth statistics on overall processing performance
of the appliance and on the performance of the specific modules within it.
Implications of a Lack of Visibility
Since teams lack visibility into the overhead added by the solution, whenever network issues
arise, the Edge SWG platform is often erroneously viewed as the cause. This presents a number
of problems. Fundamentally, if the Edge SWG is erroneously blamed for an issue, teams may
not continue the effort needed to find the real root cause. Further, if a problem isn’t correctly
understood, the proposed “solution” may do more harm than good.
The Broadcom Solution
Broadcom now delivers a complete solution that enables you to gain comprehensive
observability in your Edge SWG deployments. With this solution, you can establish concrete
baselines and leverage insights for optimally managing your entire Edge SWG estate. The
solution features two key elements:
AppNeta. AppNeta provides active synthetic network and application testing, delivering rich metrics based on path, packet, web, and flow data.
DX NetOps. DX NetOps offers comprehensive network monitoring for traditional, software-defined, and cloud-based architectures. DX NetOps provides unified visibility, high scalability, and advanced analytics.
With the Broadcom solution, teams can validate overall performance of Edge SWG, monitor
capacity and health, and gain detailed visibility needed to troubleshoot issues. With this
solution, organizations can fully leverage their Edge SWG investments and boost operational
efficiency in managing their complex network environments. All customers who are running
current versions of Edge SWG can harness the Broadcom solution.
Conclusion
To achieve their organization’s availability and security imperatives, today’s teams can’t afford
to have blind spots. With the Broadcom solution, teams can eliminate the potential blind spots
associated with Edge SWG environments. With the solution, teams can gain comprehensive
observability, so they can effectively track behavior, address issues, and optimize performance.
To learn more about the advantages and use cases of the solution, be sure to visit our blog
post, “Symantec Edge SWG Performance Monitoring: Gain Full Observability with DX NetOps
and AppNeta.”
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Symantec Email Security named Top Player by Radicati Group
Latest results once again recognize Symantec technology as a leader in email security
The Radicati Group has once again named Symantec, a division of Broadcom (NASDAQ: AVGO), a Top Player in the Radicati Secure Email Gateway - Market Quadrant 2020. Radicati published the first Secure Email Gateway Market Quadrant in 2016, and Symantec has consistently been awarded the Top Player rating in every report published over these last five years.
Radicati’s approach follows a well-established process and methodology which ensures a consistent level of research across all areas, and their reports are structured in the same manner to understand how trends vary from year to year. Vendors are evaluated based on Functionality and Strategic Vision, and Top Player status is only awarded to those few vendors that excel in both dimensions.
Functionality is evaluated according to the breadth and capability of each vendor’s solution. The Email Security portfolio integrates with the Symantec Integrated Cyber Defense Platform (ICD), allowing tight integration with other security technologies, including Data Loss Prevention (DLP). Symantec offers:
Fully flexible deployment, spanning on-premises appliance, cloud service or hybrid
Business Email Compromise, including impersonation controls, sender authentication, email scam analysing technology, staff awareness training and applying customer headers to potentially risky email. As well as supporting sender authentication standards (such as DMARC, SPF and DKIM), Email Fraud Protection automates how organizations achieve DMARC enforcement
Advanced Threat protection including cloud hosted sandbox technology, phishing readiness assessment and training, and a broad set of email security and targeted attack analytics
Protection against URL and phishing threats including click-time protection, phishing variant detection, and webpage and attachment isolation
Enhanced protection of Office 365 environments. Symantec Email Security uses Office 365 APIs and integrates with Symantec CloudSOC (CASB) and Data Loss Prevention to provide highly accurate protection against email threats, account takeover, cloud file shares that host malware and sensitive data loss
Leading Data Protection as Email Security integrates with Symantec DLP for detection, consistent policy and email encryption control
Strategic Vision, as defined by Radicati, refers to the vendor’s strategic direction, which comprises a thorough understanding of customer needs. Broadcom focuses on customer needs and technology leadership, investing $4.7 billion in R&D annually. The priorities for Symantec Email Security are:
Enhanced email analytics to help customer’s detect, respond and remediate advanced and sophisticated attacks
Ongoing investment in delivering class-leading levels of protection efficacy
Simplicity and expanding the integrations available with our Integrated Cyber Defense Platform
Radicati’s evaluation of Symantec Email Security highlights the strengths that our customers rely on every single day to ensure highly accurate and effective protection against a wide range of email threats. Symantec’s mission is to continually enhance the protection we offer both now and in the future.
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Symantec Email Security named Top Player by Radicati Group 2021
Once again, Symantec Email Security has been recognized as a leader in Email Security
We are delighted to report that The Radicati Group has named Symantec Email Gateway as a Top Player in the Radicati Secure Email Gateway - Market Quadrant 2021. This continues a solid and consistent track record of Symantec Email solutions being rated in the Top Player category.
As the figure above shows, The Radicati Group follows a rigorous and clear process, assessing vendors against two dimensions, Strategic Vision and Functionality. Symantec, as part of Broadcom Software, allows us to offer customers both a complete email security solution, as well as being able to integrate with the whole Symantec cyber-security portfolio. The strategic value this offers has been recognized in this report, with Symantec Email Security being rated with one of the highest scores for ‘Strategic Vision’.
A complete Email Solution: on-premises, cloud or hybrid
Symantec Email Security is available in different formats to give customers the choice in how to access email protection, either via a cloud delivered service or an appliance / software solution that can be installed in on-premises or cloud datacenters.
When it comes to protection, we are proud of the wealth of features we offer, from pure email hygiene (anti-spam and anti-virus) through to advanced threat protection (e.g. sandboxing), fraud protection, security analytics and remote browser isolation. To help prevent data loss, our solution includes email encryption and can fully integrate with Symantec DLP to provide enterprise levels of data detection and loss prevention controls driven from a single, central policy.
Find out more about the full protection offered by Symantec Email Security on our website or contact us here.
* Radicati Market QuadrantSM is copyrighted November 2021 by The Radicati Group, Inc.
Reproduction in whole or in part is prohibited without expressed written permission of the Radicati Group. Vendors and products depicted in Radicati Market QuadrantsSM should not be considered an endorsement, but rather a measure of The Radicati Group’s opinion, based on product reviews, primary research studies, vendor interviews, historical data, and other metrics. The Radicati Group intends its Market Quadrants to be one of many information sources that readers use to form opinions and make decisions. Radicati Market QuadrantsSM are time sensitive, designed to depict the landscape of a particular market at a given point in time. The Radicati Group disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy or completeness of such information. The Radicati Group shall have no liability for errors, omissions, or inadequacies in the information contained herein or for interpretations thereof.
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Symantec Endpoint Protection Remains #1 According to Experts
Rigorous 3rd party testing helps confirm it
Enterprise security teams face daily challenges in keeping their environments secure. When it comes to picking an endpoint security partner, security teams struggle to compare their options, given all vendors claim to be the best. Reading through marketing collateral, indeed one may conclude that all Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) solutions are the same. They are not.
Real World Testing (RWT) is the only way to measure a solution’s effectiveness. However, it is not possible for most customers to test all use cases for a product without creating expensive labs and extensive sample collections. Further, such investments would need to be continuous in order to get a consistent measure of an EPP’s effectiveness, instead of just a snapshot in time.
When it comes to picking an endpoint security partner, security teams struggle to compare their options, given all vendors claim to be the best.
Accurate testing only can be done by accredited 3rd party testing labs. Symantec, a division of Broadcom (NASDAQ: AVGO), believes that 3rd party testing is the best way for customers to get a fair evaluation of EPP effectiveness. We also are confident we have the best endpoint security solution in the market. For that reason, Symantec regularly participates in rigorous 3rd party testing from multiple sources.
What have we learned from all of the testing that Symantec Endpoint Security tests has undergone? Multiple testing experts have demonstrated -- time and again -- that Symantec is the clear leader in endpoint protection.
Let’s take a look:
Symantec Endpoint Protection (SEP) has a long history of 3rd party testing that demonstrates consistently high efficacy. Consistency is critical. The reason: Adversaries do not take time off. But the good news is neither do we. In its YTD Protection Test by AV-Test Institute (2020 through August) SEP was the best performer compared to our closest competitors.
Symantec Endpoint Protection (SEP) has a long history of 3rd party testing that demonstrates consistently high efficacy.
In the actual detection of threats, or False Negatives in the terminology of the test, some vendors were within a percentage point or two of SEP. Those vendors will certainly say that a percentage point is close enough, that there is no real difference. But there are millions of new threats released in the wild each day. With numbers that big a percentage point difference is huge. Here is another way to look at it; in the test SEP showed a single compromise. That’s 12 times better than the nearest competitor. So against the next closest vendor, SEP will be 12 times better at protecting you from those millions of real world threats.
12x better than Vmware Carbon Black
13x better than Microsoft Defender
16x better than McAfee
58x better than Cylance
(CrowdStrike did not participate)
Any good testing also looks at false positives -- that’s the number of times an alert is generated on something that is not a valid threat. Nonetheless, other security vendors often try to boost their detection scores by including false positives in their threat detection totals. In reality, it's disastrous for customers to rely on an endpoint protection product that generates a high number of false positives. Think about the pace at which security and SOC teams already need to work -- just to stay even keel! Consider the sheer number of endpoints, often exceeding 100k in a single organization. Then think of the number of alerts each endpoint can create every single day. It’s hard to imagine how any security tool that generates needless investigations and processes could be useful to an already overworked SOC team! That’s why it’s critical to evaluate vendors on their false positive rates. In the False Positive Test by AV-Test (2020 through August) SEP was the only solution to have ZERO False Positives. None.
Modern organizations run more than Windows. So other platforms need to be tested as well. In the Protection Test for Mobile (July 2020) and macOS by AV-Test (June 2020), again Symantec was perfect.
Microsoft – Did Not Participate
Crowdstrike – Did Not Participate
McAfee – Did Not Participate
Vmware Carbon Black - Did Not Participate
Cylance - Did Not Participate
Trend Micro – Did Not Participate
Lookout – Did Not Participate
Zimperium – Did Not Participate
This brings up an important question… Why don’t other endpoint security providers participate in 3rd party testing? Why do most vendors go out of their way to avoid any testing mobile or macOS? Knowing how effective RWT are for solid product evaluations, why don’t we see more participation? Perhaps some vendors believe it's easier to invest in marketing than to let their product do the talking.
By now, you get our point. Real World Testing is the most effective way to evaluate endpoint security solutions. And AV-Test is not the only testing organization out there. Those looking for a second or third opinion can try:
SE Labs: SEP came in 1st place with 100% Total Accuracy score.
MRG: "In the Wild 360 / Full Spectrum Test" SEP again was the winner, scoring perfectly with zero misses and having the most auto or behavioral blocks. Symantec was also the only vendor to receive the “Level 1” certification, meaning we had zero misses in the ITW test and passed their live botnet test.
The results are the same. The results are unanimous. The clear winner continues to be - Symantec Endpoint Protection (SEP). SEP is available as a stand-alone offering, and included in Symantec Endpoint Security Enterprise (SESE) and Symantec Endpoint Security Complete (SESC).
Watch Video: How Symantec Detected and Prevented the WastedLocker Ransomware Attack
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Symantec Endpoint Security
Solutions Overview
Why is Endpoint Security Important?
Endpoint security is moving quickly beyond malware:
• 33% increase in mobile ransomware
• 600% increase in IoT attacks
• 80% Increase in iOS and Android vulnerabilities
• 56% Increase in risky Wi-Fi networks
• 54% increase in mobile malware variants
• Linux is used to power 96.3% of the world’s top servers and is vulnerable to attack
• 70+ million records stolen or leaked due to poor AWS configuration
Get the industry-leading endpoint security solution to help protect your business.
Endpoints are a primary target of cyber attackers.
Symantec Endpoint Security prevents, hardens,
detects, and responds to emerging threats across
laptops, desktops, tablets, mobile phones, servers,
and cloud workloads.
Key Capabilities
The Most Comprehensive Protection
Symantec® industry-leading endpoint solutions secure all endpoints,
including laptops, desktops, iOS phone and tablets, Android phones
and tablets, servers, storage human-machine interface and operational
technology, cloud workloads, containers, and cloud storage.
Cloud and Hybrid Options
While on-premises solutions remain the primary defense mechanisms for
many organizations’ data centers, the disappearance of the traditional
network security perimeter, the need for cost reduction, and support for
mobile and remote users has driven the need to move to security in the
cloud. By offering endpoint solutions in the cloud, Symantec offers options
for any deployment, on-premises, cloud, or a hybrid solution of both.
A Single Agent
Ponemon Institute found organizations install, on average, seven different
endpoint agents to support IT management and security. Each agent
operates independently with its own console and set of rules and policies—
all of which need to be configured, rolled out, managed, and maintained.
In addition to creating more IT overhead and costs, multiple products
introduce defense gaps and errors, increasing the chances you’ll miss a threat.
Symantec Endpoint Security deploys a single agent for protection,
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR), and Application Control & Isolation.
A Single Console
Symantec Endpoint Security allows an administrator to deploy and manage
all endpoints through a single console with real-time threat visibility across
laptops, desktops, mobile devices, servers, and cloud workloads.
The Only Solution with Integrated Breakthrough Security Technologies
Symantec Endpoint Security is the only solution with Adaptive Protection,
full Endpoint Detect and Response (EDR), Breach Prevention, App Isolation,
and App Control capabilities integrated with Endpoint Protection.
Autonomous Security Management
Symantec Endpoint Security delivers autonomous security management that learns from admins, the organization,
or the community to continuously assess and strengthen your security posture. It also uses Artificial intelligence
(AI) guided management for establishing strong security policies with fewer misconfigurations to help improve
overall security hygiene and posture.
Real-Time Threat Information
Symantec Endpoint Security leverages real-time threat information, threat analytics, content classification, and
comprehensive threat blocking data from the Symantec Global Intelligence Network.
Easy Endpoint Security Management
The Symantec Endpoint Security portfolio includes tools that help you manage your endpoint security deployments
and workflows.
The Most Award-Winning Solution on the Market
The Symantec Endpoint Security Portfolio continues to get rave reviews and multiple awards for industry
leadership, performance, efficacy.
“One of the biggest benefits of Symantec solutions is the ease of use. Everything
is in a single console: you can deploy policies from the cloud down to on-prem,
and still see what’s going on in the cloud while you do it.”
− Alan Roche, Technical Director | Threatscape
“Since integrating SES Complete, we are better equipped to defend, identify and
prevent further targeted malware attacks. Due to the number of applications
running at any given time within our network, the increased visibility into system
behavior has allowed SOC teams to identify ransomware and other malware at
much greater speeds, reducing the risk of major data breaches.”
− Manager, Endpoint Security & Analytics | Global Telecom Organization
Awards
• Radicati APT Market Quadrant Top Player, 2023
• Radicati Endpoint Security Market Quadrant Top Player, 2023
• SE Labs Best Endpoint Enterprise Winner, 2023
• AV-Test Best Protection Winner (four times consecutively)
• SE Labs Best Enterprise Endpoint Winner; Highest AAA rating for 42 consecutive quarters
• SC Magazine Recommended “We love this product” Award
• Named to CRN’s 2021 Mobile 100 List
A Look at the Portfolio
The Symantec Endpoint Security Portfolio helps you prevent, harden, detect, and respond to emerging threats
across laptops, desktops, tablets, mobile phones, servers, and cloud workloads. It protects your business across the
entire attack chain.
Pre-Attack -> Attack -> Breach -> Post Breach
ATTACK SURFACE REDUCTION
• Breach Assessment
• Adaptive Protection
• Vulnerability Remediation
• Device Control
• Application Control and Isolation
• Endpoint Security Deployment and Workflow Management
• Human-machine interface and operational technology
ATTACK PREVENTION
• Malware Prevention
• Exploit Protection
• Behavior based Prevention
• Secure Connection: Wi-Fi, Network Firewall and Smart VPN
• Storage Protection
• Cloud Workloads and Container Protection
BREACH PREVENTION
• Deception
• Active Directory Defense
• Auto-managed Policies
• Network Firewall and Intrusion Prevention
• Storage Protection
• Cloud Workloads and Container Protection
DETECTION & RESPONSE
Targeted Attack Analytics
• Behavioral Forensics
• Expert SOC Investigator
• Threat Hunting and Rapid Response
• Adaptive Incidents
• XDR
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Symantec Endpoint Security Complete: Choose the Best
Helping the enterprise realize ROI gains
As malware and ransomware attacks spike to new highs in 2023, businesses face a worsening security crisis. The dramatic shift to mobile and remote work in the last year-and-a-half has also invited the attention of cyber criminals regularly probing endpoints – everything from laptops and smartphones to Internet of Things devices – to discover security weaknesses that will allow them to bypass traditional security defenses.
Endpoints now constitute the frontlines of the battle. But while managing endpoint protection is vital, simply throwing money at the problem won’t be enough to achieve success. With – literally – thousands of endpoints to monitor and protect, enterprises need accurate assessments in real-time so they have a fighting chance to eliminate cyber threats before they become attacks. That means developing a comprehensive approach with broad coverage, centralized control, and efficient remediation to protect against the increasing incidence and sophistication of malware and ransomware. With increasing threats, enterprises must be more efficient than ever. Security budgets don’t scale linearly with rising threats, so getting value from your security solution is more important than ever.
With increasing threats, enterprises must be more efficient than ever.
To better understand the benefits, costs, and risks associated with enterprise returns on their endpoint security investments, Symantec by Broadcom, commissioned Forrester Consulting to conduct a Total Economic Impact™ study, interviewing four customers with experience using Symantec Endpoint Security Complete (SES) Complete. The goal was to provide readers with a framework to evaluate the potential financial impact of SES Complete on their organizations. For the purposes of this study, Forrester aggregated the experiences of the interviewed customers and combined the results into a single composite organization.
Key Findings
After their investment in SES Complete, the customers reported a myriad of operational and security gains that can be quantified in the following way:
Total Return on Investment (ROI): The composite organization experienced an impressive three-year, 437% ROI, based on benefits versus costs.
Cost avoidance of a security breach: With a breach sometimes costing an organization several million dollars, Forrester calculated that the increased efficacy of the SES Complete solution allows an organization to avoid an average expense of $1.25 million per year. The three-year risk-adjusted present value (PV) of this benefit totals $3.5 million.
Consolidation and simplification of security stack: Upon adoption of the SES Complete solution, add-on endpoint protection tools were no longer required. Since the implementation of SES Complete, interviewees commented that their organizations now spend ten percent less on other security application licenses. With an average total spend of $5 million, the annual savings is $500,000 per year. The three-year, risk-adjusted PV of this benefit is just over $1 million.
Efficiencies in remediation time: With the improved automation provided by the EDR feature, information bottlenecks caused by the need for manual attention and intervention are greatly reduced. Now only the highest priority threats require intervention. The visibility and analytics included in the solution help the security team address issues proactively, allowing security and IT team members to focus on more strategic tasks. The combined annual savings is more than $300,000 per year, resulting in a three-year, risk-adjusted PV of $775,525.
Other unquantifiable benefits underscored the gains that accrued to the security organization. Those benefits are detailed in the study.
Commissioned TEI Study conducted by Forrester Consulting on Behalf of Symantec by Broadcom, Sept. 2021, and updated Dec., 2023
ROI Feedback
In terms of day-to-day use, the deployment of SES Complete had other follow-through ramifications for total ROI.
One interviewee noted: “With fewer potential threats requiring attention, we have been able to eliminate the detection and remediation bottleneck that existed in our previous system. Now only the highest priority threats require attention, indicated along with the relevant analytics that make the remediation process much more efficient and effective.” With immediate access to all information surrounding the threat, the security team was able to expedite the remediation process.
Another interviewee noted: “The detect capability is many times stronger than what we had before. The visibility we have now compared to what we had before shows just how shockingly compromised we were from a risk perspective. SES Complete is a game changer for us when it comes to preventing future breaches.”
You can read the full Forrester study here. Also, find out more about Symantec Endpoint Security and what it can do to help your endpoint ROI by listening to a replay of this webinar.
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Symantec Endpoint Security Enterprise Launches on the new Global Channel Software Platform
Delivering support to Marketplace partners and flexibility to the enterprise
Symantec, a division of Broadcom (NASDAQ: AVGO), recently launched Symantec Endpoint Security Enterprise on Broadcom’s new Global Channel Software Platform (GCSP) sales channel supporting Partner Marketplaces. Email Security will also be added soon to this platform.
With the acquisition of the Symantec Enterprise Division, Broadcom further prioritizes operational excellence, speed and customer focus. GCSP was launched in record time in recognition of the value the marketplace model brings to our distributor’s business. Through our focus on targeted technology and infrastructure savings, Broadcom maintains its technology leadership across multiple markets while achieving the recognition of the most profitable company on a relative basis in the Fortune 500.
What is the Global Channel Software Platform (GCSP)?
GCSP was developed to serve Marketplace Partners that connect to Broadcom via existing SYMC APIs for self-serve ordering and fulfillment of Symantec’s SaaS offerings. The platform provides:
Low/No touch orders and fulfillment: Scalable model for transactional business
Evergreen monthly subscriptions: No renewals required (98% retention rate)
Flexible subscription management: No termed contracts allow partners to add seats, remove seats, cancel subscriptions throughout the month
Increased margins for Partners to control the GTM and E2E customer experience
Support: Partner to provide L0/L1 support
Why Symantec Endpoint Security Enterprise?
The first Symantec Enterprise product on GCSP: Symantec Endpoint Security Enterprise provides your organization with the most advanced security at the endpoint for both traditional and mobile devices across the three attack phases—Pre-Attack, Attack, and Post Attack—with an emphasis on prevention across the attack chain for rapid containment. Key features include:
Complete Protection and 3rd Party Integrations
Protects laptops, desktops, mobile phones and tablets
Integration with third-party applications like Microsoft Graph
Open C2, and other Symantec solutions through Symantec Integrated Cyber Defense Exchange (ICDx)
Simplified Deployment:
Single agent for endpoint security
Single console with real-time threat visibility
Flexible deployment: on-premises, cloud-managed and hybrid models
Actionable and Proactive Intelligence:
Artificial Intelligence (AI) guided security management
Global Intelligence Network, one of the largest, delivers real-time threat information
GCSP reaffirms Symantec Enterprise Division’s commitment to our partners providing the flexibility that our customers need. Through automated, real time provisioning, existing SEP Cloud marketplace customers can now order Symantec Endpoint Security through GCSP to begin their Endpoint migration.
Partners can access our partner portal for partner program, pricing, operations, sales enablement, and product migration details here.
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Symantec Endpoint Security: Experience Matters
Successfully protecting endpoints for 20 years
When it comes to endpoint security, Symantec, a division of Broadcom, takes pride in delivering top notch products and services to customers. We believe in the strength of our offerings. And we are very proud that Gartner recently recognized us in the 2021 Gartner® Solution Scorecard for Broadcom (Symantec) Endpoint Security[1].
In this report, we meet 97% of Gartner’s required criteria for Endpoint Protection Platforms. Those measures include features such as centralized management and reporting, endpoint protection requirements and attack surface reduction.
Figure 1 shows that Symantec Endpoint Security has an overall solution score of 90 out of 100. It also shows that SES meets 97% of Gartner’s required criteria, 86% of preferred criteria and 73% of Optional criteria. Note: This graphic was published by Gartner, Inc. as part of a larger research document and should be evaluated in the context of the entire document. The Gartner document is available from Broadcom here.
Symantec has been successfully protecting endpoints for more than 20 years. Having the biggest threat intelligence global footprint, we’ve spent over two decades collecting more data about threats on the Internet and behind URLs than anyone else. And because we are experienced at applying advanced analytics and machine learning, as well as assigning risk scores and deploying our own threat experts to review and interpret what we see, we can resolve 97% of content and risk assessment questions from our database, without having to reach out to other sources.
But, we are not stopping there. As the threat landscape makes major shifts, we continue our pace of innovation to help our customers stay on top of every development inside and outside of their environments.
Recently, we launched our Adaptive Protection feature. It evolved through organic innovation and is powered by Symantec’s threat intelligence. It works by reducing the number of possible avenues that attackers can exploit and cuts down on the ability to abuse trusted applications running on corporate endpoints. Market intelligence and research firm, IDC, used its Marketshare report to spotlight Symantec’s Adaptive Protection, noting it is designed to be used immediately and doesn’t cause any negative impact to a company’s business processes and legitimate applications.
Symantec has been successfully protecting endpoints for more than 20 years.
Additionally, with the launch of the latest Symantec endpoint protection release (called 14.3 RU1) supporting our Symantec Endpoint products, our innovations extend to the infrastructure level and provide better protection against the all-too-common web-based attacks that happen both in the organization and on malicious sites. The enhancements also enable better protection and prevention of targeted attacks that utilize living-off-the-land techniques, as well as ransomware. With SEP 14.3 RU1, we enhanced our parsing technology to prevent threats from utilizing common desktop files to deliver attacks; we built improved heuristic capabilities to prevent use of common file types for living-off-the-land attacks; and we enhanced our behavior detections for ransomware, while optimizing scoring heuristic protection for packed malware.
These changes to our underlying Endpoint Security platform strengthen what undergirds our highly recognized, highly rewarded Endpoint Security solution. Our flagship products protect all traditional and mobile endpoint devices and use artificial intelligence to optimize security decisions. Our unified cloud-based management system simplifies protecting, detecting and responding to all the advanced threats targeting your endpoints.
Numerous third-party tests demonstrate that Symantec Endpoint Security (SES) stacks up well with, and usually surpasses by far, the performance and capabilities of our rivals, including:
2020 MITRE Engenuity ATT&CK Evaluations which ranked SES as a leader with scores of 100% in protection and 91% in detection.
AV-Test Institute which confirmed SES provides the best protection available for cross-platform endpoint protection in 2020. Symantec received perfect scores in the three testing categories of protection, performance and usability, and the Institute said Symantec was the only endpoint security vendor to place at the top of protection tests for Windows, macOS and mobile platforms.
Radicati which listed Symantec as the Top Player for the 2021 Radicati Market Quadrant for APT and the 2020 Radicati Market Quadrant of Endpoint Security.
Symantec is the only vendor that was awarded SE Labs’ AAA rating for 30 consecutive quarters.
We also made significant strides in the improvement of our support and services. On the support side, we put in place a best in class customer support standard and strengthened our team of support personnel, making sure we have a strong bench of engineers with extensive product knowledge and cloud-based technology understanding. In another step, we consolidated what were two support organizations into one and now provide a globally consistent support experience. With the move to a single support organization, we have been able to focus on a higher level of customer experience with the same set of standards for all customers.
We recently launched our Expert Advantage Partner Program, which debuted in May of this year. It is a services-oriented partner program to support our customers’ usage of our enterprise solutions during the full lifecycle of their experience. Within the new structure, customers who work directly with Symantec or with partners have a single process for tapping into Broadcom-certified organizations for extended support services, intensive product education and consulting expertise.
Symantec has always valued the trust and support of our customers. We believe we have the best endpoint protection products and services around. But, we will never stop working to make what we provide even better. And customers can believe that we will never stop working to be the best solution for their security needs.
Learn more about the Gartner report here.
[1] Gartner, Solution Scorecard for Broadcom (Symantec) Endpoint Security, 21 May 2021, Jon Amato, Sushil Aryal
Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved.
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Symantec Endpoint Security Named Top Player by Radicati
Latest results once again prove that Symantec technology is the leader in security
The Radicati Group has once again named Symantec, a division of Broadcom (NASDAQ: AVGO), the Top Player in the Radicati Market Quadrant for 2020 for both Endpoint Security and Advanced Threat Protection. It is an honor bestowed upon Symantec for both products for 6 years running. Radicati’s approach follows a well-established process and methodology which ensures a consistent level of research across all areas, and their reports are structured in the same manner to understand how trends vary from year to year.
This differentiation is evaluated based on Functionality and Strategic Vision. Both areas that Symantec continues to excel, and is recognized as a leader across the Enterprise security market.
Symantec, now an Enterprise division of Broadcom, continues to invest and innovate in Endpoint Security and Advanced Threat Protection which places them as a Top Player in both market segments for the 6th year in a row. - Radicati
Endpoint Security - Market Quadrant 2020
Functionality is assessed based on the breadth and depth of features of each vendor’s solution. Symantec excels with their Endpoint solutions in functionality with their offering of Symantec Endpoint Security Complete (SESC):
Protection for all endpoints: laptops, desktops, tablets, mobile devices, and servers
Single agent for attack surface reduction, attack prevention, breach prevention, and Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
Flexible deployment: on-premises, cloud managed, and hybrid models
Behavioral Isolation and Application Control capabilities
Targeted Attack Analytics and Threat Hunter combine the best of AI and human experts
Global Intelligence Network (GIN), the largest civilian threat intelligence network in the world, delivers real-time threat information, threat analytics, content classification, and comprehensive threat blocking data
Integration with third-party applications including Microsoft Graph, Open C2, and other Symantec solutions through Symantec ICDx
Strategic Vision, as defined by Radicati, refers to the vendor’s strategic direction, which comprises a thorough understanding of customer needs. As a customer-driven company, Broadcom invests $4.7 billion in R&D annually and we couldn’t be happier to put that kind of engineering investment muscle to work to continue to stay ahead of threats and the competition, while providing cutting edge solutions to our customers. With focus on both the present and the future, Symantec continues to provide:
Continued focus on reducing complexity for the enterprise with reduced TCO and increased ROI
Simplicity and focus on integrations that begin with our Integrated Cyber Defense Platform
Protections for all phases of the attack lifecycle
Radicati recognizes excellence and consistency, which is not an easy accomplishment in this environment. Our customers depend on these solutions every day and will continue to count on us into the future to help them stay secure and one step ahead of the bad guys.
Source: Endpoint Security – Market Quadrant 2020, Radicati
Source: Advanced Persistent Threat Protection- Market Quadrant 2020, Radicati
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Symantec Endpoint Security on MacOS
Meet the new Symantec Agent for macOS Endpoint Protection
The Mac is far from new to enterprises, but it has gained traction amid the rush to support employees working from anywhere. Managing Macs beyond firewalls, VPNs or other access control devices placed security teams in a bind when they were unprotected, unmanaged and unmonitored. Now Macs—even those of BYOD origin—can enjoy the same robust protections available across other enterprise endpoints even in hybrid work environments.
That’s why Symantec is introducing new macOS agents—enhancing protection across these operating systems—with Symantec Endpoint Security Enterprise (SESE) and Symantec Endpoint Security Complete (SESC), 14.3 RU1. Providing support for Apple Big Sur (on Intel-based Macs), Symantec Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) enables security incident handlers to improve visibility on the latest Apple macOS.
The new version can be installed and managed from either the on-premises Symantec Endpoint Protection Manager or the Integrated Cyber Defense Manager (ICDm) cloud console. This agent release includes key innovations such as:
Behavioral analysis, which analyzes good and bad behaviors to prevent new and unknown threats on the macOS.
Consolidated Symantec Endpoint agent for macOS into a single version, with an updated user interface for both on-premises and cloud.
Relying on the best protection platform
The Symantec agent--used by SEP, SES Enterprise, and SES Complete--enhances Apple macOS security and provides enhancements such as device control, network firewall and intrusion prevention to block threats from compromising the endpoint.
The Symantec agent, powered by our heuristic and award-winning engine, prevents the latest ransomware and malicious documents from wreaking havoc in your enterprise. If you’re familiar with the on-premises version of SEP, and use Integrated Cyber Defense manager (ICDm), there’s no need to reinstall the agents.
With one single agent, there’s no performance degradation
Sample behavior analysis detection
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
Since the introduction of cloud-based EDR for SES Complete in May, Symantec Agent for macOS both records events and forwards them to ICDm. These steps enable incident handlers to investigate incidents and events from Windows and macOS clients—acting on SES Complete recommended actions as needed.
Now, with the release of the Mac agent, there is greater visibility into security incidents in the ICDm console. Incident handlers can dig deeper into an individual endpoint, looking for indicators of compromise such as what process was launched, files that were created, and other possibly unauthorized events. These are key steps toward surfacing and remediating problems, particularly when devices are off-premises and outside of firewalls and VPNs.
An incident handler sees security events on the Integrated Cyber Defense Manager console
Big Sur and System Extensions
Kernel extensions (kexts) have been an integral part of security software accessing kernel functions, but poorly written kexts frequently cause kernel crashes. Apple recommended abandoning the use of kexts and we rewrote the main bulk of our technology for this reason. RU1 is the first release to use both system and network extensions and, as a result, we’re seeing improved CPU utilization and stability.
What Else is Coming?
We delivered consolidation beyond just a single-agent for macOS which allows you to switch either to on-premises or cloud management. Many enterprise customers suffer from agent fatigue and Symantec helps reduce the number of required agents by consolidating Web Security Services, Application control and Threat Defense for Active Directory with SES Complete and other Symantec products into a single agent.
Enhancing protection is our main objective. With the introduction of Symantec Endpoint Framework in our previous release, we can easily plug in significant updates when they’re available. One example is the behavior-based technology in SEP 14.3 RU1. In a future product update, we will provide Mac support for URL-based reputation technology—available in this release for Windows.
The recently introduced Apple M1 is the first ARM-based processor for the next generation of MacOS devices. As our customers evaluate these new devices, we will release a universal binary version of our Symantec agent for macOS to simplify deployment and management of both Intel and ARM-powered Macs.
The single-agent, Symantec platform simplifies the protection of all enterprise endpoints, and uses AI to optimize security decisions. Together with a single console that provides real-time threat visibility, your Mac client will enjoy robust protection and reduce the stress on security teams charged with safely integrating them into hybrid, work-from-anywhere environments.
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Symantec Endpoint Security: Protection, Prevention and Innovation
Delivering the best to our customers
Symantec Provides Industry-Leading Endpoint Performance
Each year more than 10,000 large Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) take place in America. These business combinations often present our customers with new opportunities to unify and improve their cyber security. Symantec, a division of Broadcom Software, viewed M&A through another lens two years ago when Broadcom acquired Symantec, and some raised questions about the future of our product and service offerings from that change.
Newer upstarts were particularly eager to sow old-fashioned FUD - fear, uncertainty, and doubt - hoping to pick off customers who might fear that the change would diminish what Symantec could deliver. We’d like to bring you up-to-date with what actually happened and expose as unsubstantiated the claims of fact-challenged competitors about our protection, performance, and value.
Let’s start with independent evaluations of our endpoint protection:
Symantec Endpoint Security Complete (SESC) was a leader in the 2020 MITRE ATT&CK evaluations, achieving scores of 100% in protection and 91% in detection. None of our direct competitors can claim as high a total score. We’ve demonstrated that robust threat blocking can save organizations both time and money.
In the 2021 published Gartner® report, Technical Professionals Solution Scorecard for Symantec Endpoint Security [1], we received an overall score of 90 out of 100. “Symantec Endpoint Security (SES) satisfies 97% of Gartner’s Required criteria, 86% of Preferred criteria, and 73% of Optional criteria for endpoint protection platforms (EPPs), resulting in an overall weighted score of 90%.”
Continue having the Best Protection available for cross-platform endpoint protection according to AV-TEST. We’ve won the AV-TEST Top Product award consistently by scoring in the highest tier in each bimonthly test cycle since Feb 2018.
Retain the highest AAA ranking from SE Labs for the past 30 consecutive quarters and frequently lead the top tier for our total accuracy rating.
Customers also say we’re among the best. We’re defending 100 million endpoints — advancements that generate increasing customer value, differentiate us from our competitors and will keep us on top.
Continuous Innovation Drives Better Protection
Being first to market with new features generates buzz, but we know the most significant innovations are the ones that drive the most effective defense. We focus on establishing the earliest protection and detection possible across our entire endpoint product line. The package includes multiple prevention capabilities powered by advanced machine learning as well as Adaptive Protection, Application Control, Threat Defense for Active Directory, EDR, Threat Hunter, integrated threat intelligence, and mobile coverage for iOS and Android.
Symantec delivers timely results via technology, innovation and security analyst expertise and experience. For example, Symantec’s analytics use on-agent detectors, one of the most significant threat detection networks in the civilian world. Our team includes highly credentialed, expert threat-intelligence analysts who review global threat incidents and directly elevate the most critical ones into customers’ endpoint consoles, accelerating detection and rapid resolution.
Symantec delivers timely results via technology, innovation and security analyst expertise and experience.
Symantec has years of extensive security domain expertise across network, information, identity, and endpoint control points. SES Complete is a proven solution for Endpoint Security, offering a single agent. In addition, no additional agents are needed for the flexibility to choose or switch between management options: on-premises, full cloud deployment, as well as hybrid mixes.
While there are more expensive endpoint solutions, there are no better-performing options. A case in point: When the 2020 Sunburst/SolarWinds attack disabled many endpoint agents, Broadcom Software customers were protected by our tamper protection technology, a solution included in our products for more than a decade.
Wanting the Best Value
We believe third-party analysts validate the economic value of our products. Broadcom commissioned Forrester Consulting to conduct a Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) study and examine the potential return on investment (ROI) enterprises may realize by deploying Symantec Endpoint Security Complete. The study highlights our ROI:
Symantec ROI 437%
While these numbers are great, it’s important to know what that may mean for your enterprise. First, Forrester bases these figures upon an average “composite” customer. They’ve determined that SES has a $4.4 million net present value and that payback for the solution occurs in fewer than six months.
The quantified benefits used to calculate the payback include these three highlights:
Cost avoidance of security breaches
Consolidation and simplification of the security stack
Efficiencies in remediation time
The Forrester study also noted that our other advantages include:
One agent/one console architecture (similar to security stack simplification)
Better communication across security layers
No security gaps (at least minimized) and no redundant scanning
Automation (e.g. adaptive protection); we do the research and can automatically update policies for customers
The power of our Global Intelligence Network (GIN) and the decades of expertise/experience of our threat intelligence analysts
Finally, it’s worth noting that we’re not coasting on past achievements. We’re all in on advancing our value proposition, continuous innovation, and industry-leading technologies.
Since we became a division of Broadcom Software, our R&D technology investments have only continued to rise. New SES Complete features such as Adaptive Protection demonstrate that our unique approach to prevention and protection technologies disrupts would-be attackers. And we’re making critical investments in advanced machine learning and artificial intelligence to block attacks in real-time and identify evolving threats across device types, operating systems, and applications.
To learn more about SES Complete, please visit its webpage.
[1] Gartner, Solution Scorecard for Broadcom (Symantec) Endpoint Security, 21 May 2021, Jon Amato, Sushil Aryal
Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved.
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Symantec Endpoint Security Rated a Top Player for Seventh Consecutive Year
Radicati cites Symantec’s strategic vision and products in protecting customers from cyber attacks in post-Covid WFH world
As the threat landscape keeps expanding in ways not considered possible even a few years ago, the need for strong security becomes even more critical than ever.
Adding to the mounting challenges companies face with their endpoint security are ransomware, steep compliance and regulatory penalties, as well as millions of people working from home and using personal Wi-Fi to connect with a myriad of devices. The exposure is great, and companies can experience the maximum downside risk if they cannot detect and mitigate breaches quickly.
In the first six months of 2021 alone, ransomware attacks nearly doubled the total for the whole of 2020. From gas pipelines and other critical infrastructure to city governments to healthcare systems, every industry and organization, public and private is exposed to what can be devastating impacts of ransomware and supply chain attacks such as SolarWinds.
Setting the pace for nearly a decade
At Symantec, a division of Broadcom Software, we take pride in our best-in-class enterprise security solutions. We have a legacy defined by more than 30 years of innovation and product leadership in the fields of cyber security, advanced threat, data protection, and security.
It is for these reasons that Symantec is proud of our recognition as Top Player in the 2021 Radicati Endpoint Security Market for the seventh year in a row.
The Radicati Group is a leading market research company that provides quantitative and qualitative research across a broad swath of the technology industry. The Radicati Top Player designation is the Group’s highest and most exclusive award. It recognizes those companies that are shaping the market with their technologies and strategic vision. Symantec’s position as a Top Player for seven consecutive years underscores our deep strategic vision as well as our ability to arm our customers with innovative, new technologies that are highly effective against today’s most invasive and devastating cyber threats. The award specifically rates companies by their product features and strategic vision.
The broadest range and depth of products
Radicati recognized the excellence of Symantec’s Endpoint Security (SES) products and solutions. Solutions that include:
Advanced Mobile Threat Defense. Symantec uses predictive technology in a layered approach that employs crowd-sourced threat intelligence, in addition to device and server-based, advanced analytics to proactively protect mobile devices from malware, network threats, and application or OS vulnerabilities.
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR). Symantec’s EDR solution detects advanced attacks, provides real-time analytics, and enables security operations center (SOC) teams to actively hunt threats and pursue forensic investigation and remediation.
Threat Intelligence API. Our API offers access to Symantec’s Global Intelligence Network (GIN). We make it easy to integrate with security partners running security information and event management (SIEM) applications, security orchestration, automation, and response (SOAR) platforms, and total information provider projects (TIP). These partnerships greatly advance enterprise security by making it easier for SOC teams to identify the scope of an attack and streamline response.
Application Control. This unique capability assesses the risk level of customer applications and their vulnerabilities. It automatically allows only authorized and “known good” applications to run.
Active Directory Security. This solution automatically learns an organization’s entire Active Directory structure. It is the only security solution that immediately contains attackers after an endpoint compromise -- preventing “living-off-the land” attacks designed to turn legitimate programs and processes into devastating attack weapons.
Customer-based strategic vision
Radicati’s recognition showcases how Symantec’s strategic vision allows Symantec to deliver a wide range of customer benefits, including:
Attractive pricing. Our full array of advanced endpoint protections are delivered in a single package at one price, enabling us to provide an attractive ROI to customers. The efficacy of our solution is demonstrated in the recent tests from the prestigious AV-TEST Institute where Symantec Endpoint Security (SES) was recognized as the Best Protection available for cross platform endpoint protection in 2020. Symantec was the only vendor to place at the top of the protection tests across all platforms: Windows, macOS, and mobile. Additionally, Symantec earned perfect scores for all three categories -- Protection, Performance and Usability -- in the AV-TEST Institute’s new “Endurance” assessment. With this type of proven protection that is easy to administer and delivered in a single agent/single console architecture, customers can address their endpoint security needs with astounding return on investment.
16 Security Solutions for Corporate Users – in a 6-Month Endurance Test
Accessible channel consulting models. In 2021, Symantec launched its Expert Advantage program, providing our channel customers an easy way to access Broadcom-certified partners for expert consulting and premium support services.
Consolidated customer support. In the past year, Symantec consolidated its support operations and enacted a consistent level of support services for all customers.
Our commitment to relentless innovation
The Radicati Top Player recognition for the seventh year in a row reinforces our commitment to relentless customer product innovation.
This year marks a milestone towards that goal with a ground-breaking new feature, called Adaptive Protection, that automatically blocks behaviors in trusted applications and can be used in living off the land attacks. It significantly reduces an attacker’s ability to hijack native tools and services on targeted systems.
Thank you to our customers for validating our strategic vision and product innovation. customers for and for your trust in our strategic vision and product innovation. In a world where new threats are constantly emerging, we promise to continue working tirelessly to protect and keep you, our customers, safe.
To learn more about how Symantec’s new Adaptive Protection marks a new milestone in endpoint security check out our webinar here and product release information here.
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Symantec Endpoint Shines in the 2020 MITRE Engenuity ATT&CK® Evaluations
Finding breaches is good but preventing them is critical
Symantec’s latest protection and detection innovations really delivered in the 2020 ATT&CK Evaluations, performed by MITRE Engenuity, that subjected the security offerings of 29 different vendors to 174 detection tests and 10 prevention tests. Results show Symantec Endpoint Security (SES) Complete delivers a powerful punch to attackers when it comes to protecting customers.
In this most recent ATT&CK Evaluation, MITRE Engenuity tested security solution performance against the tactics and techniques of the Carbanak and FIN7 threats. Symantec scored 100% in all prevention tests and 91% in all detection tests. Not only is Symantec a clear leader in protection, no other endpoint protection vendor could match this high a level of combined protection and detection.
Results show Symantec Endpoint Security (SES) Complete delivers a powerful punch to attackers when it comes to protecting customers.
At Symantec, as a division of Broadcom, we focus on prevention to stop threats as soon as possible. We then use detection as another layer to find the most sophisticated of advanced threats. Without this balance, SOCs become overwhelmed with incidents and alerts, and attackers ultimately succeed. As a matter of fact, the overwhelming number of alerts seems to have created an industry crisis that is crushing the SOC and preventing them from focusing on the critical incidents detection products actually were built for.
In short, finding breaches is critical. But preventing them is better – for efficacy and for focusing SOC attention. The ATT&CK Evaluation results show that some vendors put customers in the difficult and costly position of depending too much on detection instead of prevention.
Some competitors claim prevention parity with all leading providers, but that is not the case.
For example, Symantec’s Endpoint Security solution provides robust threat blocking capability where other solutions, such as CrowdStrike, are just not able to perform. SES Complete deploys a range of technologies that deliver proactive attack surface reduction and innovative attack prevention technologies providing the strongest defense against the hardest-to detect threats, particularly those that rely on stealthy malware, credential theft, file-less, and “living off the land” attack methods. Among these powerful technologies are:
Advanced Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence – which uses advanced device and cloud-based detection schemes to identify evolving threats across device types, operating systems, and applications. Attacks are blocked in real-time, so endpoints maintain integrity and negative impacts are avoided.
Advanced Exploit Prevention – which combines sandboxing and file behavioral monitoring with technique-based blocking of in-memory zero-day exploits of vulnerabilities in popular software.
Behavioral Isolation – which surgically limits behaviors of trusted applications with minimal operational impact but maximum protection from the dual-use techniques targeted attackers rely on.
These technologies are not options that customers never turn on – these are protecting over 100 million endpoints today.
Some providers claim that they have parity in detection, too. But that is not proven out in the test. Among Symantec’s major competitors, SES Complete achieved the highest visibility score in detection.
The ATT&CK Evaluation results demonstrate how Broadcom’s recent new investments in SES Complete are paying dividends for our customers. With the addition of new technologies, such as Behavioral Isolation, SES Complete has proven that its expansion of both prevention and detection technologies is vital in winning the battle against attackers. This chart says it all:
Symantec believes that customer dollars should not have to choose between great protection and great detection. SES Complete delivers both.
Symantec Endpoint Security
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Symantec Enterprise and Williams: Continuing Five Years of Secure Digital Transformation
Solutions for the Digital Age
Symantec Enterprise, a division of Broadcom (NASDAQ: AVGO), is concentrating on the needs of enterprise customers, with a focus on stability, integration and innovation. A key area of investment is the Integrated Cyber Defense (ICD) strategy, which delivers two key benefits to customers: First, it enables products to work efficiently together, which drives down cost and saves customers money; second, products talk to one another, increasing the effectiveness of Symantec technologies and accelerating the ability to respond to threats.
With that focus, Williams Racing saw Symantec as an obvious choice to address their data security needs. Over the past few years, Williams CIO, Graeme Hackland, has made great strides in addressing security challenges that cropped up both within their corporate environment and from external threats, while also ensuring connectivity and data transfer speeds increased.
If an account gets compromised and suspicious behavior transpires, we can shut it down. We'd be in huge trouble without Symantec. - Graeme Hackland, CIO Williams Racing
Williams generates as much as 800 gigabytes of data over a racing weekend that teams then review to make changes and help a car's performance during practice or in a race. But the company’s engineers in the UK often would only get a chance to look at some of the data after the fact. This has been a huge disadvantage for the Williams’ engineers and they saw these tech disconnects frustrating their work. With their adoption of Integrated Cyber Defense, Williams now benefits from a combined approach:
Symantec Email Security.cloud Service protecting their primary communication vector- email
Symantec Web Security Service providing confidence for employees connecting to the web from any device, anywhere in the world
Symantec Endpoint Security is the last line of defense and provides advanced malware protection to all modern devices for Williams, including employees’ laptops, servers, and iPhones.
A vital element of Williams’ digital journey has been the company’s transition to cloud-based services. A critical security control in the new world is the CASB (Cloud Access Security Broker) CloudSOC which protects uploads/downloads to cloud files and sync services and identifies risky user behavior when using cloud applications like Office 365 OneDrive.
“Symantec gave us the confidence to say we can protect data at rest or in motion,” Hackland said. “We can protect the infrastructure and we can protect the data center, whether it's on our premise or not. As any piece of data moved through our organization, it would touch Symantec’s technology.”
Al Peasland, Williams Head of Technical & Innovation Partnerships, explains the value of the Symantec Enterprise relationship like this: “Technical Partnerships, such as the one we are proud to have with Symantec Enterprise, form a critical part of our IT eco-system and business operations. They understand our business and the challenges we face, and by providing class leading solutions they enable us to focus on our job of going racing.”
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Symantec Enterprise Can Help Secure Remote Workers From Brute Force Attacks
This is the most effective way to keep your Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) application safe, especially in this current threat landscape
It goes without saying that COVID-19 has impacted how we live, how we socialize and how we work. It has changed the way employees access information and this transformation has created significant complexities for enterprises and has exposed major security vulnerabilities through the entire fabric of their architecture.
Since spring of this year, Bank Info Security reports the number of brute force attacks on RDP based resources multiplied itself twice across the world. (See image below) Those numbers shouldn’t come as a surprise given that during these unprecedented times, most companies across the globe have had to very quickly readjust their way of working, many employees now working remotely from home as a result of COVID-19.
Brute-force RDP attacks since January (Source: Kaspersky)
Disruptive technologies typically play a part in the reason why network security adjustments need to be made. It is part and parcel of change but usually we can see it in the distance, it’s a gradual evolving process. Contrary to this idea, COVID-19 snuck up on us, the virus has had to force organizations to rapidly shift how they work which has majorly impacted the threat landscape causing numerous malicious network attacks, namely Brute Force attacks.
Brute force attacks, in three dimensions
A Brute-force attack is pretty intuitive: the attacker intentionally has to try the whole set of possible combinations, until he finds the correct one. The options they can use include horizontal, vertical and diagonal attacks:
Horizontal Attack: the attacker might try to compromise the accounts of multiple users across the organization
Vertical Attack: the attacker can apply his whole power to compromise the one legitimate user
Diagonal Attack: the most efficient attack is applying both horizontal and vertical methods, where attacker shifts both username and password at each try
Horizontal or Diagonal Brute Force attacks are much harder to detect, since the attackers can try one username/password pair at a time for a few times only. When the number of failed logins is low, it’s challenging to spot the attack for the alert systems.
Will that trivial method ever go out of fashion? No, I don’t believe it will, and for a very good reason, the successful rate of these kind of attacks is 1:1000 According to the Microsoft RDP brute-force attacks study, around 0.08% of RDP brute-force attacks are successful, and RDP brute-force attacks last 2-3 days on average.
How to keep the attackers at bay
Let’s delve into the ideal conditions that make brute force attacks possible, and why attackers consider them valuable.
Exposure to the Internet
If any resource is exposed to the Internet, the attacker can access it and execute a brute-force attack. When resources are not exposed the attacker cannot reach the application as the surface attack is eliminated.
Advice: Get it off the Internet!
Lateral Movement
Let’s say the attacker got lucky and was able to compromise one of your machines using RDP brute-force attack, or gained access to your corporate network using a convincing phishing lure. Nothing prevents them from trying the same method on other machines from within the organization
Advice: Use a Software Defined Perimeter (SDP) in order to avoid Lateral Movement.
Absence of Two-Factor Authentication
Brute-force is essentially a large-scale game where attackers guess every possible password in a password space. A Second Factor of Authentication increases the strength of identity verification by adding an extra layer to your basic single-factor authentication (i.e., password). This method extremely complicates the brute-force attack approach and makes it difficult for hackers to break into online accounts.
Advice: Use a Second Factor of Authentication such as SMS, an authenticator app, a biometric or a physical key.
True Auditing and Monitoring
It's critical to monitor the suspicious connections and unusual failed sign-ins that result in authenticated sign-in events, count the distinct username that failed to sign in without success, as well as count the inbound connections from one or more of the same IP address to the different RDP resources.
Advice: Monitor and audit your logs and alerts daily in order to detect RDP brute-force traffic patterns for your resources.
How to combat the rise of the attacks
Historically, the common set of basic recommendations for fighting a brute-force attack has been to always take a passive-defensive approach, like: using corporate VPN for reducing the chance for attacker to obtain access to the service as well as use Network Level Authentication (NLA). In this way the end users are installing/upgrading the agents and the “fighters” (administrators) are installing appliances and managing many tunnels and network policies ...and it still doesn't bring you the win.
As the attacker gains access to the private network using one of the VPN vulnerabilities , the attacks will come from inside, leaving you no chance to fight with it. It might also come from the unmanaged devices used by the end users as they work from home which may be already compromised while installing agents on them.
What is your solution?
Symantec’s Secure Access Cloud provides point-to-point connectivity at the application level, cloaking all resources from the end-user devices and the internet. It also suggests a set of MFA approaches, addressing the four mentioned points by design:
Cloak corporate resources from the end users and the internet
The resources are not exposed to the Internet anymore, but through the Secure Access Cloud facade.
Second Factor Authentication capabilities
Built in second factor authentication for RDP resources and supports integration with 3rd party MFA providers such as Symantec VIP (which is integrated, free of charge part of the solution).
Allow only point-to-point application-level access
The network-level attack surface is entirely removed, leaving no room for lateral movement and network-based threats.
Providing Full visibility
Secure Access Cloud provides extremely granular logging and reporting of user activities. Every user access and device is authenticated and authorized before access is granted.
In short, Symantec’s Secure Access Cloud solution protects against all kinds of RDP server attacks. It enables more secure and granular access management to any corporate resource hosted on-premises or in the cloud.
Key Takeaways
Leveraging an SDP solution, which adheres to the Zero Trust model, will allow secure, remote access from unmanaged devices while avoiding the lateral movement risk when allowing these devices into the corporate network.
Implementing second factor authentication will reduce brute force impact and malicious access attempts.
Infosec teams require full auditing and monitoring of the end users access: for detection, forensics, auditing and incident response.
Avoid installing agents on the end user devices to keep the operation simple.
Leverage Secure Access Cloud to enable your workforce to safely work from home.
Learn more about Symantec and Zero Trust: Here
Check out the product demo video below and understand how you can securely access your RDP hosted servers with Secure Access Cloud.
Symantec Secure Access Cloud Product Video
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Symantec Enterprise Cloud and SASE
Three capabilities central to maintaining information security
In my previous blog, I emphasized the importance of data and outlined the products available in the Symantec Enterprise Cloud (SEC) solution that we find invaluable at Infolock, a partner of Broadcom Software. The platform allows organizations to gain visibility into their data, continuously monitor it -- and take action when required. These three capabilities are central to maintaining information security and areas we stress in helping enterprise customers.
Let’s take a closer look.
The SEC Solution
Perhaps the most important capability in the SEC solution is the Cloud Secure Web Gateway (SWG), formerly known as Symantec Web Security Service. This product is built on the Blue Coat/Symantec Edge Proxy platform (traditionally known as ProxySG), an industry leader for almost 30 years. This takes all of the strengths of the Edge Proxy and delivers a powerful SWG in the cloud that can be used by organizations when their people are both on and off-premises.
Traditionally, SWG forwards traffic over ports 80 and 443. As of late August 2022, Broadcom Software is extending its Cloud Firewall Service (CFS) as a standard issue with Symantec Web Protection. This will give customers the ability to direct all traffic over any port to their Cloud SWG platform. Additionally, organizations can decrypt encrypted HTTPS traffic using the SSL Interception feature. This provides you the ability to gain needed visibility into SSL/TLS traffic, which is now close to 95 percent of what travels across the Internet. Cloud SWG creates logs with a wealth of information that is readily available within the console and can be offloaded to a log-collection tool, such as Symantec Reporter. Using these tools, we can create reports and alerts to help identify when there is the potential for an incident. Lastly, we can take action on this decrypted data by creating custom rules that block traffic based on a URL’s category, threat risk level, geolocation, and the presence of malware.
Why is Cloud SWG the focal point in the SASE architecture? Because it sits in the center of the other tools and acts as the entrance point for all traffic. It talks with the other Enterprise Cloud solutions and either enforces those policies or steers traffic to them for further evaluation.
Ensuring your organization’s data security
For years, organizations have been able to leverage Symantec's DLP solution to enforce company policy on sensitive data. For network traffic coverage, the on-premises DLP architecture integrates with the Edge SWG and a “request analysis” can be configured to ensure that traffic is evaluated against DLP policies. Now, with the proliferation of work-from-home and many organizations moving away from on-premises network architecture, new tools are needed to ensure your organization's security.
The Cloud SWG integration operates as an extension of Edge SWG, making the transition to the cloud easy and seamless. Policies are pushed to Cloud SWG from DLP, and the traffic undergoes the same level of scrutiny in the cloud. Additionally, DLP can be tied into CloudSOC, Symantec’s CASB offering, giving your organization critical visibility and control over cloud application use and extending the scope of current on-premises DLP coverage to cloud applications.
Symantec CloudSOC CASB
This leads us to Symantec CloudSOC CASB. As more organizations adopt the use of cloud technology, like OneDrive, the need for a tool to keep track of that data increases. CloudSOC CASB uses API Integrations (or Securlets) to provide organizations with visibility and monitoring of their data-at-rest within the tenant. This is key to securing an environment because if you don’t know what you have in the cloud you can’t protect it. When documents are uploaded, created, or modified, logs are created within CASB. This process ensures that when that data is modified it's visibly notated in the logs along with user information. Through Securlets, and in combination with DLP, you can create rules that prohibit sharing sensitive data with individuals outside of the organization.
CloudSOC CASB also uses Gateway Integrations (or Gatelets) to monitor data-in-motion. Through the integration of Cloud SWG and CloudSOC CASB, an organization can push traffic from the endpoint to Cloud SWG and then through CloudSOC CASB. When the data reaches CASB it is evaluated and monitored, in real-time, by the Gatelets. Based on the policies in CASB, the traffic can be either denied from proceeding or routed to the appropriate channel.
Symantec ZTNA
For a product to truly fit the SASE framework, there must be a way to eliminate the need for a VPN. A VPN gives direct access to internal infrastructure. Symantec ZTNA (formerly Secure Access Cloud) provides this functionality. Organizations can add internal DNS servers in ZTNA. This allows DNS lookups for internal resources to be queried against the organization’s own DNS servers. Depending on the resource, the user can use Web, SSH, RDP, TCP, or a Segment method to publish an application.
The agent is not always needed to allow users access to some of the applications. When an organization publishes an application, it becomes available through a cloud resource. Authentication must still take place to access the portal. Additional authentication, including 2FA, can be required to get into the application. This allows users to continue to work in a bring-your-own-device environment.
Symantec Web Isolation
Web Isolation is another key tool in the Symantec Enterprise Cloud solution. This technology is a game changer when it comes to controlling access to potentially risky websites, and/or websites that have yet to be analyzed and categorized by Symantec. Web Isolation integrates with Edge and Cloud SWG and allows organizations to permit employees to visit these websites by rendering the content from the server in a disposable environment. The tool renders the website and sends a single line of Java Code Script back to the host browser telling it how the webpage should be updated.
Symantec, by Broadcom Software has added an impressive level of actionable intelligence to its product portfolio. To learn more about how Broadcom Software can help you modernize, optimize and protect your enterprise, learn more here.
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Symantec Enterprise Division Joins Broadcom
Creating one integrated Cyber Defense Platform
It is with great excitement that I announce that the Symantec Enterprise Security business has officially joined Broadcom, a world leader in infrastructure technology. As part of Broadcom, we will devote our attention to solving critical problems and driving innovative security solutions for our customers.
Symantec, a division of Broadcom, will bring the power of CA Technologies security solutions and Symantec solutions into one integrated cyber defense platform. We are thrilled to bring together these powerful, market-leading cyber security solutions and are excited to continue accelerating innovation within the platform. You can expect more differentiated capabilities related to the issues that are challenging sophisticated, global businesses like yours, including:
Zero trust security
Full integration of solutions across the tech stack
Cohesive coverage from on-premises to cloud
Seamless protection across all form factors
Robust detection and incident resolution technologies with reduced cost and complexity
Machine learning and analytics powered by threat intelligence from the world’s largest civilian threat collection network
I am extremely positive about our path ahead with Broadcom and the power of Symantec Enterprise Security to continue to provide technology trusted by the world’s largest, most well-known companies.
While we transition applications and systems, we strongly encourage you to leverage our online resources for creating and managing support cases. Customers with Premium Support will be contacted by their Customer Success Managers and Designated Support Engineers (formerly known as Technical Account Managers).
Guided by Broadcom’s proven approach, we will remain dedicated to organizations with complex global challenges, and we will concentrate on building best-in-class enterprise security solutions that strengthen protection against today’s increasingly powerful adversaries. As part of the Broadcom family, we will be well resourced to grow a sustainable and agile enterprise organization, one that will allow us to continue to evolve, while leading the market in mission-critical enterprise security products.
I am extremely positive about our path ahead with Broadcom and the power of Symantec Enterprise Security to continue to provide technology trusted by the world’s largest, most well-known companies.
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Symantec Enterprise Division: Sharing Ain’t Always Caring
Phishing and the Era of Abusing File Sharing Services
The holiday season is up. You’re all geared up for it. You’re about to log off from the workstation but you receive an email from one of the vendors with a subject of: Pending Invoice. You open the email which mentions that a payment is due and urgent payment is required. That’s all that’s written in the email. But to your surprise, the message asks you to click a URL to get insights on the invoice and the due payment. Hmm… The URL provided in the email is of course legit as it’s an online file sharing service URL. Everything seems to be working fine. You click on the URL, which routes to a legit online file sharing services portal and voila, there’s your file. Probably a .pdf extension file named as “invoice_for_payment.pdf”. All that’s remaining is to download the file, view the invoice and pay accordingly. But as soon as you open this file, instead of seeing an invoice, there is an instruction to click on a URL provided in this file to view the invoice. Once again you click on this new URL and then you are redirected to a pretty perfect legit login page. For authentication purposes, the page prompts for credentials. You look at your watch and enter the credentials in a hurry. Boom! You’re redirected either to an inactive webpage or if you’re lucky, to a proper legitimate webpage with fancy padlocks on the side of the URL.
What just happened?
For starters, you’ve been PHISHED! In 2019, Symantec observed a rise in the overall volume of phishing attacks abusing online file sharing services such as WeTransfer or hosted SharePoint. Phishers and other attackers have taken advantage of the increased popularity of these services. Surprisingly, one cannot think that only popular brands such as Box, WeTransfer, OneDrive are getting abused. Threat actors have also explored lesser known brands or new brands to target.
Host – Share – Phished!
A threat actor registers for a free account (using fake or stolen credentials) at some of the many online file sharing services. More sophisticated attackers research their target in more detail; if their target uses SharePoint, then so will they, as this improves the chances of stealing user credentials. Attackers then upload files containing links to phishing sites. All that is left is for the attacker to send messages to their targets, carefully composing the messages to make sure the recipients first open the messages, and then click on the links inside. Sometimes, an attacker’s job is made even easier by file-sharing services providing an option to share an uploaded file by email. The message sent by the file sharing provider might have a positive or neutral reputation and could therefore be less likely to be stopped by traditional anti-spam software. Below is sneak peak of phishing trends observed in 2019.
Top notch abused online file sharing services:
In 2019, Symantec’s telemetry and threat intelligence have reflected some of the popular file types and online file sharing brands been abused.
Statistical data clearly indicates that .pdf (69%) and .html (11%) are the favorite file types of threat actors used for hosting phishing content on online file sharing services portal. The telemetry also provides an insight on the top 2 most abused brands of online file sharing services: Box (17%); WeTransfer (11%). However, the abuse is not limited to these popular file sharing brands. Lesser known or new online file sharing services are also getting abused with this type of attack. Some of these include brands like HighTail, Filemail, Jottacloud, Livedrive, DocSend.
Anatomy of the phish attack:
As always, the not so secret ingredients to the success of this attack are sense of urgency and trust. Threat actors heavily rely on these two factors. In general, these emails masquerade as invoice or payment notifications messages with an overwhelming tone of urgency and limited or short body content. Such language is purposely injected in the email body so that when read, creates panic in the victim’s mind to perform the actions provided in the email. Threat actors tend to be good at reading minds. To add a cherry on the cake, threat actors use URLs of online file sharing services on which the phishing file is hosted. The potential victim hovers the cursor over the URL, looks at the https protocol at the start of the URL and therefore clicks on it. Here, the trust factor is gained by the threat actor. To reassure, the potential victim checks the webpage on which the URL in the email body has routed. This is a legit online file sharing services portal with a file awaiting to be downloaded. The email user is prompted to download the file to get an insight on the pending invoice. As soon as the file is downloaded and opened, it displays another URL which instructs the email user to click and provide authentication. This URL is the phish URL embedded within the file. The following series of screenshots depict the working of this attack. These images contain screenshots of actual phishing emails along with the preview of landing webpages:
Case 1: Phish attack abusing OneDrive services:
Email:
OneDrive webpage with .pdf file to download:
Case 2: Phish attack abusing WeTransfer services:
Email:
WeTransfer webpage with .htm file to download:
Case 3: Phish attack abusing Box services:
Email:
Box webpage with .pdf file to download:
The above screenshots follow the same pattern. These phish emails have key things to note:
Use of legitimate online file sharing services to distribute phishing URLs. In other words, these services are used as platforms to deploy phishing kits or steal credentials.
Email template contains batch of legit words or keywords in the content part.
Phishing URLs are embedded within different file formats / types.
The above list makes it difficult for the traditional anti-spam filters / scanners to block such emails.
Detection against file sharing phishing messages:
Predictive filtering system focused on URL and other email features are deployed in timely intervals to catch changes in the rapidly changing email threat landscape. With the help of predictive filtering system, threats that use email as a medium are filtered or blocked before they cause menace. This approach has also proved beneficial to detect the variation in these types of attacks and filter them down in terms of volume or scale. The below graph demonstrates the impact of detections added against file sharing services attacks. Based on 6 months (June - November) statistical data, the surge is observed during August – October 2019. This indicates that threat actors have not only abused popular online file sharing services but have also exploited lesser known services during this period. The detection catch rate has almost reached at a significant scale during this period. This is the same period that Symantec Enterprise Division (SED) joined Broadcom Corp. and teams at Symantec not only maintained focus to provide detection but also strived for comprehensive coverage against email threats.
Figure 1: Detection catch rate graph for online file sharing services attacks
Mitigation steps:
Email users are requested to thoroughly check emails and if deemed suspicious, please report it to Symantec.
Question any emails requesting actions that seem unusual or aren't following normal procedures.
Analyze potential threats using analytics technologies that can pick up on the subtle differences between clean and infected emails and identify indicators of compromise.
Conduct end-user awareness training to raise overall awareness of phishing among employees.
Defense mechanisms:
At Symantec, response teams strive hard to protect our valuable customers by introducing new defense mechanisms against such challenging attacks. An array of defense mechanisms is deployed in different layers at .cloud and Symantec Mail gateway level to block similar attacks.
Symantec Email Security Cloud Data Protection: provides granular control to identify suspicious messages based on various indicators and helps to flag messages that are coming from outside the organization.
Symantec Data Loss Prevention: helps combat the data theft scenario by seamlessly integrating with our Email Security solutions.
Email threat isolation (ETI) from Symantec: checks emails and attachments for phishing URLs or malicious content hosted on them. This technology de-risks the threat scenario by providing an extra layer of protection that allows users to safely browse unknown or shady websites, without risk of malware infection or credential theft. Symantec Email Threat Isolation is offered both within the Symantec Email Security. cloud solution and also as a standalone product that works with other vendor’s email security solution.
Additionally, Symantec has made it a point to report abuse of online file sharing services URLs to their respective anti-abuse teams in a timely manner.
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Symantec Enterprise DLP Named a Gartner Peer Customers’ Choice
Enterprise customers are choosing Symantec
For the second straight year, Symantec Enterprise, a division of Broadcom (NASDAQ: AVGO), is a Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice, with our DLP solution. We believe this recognizes our ability to protect enterprise customers from a constellation of increasingly dangerous threats to their data.
Also, we know this represents the enormous investment of time and effort put in by our team - developers, computer scientists, sales, marketing and customer support - to make sure that our users remain ahead of adversaries.
Important Now More Than Ever
But while our data loss prevention technology has long been an essential tool to help businesses protect their important information, it’s even more essential today due to the COVID-19 pandemic. To keep their employees safe, enterprises are allowing - and in many cases requiring - them to work from home. An estimated 42% of Americans now work remotely, compared to just over 5% in 2017. At the same time, however, this historic shift also presents enterprises with a myriad of new cyber challenges around data security.
Employees now regularly access sensitive corporate information as they shelter in place. We’d like to believe that they rigorously observe best practices to ensure security when it comes to working remotely. The reality is that many are likely to be lax about observing corporate protocols when working from home. That’s why enterprises need to be able to extend the same blanket of strong security protections that guarded employees when everyone worked at the corporate campus.
Even during more normal times, companies would need to know that their information will remain secure even when employees, sometimes using unmanaged devices, access corporate resources from outside of the office. That task has been complicated by this extraordinary period in our history where it’s no longer enough for enterprises to be concerned with just one or two control points like email and web browsers.
But while our data loss prevention technology has long been an essential tool to help businesses protect their important information, it’s even more essential today due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Security managers must also think broadly about the range of potential threats wherever enterprise information may reside - from endpoints to storage repositories and SaaS applications such as Box. This is where Symantec DLP makes sure data doesn’t land in the wrong hands.
Our integrated DLP and Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB) can intelligently inspect content at the secure access service edge and allow security teams to readily detect sensitive data movement and consistently apply data protection policies logically closer to the resources being accessed while eliminating unnecessary latency. It also enables fast remediation of exposed data at the point of creation or use through inline and API-based controls.
A further point of differentiation: the integration of Symantec’s DLP with our industry-leading Symantec Endpoint Protection (SEP) product adds further threat awareness capability. This is important since not every dangerous application can immediately be classified as a bad application. The process may start with an application carrying an unknown reputation when very little is still known about it. The upshot: Symantec’s SEP-DLP combination prevents any application with an unknown provenance from accessing sensitive information until there’s a final verdict. Our competition doesn’t have anything comparable to this offering and certainly nothing on this scale.
GDPR and Privacy
Symantec DLP fills another critical function for companies seeking to comply with the enactment of more stringent regulations governing data privacy protection across the globe starting in Europe with the 2018 debut of GDPR and subsequently in the US with the rollout of the California Consumer Privacy Act.
We live in a new era where there’s more attention to privacy and regulators are passing laws to protect the privacy of data belonging to employees, customers and prospects. Here’s another instance where Symantec DLP technology will protect data both in managed and unmanaged environments by scanning all communication channels, such as email, web, and cloud applications as well as data storage locations while using our advanced technologies to identify specific patterns to discover sensitive regulated information.
Symantec Leading the Way
Since our acquisition by Broadcom last year, our product development investment in DLP has increased and we’re executing with more energy than ever.
It’s important to note that not all DLPs are created equal. The technology must be able to scale and perform in an enterprise scenario. That can be a challenge given how information now resides in office files, PDF documents as well as all kinds of text-based files, which are unstructured. It’s also increasingly common to find data sitting inside of image files. Meanwhile, customers need a great deal of configurability in their DLP since large organizations with far-flung operations may include varying restrictions based on local rules, not to mention different do's and don'ts in certain geographies.
It’s important to note that not all DLPs are created equal. The technology must be able to scale and perform in an enterprise scenario.
Ultimately, a great DLP solution needs to be able to accommodate for all of that diversity with flexible and robust access controls so enterprises know who can access what data. All that comes standard with Symantec.
And it’s hardly the last time we’re going to improve our DLP. We have multiple integrations in progress - some we can talk about now and others that we’ll publicize in the future.
These and other new features in the product development pipeline explain why our customers keep looking to Symantec. And we’ll keep working tirelessly to keep them secure and connected!
What Our Customers Say About Us
“Data Protection Became Easy Using Symantec DLP,” says our customer from the services industry. See more five-star reviews from our customers on #GartnerPeerInsights
“Keep your sensitive data under control with Symantec DLP,” says our customer from the manufacturing industry. See more five-star reviews from our customers on #GartnerPeerInsights
"Symantec DLP is an extraordinary unified management platform system,” says our customer from the finance industry. See more five-star reviews from our customers on #GartnerPeerInsights
The GARTNER PEER INSIGHTS CUSTOMERS’ CHOICE badge is a trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved. Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice constitute the subjective opinions of individual end-user reviews, ratings, and data applied against a documented methodology; they neither represent the views of, nor constitute an endorsement by, Gartner or its affiliates.
Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
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Symantec Enterprise Is Doing It Right
The industry is paying attention
Symantec, a division of Broadcom (NASDAQ: AVGO), SWG solutions combine the best of our rich on-prem and cloud histories. We're in a unique place to offer what no others can and have a long track record of leadership and achievement and serve over 80% of Fortune 500 companies.
Symantec Secure Web Gateway solutions (Web Security Service and ProxySG) provide selective decryption, inspection, and orchestration of SSL and HTTPS web traffic. All products use WebPulse, our real time intelligence feeds, served directly from our cloud infrastructure. Based on established policies and backed with continuously updated web and threat intelligence, they decrypt traffic, then share it with antivirus, advanced threat protection, sandbox, data loss prevention and other tools for analysis. Furthermore, Symantec Secure Web Gateway solutions are deeply integrated to provide advanced functionality for managing Cloud Web Applications and protecting against data/information loss including:
Preserve compliance with selective traffic decryption
Extract and orchestrate documents to other security solutions
WebPulse real-time web and threat intelligence
Prevent delivery of malicious payloads
Stream decrypted data to forensics infrastructure
Seamless CASB visibility and control
Monitoring and enforcement of information security policies
Important Facts About Symantec Secure Web Gateway
Fact: Originally named “Blue Coat Cloud Service,” Symantec Web Security Service was initially launched as an inline cloud solution nine years ago. Moreover, WebPulse - our real-time web and threat intelligence feeds - was launched in the cloud seven years prior. That gives us over fifteen years of cloud heritage and success to go along with our twelve consecutive years of being a recognized leader by leading analysts, three years longer than our nearest competitor.
Fact: It’s more than likely that the majority of an enterprise's traffic is SSL/TLS encrypted. To keep pace with the market, the latest ProxySG appliances are tested, sized and priced assuming 90% SSL. However, if you had sized for moderate inspection and want full decryption, simply bump your hardware to 1.5X of your original deployment - nowhere near some competitors claim of 8X.
Fact: High powered SSL inspection can be done with appliances while supporting the strongest TLS protocol and the largest set of strong ciphers. We’ve been cited in leading academic research as the only vendor receiving a top “A” grade for secure inspection. Other notable SWG vendors received “Cs” and “Fs” or opted not to participate. If you hear a claim of endless SSL scale and support - don't buy it until you look under the covers.
Fact: Symantec has delivered leading Encrypted Traffic Management solutions (SSL Decryption) for more than 10 years. Our dedicated Symantec SSL Visibility appliance can decrypt all content at throughput as high as 9Gbps of SSL/TLS (40Gbps overall), including TLS 1.3 traffic. There are only a handful of customers who need more, but for them we’ll soon introduce even greater capacity.
Fact: Our hybrid solution preserves existing policies (eg on-prem appliances) to simply extend policy enforcement to the cloud for consistency anywhere. Universal Policy Enforcement is a key feature of our Secure Web Gateway solution.
The fact that Symantec is such an obsession for our competition must mean we're doing something right. And we are.
Since our merger into Broadcom, we’ve been working nonstop to migrate our systems and processes to build an entirely new infrastructure that will better support our customers and partners.
We finished the job in only 6 months. As with any rapid transition, there were minor disruptions along the way and that was frustrating to everyone. But we’ve long since overcome those issues as we've come so very far, very fast.
The fact that Symantec is such an obsession for our competition must mean we're doing something right. And we are.
In the end, the outrageous claims made by our rivals in a time of transition speaks loudly - they’re doing our job of showing their lack of credibility. In the end, they are minor distractions and no amount of empty posturing is going to divert us from the work at hand. Our customers want solutions that bolster their security and help safeguard their digital transformation plans. And that’s where we continue to excel.
Symantec is poised to do great things for our customers and our industry. And here’s another pledge: We’re going to do it ethically. Maybe others will learn by our example. I invite you to continue the conversation and learn more about what we’re doing when we hold a webinar on July 29th. (Register Here)
Symantec Competition: They Can't Handle the Truth
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Symantec Enterprise is Here to Stay
Our focus will always be about protecting customers
I want to assure our competitors that the email and other promotions you send to Symantec customers are not hurting my feelings. I know that we continue to build products that deliver superior protection and work in real customer’s environments. Our customers know it too. And I have proof. Take a look at the latest IDC market share report that ranked Symantec, a division of Broadcom (NASDAQ: AVGO), #1 for 2019 market share in WW corporate endpoint security software¹. I hope that doesn’t hurt your feelings.
IDC, Worldwide Corporate Endpoint Security Software Market Shares, 2019: Best of Suite Battle Looming in the Years Ahead; Doc # US46734320, July 2020
Our focus on fully protecting customers is what informs how we approach making security products. Symantec recognized years ago that enterprise customers can't operate effective defenses if they’re required to buy 20 different security products. But it is deeper than that, our job is to help enterprise teams do their jobs, not add unnecessary complications to their already busy lives.
That sensibility is part of a rich legacy. Unlike many companies in the security space, Symantec has withstood the test of time. In my 23 years here, I’ve seen a lot of established, well known companies enter the security market - and then just as quickly exit the scene when their attention span lapsed or they found that it was just too difficult to be a great security company.
Our focus on fully protecting customers is what informs how we approach making security products.
Shiny new ideas may attract attention but it’s consistency that wins the security game. None of this would work without our security expertise. Indeed, many of the people who worked here 20 years ago are still with Symantec and that deep well of experience informs our approach to security. Every day they bring that reservoir of expertise to the task and their collective efforts have been rewarded by the loyalty of customers who trust us to consistently deliver great products. If we were not the best, year after year, decade after decade, sophisticated customers would move somewhere else. They don't.
We have a lot of exceptional talent that has security in their DNA and a passion for learning. We typically discover 3 to 4 previously unknown targeted attack groups each year. In fact, we recently made a major exposé with our report on WastedLocker: centered around a highly targeted ransomware campaign. The end goal of these attacks was to cripple the victim’s IT infrastructure by encrypting most of their computers and servers in order to demand a multimillion dollar ransom. (Rest assured, it won't be our last.)
The most frequent comment I get from people who have gone to other security companies is “you can’t believe how many more tools, how much more data, how much more security infrastructure Symantec has compared to the company I moved to”. Actually, I can. These are the investments Symantec makes that startups can’t build fast enough and companies fishing for new revenue streams won’t make.
Unlike many companies in the security space, Symantec has withstood the test of time.
Still, innovation isn’t very useful if it means that customers must change their environments to use a new security technology. It not only has to work in their environment. It also has to protect every device type and OS that a customer has. Security solutions should protect your IT infrastructure, not dictate it. For instance, your security vendor must offer the flexibility of on-prem, cloud, or hybrid to match your cloud journey, not force you to adopt a full cloud strategy before you are ready.
I know how hard we work at getting this right. Attackers only need to be successful once. But security vendors need to be successful every time, year after year, decade after decade. The reality of the contemporary threat landscape demands that level of commitment. Our customers include the largest companies in the world, and they are constantly under attack. They can’t settle for second best and would not remain with us if we were unable to deliver.
One last observation. In my time I’ve seen multiple cycles where new product categories emerge. But in time, it becomes clear that the new product category is really a feature and that to truly be usable, the feature needs to be integrated with other technologies and be manageable.
Security solutions should protect your IT infrastructure, not dictate it.
We reached that point in the cycle again, where these new “features” need to come together. The good news is there is a solution that includes the latest security innovations, all best of breed, integrated with traditional endpoint protection and manageable from a single console and a single agent. It’s called SES Complete. It’s what will again make us the No. 1 vendor next year and the year after that. Symantec Enterprise is here to stay.
¹ IDC, Worldwide Corporate Endpoint Security Software Market Shares, 2019: Best of Suite Battle Looming in the Years Ahead; Doc # US46734320, July 2020
Webinar - Symantec Endpoint Security: Innovation and Strategy for Your Success
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Symantec Enterprise is With You on Your Journey: Customer Trust and Symantec EDR Strategy
Broadcom/Symantec Enterprise Division was recognized as a 2020 Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice for Endpoint Detection and Response Solutions as rated by its customers
COVID-19 has changed all our lives. And like you, our number one priority at Broadcom is the health and safety of our employees, families and communities, and our customers around the globe. We recognize that things have changed. What will not change is our commitment to you, and to your success as our customers.
You have put your trust in us in the past and we’re grateful to have earned that trust and commit to working hard to maintain it. Even as I write this, our dedicated security experts, many of whom are dealing with the same challenges you face, are tracking down new threats to keep your enterprises safe and secure. So, it is with great pride and humility that I have the privilege to tell you that Gartner Peer Insights recognized Symantec, a division of Broadcom (NASDAQ: AVGO), listed as Broadcom, by naming us a Customers’ Choice for Endpoint Detection and Response Solutions, as rated by you -- our customers.
We are profoundly grateful to you for this distinction and for entrusting your business and security with us. We are dedicated to ensuring and maintaining that trust in the new and different world we are navigating now and as we move to the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic. Customers are always in the forefront of our minds and the future of our products. Your trust in us drives our strategies and our product development.
Providing Three Pillars of Strength for Your Business
Our customers challenge us to be the strategic partner they want and deliver the products they need, now and in the future. Our Symantec Endpoint Security Complete offering responds to these demands. As the threat landscape continues to evolve and expand, we are investing in the quality, scalability and reliability of our Symantec endpoint offerings, focusing on integrating our endpoint features across all control points and form factors, and answering your requests for endpoint protection and EDR across all of your customer environments -- mobile, cloud and on-prem.
Our strategy rests on three pillars. The first is your trust. You’ve trusted us for decades for our focus on understanding your enterprise-level security and operational needs. Our experienced security architects and threat researchers are at the forefront of security research and bring you unmatched experience and expertise. Their capability combined with our unmatched client and cloud technology stacks enable us to lead in protection and detection.
Thanks to you for your trust in Symantec
The second pillar is our customer-driven innovation across the entire attack chain. Symantec Endpoint Security Complete is a single unified solution to provide you with full attack chain coverage via a single agent for all operating systems (including iOS, Android, Windows, and Mac), and integrated prevention, detection, response, attack surface reduction, and built in breach detection for Active directory. We are continuing to innovate with new threat hunting capabilities in this product.
Finally, the third pillar of our Symantec Endpoint Security customer strategy is our cloud journey support. We know that many of you are still on-prem today but looking to cloud management. We provide flexible deployment options of fully cloud managed, on-prem or a hybrid of both. The journey is easy, with no new agent to install. We provide you with the bridge and the scaffolding to make your cloud journey from on-prem at your own pace.
Thanks to you for your trust in Symantec. Our product strategy and our continuing investment in quality and innovation are driven by your needs, and our technologies are engineered to ensure your success. As we continue our journey through these most interesting times, we look forward to continuing to be the endpoint and EDR vendor you recognize among the best and with whom you entrust your security and your business. Stay safe. We will get through this together.
What our customers say about us
"The vendor is very successful in protecting all of your devices and accounts. I have been using it for almost one year and I haven't encountered any problem on my devices. It has a powerful protection against even the most complex advanced attacks. In addition to your computer's system, it protects the endpoints, networks and emails as well. Furthermore, you can control all the functions of the vendor over one console. Once, I saw a notification from the application which said that the computer was under attack. Then, the application was automatically clears the malware and I was informed that the attack was blocked. I am very satisfied from the vendor." Read here.
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"We needed to protect our institution against advanced and targeted attacks. We wanted to accelerate and scale the response to the events. We bought it because it provides an accurate analysis with the superior detection capability of the product and provides exceptional performance even in high-volume networks. We easily positioned on prem." Read here.
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"In the past, we had constraints on our data center and our servers which were destroyed by viruses caused by malicious sites. Today, with Symantec Advanced Threat Protection [now available as Symantec Endpoint Security Complete (SESC)], once installing provided us with help necessary to protect and secure our network. The advantage we have with Symantec Advanced Threat Protection [now available as SESC] is that you can protect your machines, the cloud system, communications, videos and important information (secret information) from people who intend to steal them…The biggest advantage obtained was the maximum protection of all our equipment against hackers or viruses, as well as the good central management features that are easy to deploy and manage. Symantec Advanced Threat Protection is a reliable and robust solution for terminal security." Read here.
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The GARTNER PEER INSIGHTS CUSTOMERS’ CHOICE badge is a trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved. Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice constitute the subjective opinions of individual end-user reviews, ratings, and data applied against a documented methodology; they neither represent the views of, nor constitute an endorsement by, Gartner or its affiliates.
Learn more about our industry recognition
Learn more about Gartner Peer Insights Endpoint Detection & Response Ratings
Symantec Endpoint Security: Innovation and Strategy for Your Success
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Symantec Enterprise: It’s Time to Shift the Appliance Paradigm
Introducing the new Secure Web Gateway
Appliances that consolidate hardware, software and networking into a single device have delivered both economy and ease-of use for the past decade and more. From their inception, appliances constituted a paradigm shift, doing away with separate compute, storage and networking devices with their distinct management requirements. Now, however, it’s time for the appliance paradigm to be shifted - again. Why?
Very simply, the cloud era has brought about unprecedented change. By enabling the use of computing capacity, storage and applications on-demand, the cloud delivers savings, ease of use and scalability, freeing up IT staff to focus on innovation for competitive advantage, rather than device configuration and software license management. Most important for many organizations, the cloud shifts the capital expense of hardware to the operating expense of a service, used only as needed.
Building on our previous-generation ProxySG technology, this new platform protects organizations across the web, social media, applications and mobile networks
At Symantec, a division of Broadcom (NASDAQ: AVGO), we are responding to the age of the cloud with our new Secure Web Gateway (SWG) solution that provides deployment flexibility, either as an appliance, in virtual environments or in the cloud. Building on our previous-generation ProxySG technology, this new platform protects organizations across the web, social media, applications and mobile networks. But the key innovation in this paradigm-shifting appliance is the decoupling of hardware and software, which enables customers to benefit from a capex model for hardware and an opex model for software.
Because the hardware and software are separate, you can purchase and deploy a hardware appliance now and deploy it as a virtual appliance or in the cloud under the same software license later. You can even move to an entirely cloud-based implementation when the time is right. In short, your investment is future-proofed.
Why such a hybrid or blended approach, rather than cloud-only? In some industries, such as financial services, companies don’t want to put all their data and traffic in the cloud. Although they might contemplate increased cloud usage with AWS, Google or Microsoft Azure, compliance requirements often dictate that critical data remain under their control on their own premises. There are other reasons for a blend of on-prem and cloud as well. For example, the cloud, because of its minimal support requirements, might be best for remote offices, while on-prem equipment might better serve headquarters. The new licensing model covers both implementations.
New SSP-S410 HW Platform
Performance Boost Addresses Rise in Encrypted Traffic
Within this new, flexible appliance paradigm, our SWG is gaining a significant performance increase. While higher performance is always welcome, the rise in encrypted traffic makes this increase absolutely necessary because encrypting and decrypting traffic demands significant processing power. According to this Google Transparency Report, encrypted traffic across Google is approximately 95%, and Google would like to see it reach 100%.
Although encryption is implemented to protect the content of data streams, that very encryption can mask malware, allowing it to penetrate an organization. The high level of encrypted traffic and the need to discover malware within it calls for a paradigm shift in SWG performance.
This new SWG hardware increases performance in a much smaller footprint by replacing four two-unit appliances with a single one-unit appliance – an 8x improvement in usage of rack space. In addition, it delivers 5Gbps throughput, a 200% increase, and 350,000 connections per appliance, a 150% increase.
Within this new, flexible appliance paradigm, our SWG is gaining a significant performance increase.
The new hardware lowers the requirements for rack space, electrical power, cooling and management, while providing the kind of processing muscle you need to gain full visibility, inspection and protection against threats hiding in encrypted traffic. With flexible hardware and software licensing, you can adjust and scale as needed to meet the challenge posed by encrypted traffic.
Before I close, I should mention the kind of R&D investment it takes to bring about a paradigm shift of this nature. Symantec Enterprise Division (SED) has always been technology-focused and now that SED is backed by Broadcom we are even more so. Broadcom invests 20% of its revenue in R&D. That’s the kind of commitment that makes this SWG paradigm shift possible.
So, consider your needs. If a SWG hardware appliance is all you need, this new hardware will deliver compelling performance to meet the demands of today’s encrypted web traffic. If a combination of on-prem appliance and cloud-based service is the answer, then Symantec delivers an unrivaled value proposition. And if an all-cloud alternative is in your future, Symantec will have you perfectly positioned. In the new SWG appliance paradigm, the same software license covers all your deployment options.
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Symantec Enterprise: Modern IAM Implements Zero Trust
A Zero-Trust environment significantly increases cyber security effectiveness
In just a few years, the concept of Zero Trust has risen to prominence as the network perimeter of old has dissolved thanks to digital transformation, mobility and the cloud. The new perimeter is no longer the enterprise network firewall, but the identity of every person or device accessing the corporate workloads and data.
This is the third in a series of blog entries from Symantec Enterprise, a division of Broadcom (NASDAQ: AVGO), on modern Identity and Access Management. The first entry discussed how IAM has reached an inflection point and must change, and the second covered the characteristics of modern IAM. In this entry, I’ll explain how modern IAM embodies a zero-trust approach to cyber security.
The new perimeter is no longer the enterprise network firewall, but the identity of every person or device accessing the corporate workloads and data.
But first, what is Zero Trust? Because organizations are under constant attack, they must assume bad actors have compromised a user's identity or their device hence no user or entity, inside or outside the firewall, should be trusted. A Zero-Trust approach to cyber security responds to this reality with a defense-in-depth strategy, including multi-factor authentication (MFA), least-privilege access, DevSecOps, and micro-segmentation. It’s important to remember that a Zero-Trust strategy does not exist for its own sake but to deliver business benefits. These fall into two major categories:
Protecting the organization and its customers by safeguarding their data. The more valuable the data, the more stringent risk policy must be.
Enabling business activity and employee productivity. Every identity is given least privilege access so users can get their work done. The degree of access is adjusted according to risk.
In practice, nearly every cyber security decision is based on risk. Since identity is the new perimeter, continuous verification and adjustment of access to meet acceptable-risk policy is required. For example:
When a user accesses a database from headquarters, access to 1000 records might be granted, but when accessing the same database remotely from another location, the same user might be granted access to only 100 records.
When a user attempts to access sensitive systems remotely at times or locations that are inconsistent with previous normal activity, access might be denied.
When users access data and applications from anywhere at any time, risk levels increase, necessitating the use of multifactor authentication and adjustment in authorized access.
The degree to which an organization makes an investment in zero trust depends on the risk associated with its data, reflecting business, legal and regulatory requirements. The more sensitive the data, the more an organization should implement Zero Trust using contextual, risk-based authentication, authorization, sessioning and analytics.
Zero-Trust Technologies from Symantec Enterprise
The Symantec Enterprise portfolio contains a multi-tiered stack to help you implement Zero Trust through modern IAM. Here are some highlights:
VIP Authentication Services establish and/or confirm user identity based on context and credentials.
SiteMinder manages access based on rich authentication and authorization policies.
Privileged Access Management ensures that privileged users only have needed access to sensitive information, and monitors the activity of these credentials.
Identity Governance and Administration defines roles & responsibilities, provisions user access, and ensures that governance is in place to audit usage for least privileged access.
Information Centric Analytics aggregates input from different sources to help you understand where the risks are and how to deal with them.
CloudSOC implements Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB) technology to enable secure access to SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS resources.
Secure Access Cloud provides Zero-Trust Network Access (ZTNA).
Symantec Endpoint Security provides cloud-based security with AI-guided management.
These technologies are integrated with Symantec Data Loss Prevention (DLP), and are implemented to provide full visibility into user activity for detection, forensics and compliance.
In summary, Zero Trust is the cyber security strategy that best addresses the risks organizations face in the era of digital transformation, mobility and the cloud. Because large data breaches often result from the use of bogus identities, a Zero Trust environment significantly increases cyber security effectiveness. Whatever the state of your cyber security defense, I recommend getting started with a risk-appropriate Zero-Trust strategy, sooner rather than later.
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Symantec Enterprise: Providing the Best in Security
Our customers continue to benefit from our innovation and focus
Six months ago, when I used this platform to share Symantec’s post-merger plans, I pledged to customers that we’d continue investing in what already was the most formidable technology arsenal in the cyber security industry. I also predicted that our rivals would pull out all the stops to sow doubts about Broadcom’s commitment to Symantec Enterprise Division (SED).
So far, both have been accurate.
First, let’s talk about the product side of things. In the last 9 months I’ve been privileged to be part of a remarkable corporate integration story as Broadcom put its full weight behind Symantec, a division of Broadcom (NASDAQ: AVGO). After separating from Norton LifeLock, we were able to focus our entire attention on driving our enterprise strategy.
As we built out our Integrated Cyber Defense platform (ICD), we have continued to develop better solutions across endpoint, network, information and identity security and are the only vendor with the end to end portfolio to empower the adoption of XDR, SASE, and Zero-Trust through improving integration and speed:
From an engineering perspective, we are making these products work together seamlessly so our customers don’t need to invest their energy and money tackling integration issues.
As we make further progress on the integration front, we’re also improving the communication capabilities between products to make their response times quicker. Every second counts in threat response and this promises to be a boon for overwhelmed SOC defenders.
Our exclusive concentration on the enterprise allows us to fine-tune our development approach. In practice, that’s clearing the way for Symantec to customize its engineering focus to meet the specific needs of our strategic customers. The early returns suggest we’re on the right track. Our internal data points to a 36% improvement in effectiveness catching threats. This improvement was driven by our increased focus on new cloud analytics and machine learning tuned to our enterprise customer needs.
Another benefit for customers is the greater simplicity and ease of doing business with Symantec. With Symantec now using Broadcom’s flexible credit and licensing systems, we are able to rapidly provide credit terms to customers directly, instead of managing that process through 3rd parties.
At the same time, we’re still investing in other unique capabilities that distinguishes Symantec: a vast intelligence apparatus that delivers the world’s most comprehensive security protection.
Each day, we’re tapping into a vast network of data collection sensors that gathers and collates the latest data on security incidents, events, and vulnerabilities to help customers stay ahead of the most complex threats anywhere, anytime. Our research centers monitor malicious code reports from more than 126 million attack sensors, receives data from 240,000 network sensors in more than 157 countries and tracks more than 25,000 vulnerabilities.
From an engineering perspective, we are making these products work together seamlessly so our customers don’t need to invest their energy and money tackling integration issues.
I’d also like to spend a moment to salute the remarkable resilience and commitment of Symantec’s employees. Any corporate integration presents challenges. When you combine those challenges with the massive disruption of a global pandemic, it could have been almost overwhelming. Our team has met these challenges and continued to execute and deliver, on time, and with a continued passion for our customers and partners. I am very proud of and very fortunate to work with a group of people so entirely committed to their co-workers and to customers.
As the COVID-19 health crisis forced everyone out of their cubicles and into home offices, Symantec employees had to learn new ways of collaborating – how many of you did this much video conferencing prior to March 2020? And they doubled their effort to make sure customers stayed secure during this accelerated period of digital transformation. Impressive is an understatement.
Of course, there have been a lot of naysayers. In particular, our competitors have demonstrated their concern by raising a lot of dubious claims to instill fear and doubt. A lot of what they claim is provably false and they’ve been forced to retract. While it hasn’t all been smooth, our execution is impressive and competitors are nervous.
Our research centers monitor malicious code reports from more than 126 million attack sensors, receives data from 240,000 network sensors in more than 157 countries and tracks more than 25,000 vulnerabilities.
My personal approach is to try ignore the noise and stay focused on the important job at hand. Broadcom is a company that’s very focused on moving fast, and Symantec’s customers should know that we’re also picking up the pace. That's how you ensure progress continues in an industry where customers don’t have the luxury of becoming stuck in a security rut because their supplier isn’t innovating fast enough.
What we said when the merger went through we continue to believe to be true: We are better off as part of Broadcom - and so are our customers. Customers should know that our technology investment continues and we intend to continue to be the industry leader in security solutions.
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Symantec Enterprise Success Receives ASP’s ‘Ten Best Web Support Sites’ Award
Continuing to provide more to Symantec customers
I’m excited to share with you that our Symantec Enterprise Success online support experience has been awarded the Association of Support Professionals (ASP) Ten Best Web Support Sites Award for 2019!
First established in 1998, this distinguished award recognizes companies who have established industry leading online web support site experiences. Each site is scored by five independent judges in 25 different categories ranging from user experience, content offerings, site improvement processes and measurements of success. ASP then publishes a report on the overall competition results, trends and benchmarks, along with the profiles of the Top Ten companies.
While Symantec has a long history associated with this award, having won on five separate occasions (most recently the Consumer Business Unit in 2016 for their support.norton.com website), Symantec Enterprise Success was last successful in achieving this award in 2001. As a result, it has been a long-standing objective of ours to reestablish an online support experience that exceeds our customer’s expectations and we’re encouraged to have received validation from our industry once again.
Our application submission included highlights related to several new and exciting features available throughout the customers’ online support experience, including:
Enterprise Support Portal Redesign which enhances the end-to-end customer experience through improved navigation, clear calls-to-action and multi-lingual support.
UX Design System which includes a UI Toolkit, Branding Guidelines, HTML/CSS Library, Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) Components and a governing UX Design Process.
Virtual Agent Technology which helps to guide our customers to the optimal solution as quickly as possible through workflows, self-service options and clear paths to assisted support when required.
Integrated Licensing & Downloads (ABEV) experience which consolidated four unique portals into one unified experience available on MySymantec.
Case Management Enhancements which streamlined the end-to-end online case submission workflow, introduced a flyout menu with self-diagnostic and related knowledge base article links.
This award, combined with our TSIA Rated Outstand Award (for outstanding Global, Assisted & Self-Service Support), as well as our recent dotCOMM Gold Award (in the categories of website design and professional services), provide further validation of our industry leading online support experience and we couldn’t be more thrilled to share this exciting news with you our valued customers.
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Symantec Enterprise: The Three Dimensions of Modern IAM: Risk, DevOps and Omnichannel
Safeguarding customer data should be job one
It’s time for a new approach to identity and access management – a modern IAM. In my previous blog entry, I explained how business has been disrupted by mobility and digital transformation, why a microperimeter cyber security strategy is needed and why modern IAM is a key part of that strategy. But what exactly is modern IAM and what are the critical objectives? The best approach is to examine it according to three dimensions:
Risk-Based security strategy: for making decisions
DevOps strategy: to enable agility while automating security
Omnichannel strategy: to improve user satisfaction
Let’s examine these, starting with risk.
Risk-Based Security Strategy
Although every organization’s risk profile is different, safeguarding customer data should be priority number one. A well-managed organization should continually evaluate risk in terms of the impact unauthorized exposure might have on its consumers. That means taking a close look at the risks inherent in all systems and processes that deliver business services, including systems from third parties such as cloud providers.
There are two major kinds of risk: Compliance and business.
Compliance Risk: Regulatory compliance requires that organizations know who has access to what, a task made more difficult when manual processes are automated by digital transformation initiatives.
Business Risk: Addressing gaps in business continuity is key to mitigating business risk. Providing business continuity means assuring the timely delivery of services at scale and meeting user experience goals.
Each risk factor should be evaluated as to whether it prevents an organization from meeting business policies, industry standards or government regulations. It should also be evaluated as to its financial impact and customer satisfaction impact.
When an organization’s risk profile is fully understood, it should be applied to IAM through the principles of zero-trust security, both to protect the organization and to enable business activity and employee productivity. Two critical processes handled by IAM are verification of identity prior to establishing a session and monitoring the session itself. By applying zero-trust principles, IAM protects the organization from possible breaches and abuses of privilege.
By enforcing the right level of authentication based on policy, IAM ensures the identity of the person requesting access is properly vetted, enabling his or her identity to proceed with business activity based on the least privilege required to perform a given task. For example, additional identity verification might be required before a person is allowed to transfer funds across accounts.
DevOps Strategy
A key part of keeping organizations secure is ensuring applications are able to consume security services through DevOps (or because security is included, sometimes called DevSecOps).
Developers are not security experts, so they need a way to externalize critical security capabilities and help insure security concerns are being addressed by DevOps best practices. Developers should consider IAM as a platform delivering secure business services, exposed through industry standards and APIs. In this way, DevOps processes and tools securely connect application infrastructure to IAM business services.
Developers are not security experts, so they need a way to externalize critical security capabilities and help insure security concerns are being addressed by DevOps best practices.
DevOps-friendly IAM systems include the REST API. This ensures ease of integration and configuration to accommodate any deployment requirement. To ensure ease of application-specific implementation, they are also based on security Open Standards such as OAuth2, OpenID Connect, SCIM, SAML and FIDO.
Integrating security in DevOps delivers significant business benefits, particularly agility in accelerating the delivery of secure application that address both compliance and business risk.
DevOps provides the necessary level of tested and capable security glue, leveraging proven and scalable security services via predictable application integration blueprints, freeing up developers to focus business outcomes.
Omnichannel Strategy
To enable a great user experience, it’s important to ensure seamless authentication across the different user access channels, including mobile, web, business applications and bots. A core requirement is a channel-aware authentication policy that applies appropriate rules to each channel. As a result, security, business and operations teams have fewer security silos and fewer security definitions to manage. Users, meanwhile, are relieved of the burden of authenticating themselves over and over across different channels, even as the IAM system applies the correct level of risk management to their sessions on each channel. Finally, omni-channel session management should ensure integrated risk management across different channels. For example, when a breach is detected in one channel, all other sessions in other channels should be instantly revoked.
As you can see, modern IAM might be a simple concept, but it has far-reaching ramifications. Because of its critical role in modern IAM, Zero Trust will be the focus of my next blog entry.
Webinar - The Rise of the Decentralized Identity Platform
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Symantec Enterprise: Using Detection to Drive Prevention
The right security controls AND ease of use
We’re far removed from the halcyon era - which wasn’t so long ago - when money flowed freely into enterprise Security Operations Centers (SOCs). Today, SOCs, which are cost centers for the enterprise, are being forced to do more with less even as their workloads get heavier all the time.
That’s why this may be the time to ask how we can make SOCs both more efficient and better able to handle the myriad of threats they’re tasked with investigating.
Today, SOCs, which are cost centers for the enterprise, are being forced to do more with less even as their workloads get heavier all the time.
Symantec, a division of Broadcom (NASDAQ: AVGO), came up with ways to rethink the way enterprises should handle prevention and early detection of new threats. But first, let’s place this in historical context to understand the challenge.
Traditionally, SOCs were not staffed by security specialists. In the early days, SOCs depended on people who had previously held IT/SysAdmin roles. Over time, SOCs matured and attracted practitioners dedicated to the field. But as the SOC function became more independent, IT staffers had a hard time trusting detection and response recommendations from analysts who they felt lacked sufficient SysAdmin experience or empathy for the end users.
Why it Matters
None of that helped when it came to threat response. In a situation where speed matters, this disconnect slowed down the SOC's ability to respond to new threats.
Early detection of an incident results in easier remediation - especially if an organization can respond before attackers are able to move laterally. Historically, SOC managers have been limited by security tools that were designed to detect and not to prevent threats. This fueled the siloed organizational approach of keeping the SOC teams and operations teams separate. Siloed organizations and processes can lead to inefficiencies as teams may not be fully aware of each other’s’ capabilities to detect and prevent threats.
Prevention and Early Detection
Detection and response is really the most expensive part of the endpoint security process. The question is how to front-load the prevention as much as possible while minimizing the effort, time and money spent on investigating and responding to a potential breach.
When prevention products typically fail, it’s because edge cases create disruptive false positives, so the offending behavior doesn’t get blocked. Many organizations are further hampered because they don't have the necessary configurations or prevention products to know what can and can't be configured in their specific environments. That puts more burden on already stretched SOC teams.
It’s also why we’ve focused at Symantec on engineering systems that combine the best of prevention with early detection of threats when prevention fails.
The goal should be to stop certain types of behavior from happening on an endpoint in the first place. For example, you might implement security controls that block certain applications from running PowerShell scripts, creating executables or establishing network connections. It is these scripts that are often found in Office documents – some potentially malicious, which arrive on endpoints via phishing links or email.
Fighting SOC Fatigue
Symantec is making this task easier by mapping prevention controls back to the MITRE ATT&CK framework to block different attack techniques used by attackers. This goes beyond detection and provides a common language for analysts to use when they're comparing different attack techniques. With all these attack surface reduction controls mapped out, defenders can then connect these various techniques back into their own prevention policy.
By taking this approach, the traditional process of investigating suspicious activity and responding to attacks now becomes an opportunity to prevent them from happening in the future. This is done easily by directly linking suspicious behavior detections to policy-based prevention controls. Operationally, this is accomplished quickly by an analyst using a single console where all EDR detections and prevention policies coexist. The MITRE ATT&CK tactics and techniques glue the prevention world and the detection world together.
By taking this approach, the traditional process of investigating suspicious activity and responding to attacks now becomes an opportunity to prevent them from happening in the future.
Providing the right security controls is only half the battle. The other half is ensuring that they can be used effectively without disrupting end users. Symantec is able to provide the necessary information that helps determine whether a particular technique was previously used within a customer’s environment. If not, it’s probably safer to block upfront. This type of guidance has not been available in security tools until now because vendors haven’t been able to link techniques back to security incidents or historical usage.
The payoff of using the learnings from previous investigations is to reduce the number of incidents that SOCs ultimately need to investigate in the future. One cannot overstate the benefits of reducing the alert noise over time. On the one hand, you're less likely to let the truly important attacks slip through. On the other hand, you’ll have more time to investigate and address those attacks that truly need your attention.
To learn more, read How Symantec Endpoint Security Complete Helps Detect, Investigate, and Respond to Advanced Attacks.
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Symantec Enterprise: We Deliver Updated Protection Every Day to Our Customers
Protection is better than detection
Last week, the Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced that an “Ongoing, “unprecedented” hack was being executed by a “sophisticated, state-based cyber actor against the Australian Government.” Called the Copy-Paste compromises, it was hard to miss the news – every news agency in the country reported on the attacks and it dominated news headlines in the days following.
While these types of attacks happen around the world every day, it’s rare to see them make headlines in such an intense way. For Symantec, a division of Broadcom (NASDAQ: AVGO), whether these attacks reach the public arena or not, it’s our job to follow these incidents. And the good news is that Symantec already had you protected, well before the Australian Prime Minister announced these attacks publicly.
We deliver updated protection every day to our customers. The goal is to get protection into the field to prevent the threat from getting into our customer’s environment. While there is a huge industry focus on detection, finding threats that evade protection, and rightfully so, protection is always preferable. It’s better to block a threat than find it persistent in your network. And the cost in resources and damage to the organization is significantly less.
We deliver updated protection every day to our customers.
Part of our best practices is to go through Indicators of Compromise (IOCs) that are shared with us to make sure we have protection in place. Critical to having the worlds’ largest threat intelligence network is not only the amount of data you can collect yourself. We do collect massive amounts of data from honeypots, activity monitoring nodes and our own telemetry. And analysis of this data is responsible for the bulk of our threat intelligence and drives our protection. But that’s not all that contributes to our threat intelligence. Good intelligence also requires good relationships. And Symantec has long-standing sharing arrangements with Internet registrars, hosting and service providers, CERTs, government partners, and security vendors.
Based on our analysis of the IOCs and samples of the malware we have acquired, our customers were already protected and had no need to scramble. Protection was in place. And remains so.
We’ll continue to monitor the situation, as we do all incidents. We’ll continue to keep our protection up to date and ahead of the bad guys.
A list of the protections in place against the “Copy-paste” attack are listed below:
AV:
Trojan.Gen.2
Trojan Horse
Trojan.Gen.MBT
Backdoor.Trojan
Hacktool.Rotpotato
Hacktool.Jsprat
W97M.Downloader
Downloader
WS.Malware.1
WS.Malware.2
WS.SecurityRisk.1
IPS coverage on vulnerabilities exploited (as identified by ACSC):
CVE-2019-18935: [32288] Web Attack: Telerik UI CVE-2019-18935
CVE-2019-19781: [31961] Web Attack: Citrix ADC RCE CVE-2019-19781
CVE-2019-0604: [31531] Web Attack: Microsoft SharePoint RCE CVE-2019-0604
Email (Skeptic):
Trojan Horse
Backdoor.Trojan
Trojan.Mdropper
What’s Next for Cyber Security and Symantec?
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Symantec Gov Cloud – Web Protection Reaches FedRAMP® “In Process” Status
Strengthening US Federal Agencies’ cloud-first strategy with cloud-native security
In moving to the cloud US Federal agencies have these questions:
How do I protect users, regardless of where they are located, from the evolving threat landscape and targeted attacks?
How does our organization ensure data is secure and in compliance with legal regulations?
Can we effectively manage new types of devices and securely support mobile and remote users?
How do we migrate our current infrastructure to the cloud without sacrificing security, functionality, or flexibility?
The challenges for the U.S. government, which is now driving a “cloud-first” policy, are different than for commercial enterprises. U.S. federal agencies that adopt cloud solutions are required to use products that have gone through the rigorous evaluation process known as the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP). FedRAMP is based on NIST controls and provides that level of confidence in the controls implemented for those agencies to use these cloud solutions.
As government entities pursue a cloud-first strategy, they must deal with additional questions:
What controls are needed to satisfy security and privacy requirements to adequately manage mission and business risk, as well as risk to individuals?
Have appropriate controls been implemented or is there a plan in place to do so?
What is the required level of assurance that the controls are effective when implemented and perform as designed?
Symantec has the answer: Cloud Secure Web Gateway (SWG). Symantec Cloud SWG has gone through the FedRAMP process, undergone rigorous testing that was sponsored by a major US Federal Agency, and is now posted on the FedRAMP marketplace as “In Process” and waiting for full authorized status for broad U.S. Federal Agency use. This is a major milestone in delivering Symantec Security to agencies that need the highest levels of protection.
Symantec delivers comprehensive security that enterprises and agencies use to enforce consistent web security and compliance policies for all users, regardless of location or device. It is built on Symantec’s industry-leading, advanced proxy architecture that authenticates every user and enables deep inspection/control of all Internet traffic, even encrypted. Symantec Cloud SWG is fed by the Symantec Global Intelligence Network to ensure real-time protection against known and unknown web-borne threats.
Cloud SWG is the core component of Symantec Gov Cloud – Web Protection solution. This product addresses customers’ needs by extending Secure Web Gateway protection for all users, whether they are at an office with trusted on-premises proxy hardware or when they are remote and need the speed and flexibility of a cloud solution. The solution includes Symantec Cloud SWG, Edge SWG (on-premises) for complete web traffic inspection and validation, Intelligence Services for real-time threat data, cloud application visibility and control, Symantec Content Analysis sandboxing for deep file inspection, and SSL/TLS inspection for visibility into all traffic. Whether customers go with a combination of Edge SWG and Cloud SWG or go directly to a Cloud-only deployment, they can be confident they are getting the same level of protection.
Security Architects at Federal agencies can be assured that Symantec answers the questions they need to address. The security team can rely on Symantec knowing that we have implemented the controls necessary to address their unique security and privacy requirements and still meet stringent government regulations and certifications. The continuous monitoring that FedRAMP requires further guarantees that Symantec will continue to meet the security and privacy requirements that our customers need. To learn more contact your Broadcom representative or visit the Symantec Web Protection page and the FedRAMP Marketplace.
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Symantec Government Symposium Redefines the Cyber Conversation
A renewed push needed for a rethink – and a redefinition – how to approach cyber security
One of the long-standing tenants of cyber security is the belief that the attackers have an advantage.
That makes sense as cyber security, for the most part, has been a reactionary process that identifies an attack once it happens and then makes adjustments to stop it from happening again. That process is no longer good enough for Jeanette Manfra, assistant secretary for the Office of Cyber Security and Communications in the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) National Protection and Programs Directorate.
As Manfra said during her keynote presentation at the Symantec Government Symposium, she believes government needs to develop deep partnerships with the private sector on cyber security that can “create an environment where the defender has an advantage.” She acknowledged this is a rarity in cyber security, but also that federal agencies need to look beyond simply being reactive to cyber security incidents.
This type of thinking was at the center of the Symantec Government Symposium, which took place on October 30 in Washington, DC. As information technology continues to evolve so must cyber security, and agencies need to rethink – and redefine – how they approach it. Federal agencies can no longer focus solely on securing the perimeter of their network – as that perimeter no longer exists – and instead must look to an integrated cyber defense capability to stay one step ahead.
Manfra mentioned as much. One of her goals is to create tight partnerships between government and industry that can use the internet and benefit from connectivity, interoperability and openness, and to do so in a safe and secure way. She said government agencies must be able to dictate the cyber world they want to operate in or they will continually be in reactive mode.
Government must continue to innovate, and that usually means working closely with industry to bring in the latest technological advances, but in a strategic, integrated manner.
That conversation has continued to grow. William Evanina, director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), mentioned during his speech that ODNI made the decision earlier this year to release an unclassified version of its annual economic espionage report for the first time. In doing so, the intelligence community made an effort to better show the cyber threat that the government faces.
"I think we've gotten all that data into the intelligence community every year but we really haven't done a good job of exploiting it and getting it to the folks who are being penetrated," said Evanina, referencing the challenge the technology providers in the supply chain face.
While government continues to change the conversation around cyber security, the underlying message at the Symantec Government Symposium was that the status quo is not acceptable. Government must continue to innovate, and that usually means working closely with industry to bring in the latest technological advances, but in a strategic, integrated manner.
“Government cannot get smarter without industry,” Evanina said.
Federal agencies face an incredibly hard challenge to secure networks. The worst thing that can happen though is an acceptance, and eventual apathy, toward cyber breaches. While breaches have become a common part of life, federal agencies must remain vigilant in keeping data secure. It’s a positive sign to see government executives like Jeanette Manfra and William Evanina leading this charge.
Check back here for additional blogs that will provide some of the other key issues discussed during the Symantec Government Symposium.
Read More About Symantec's Government Symposium Here
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Symantec Government Symposium to Tackle Complex Challenges in Cyber Security
December 05, 2017 in Washington D.C.
In some ways, the word “cyber security” seems insufficient because the challenges that agencies face cross myriad threats, attackers, technologies and systems that, oh by the way, change on a regular basis.
One of the primary themes of the Symantec Government Symposium, taking place on December 5 at the Renaissance Hotel in Washington D.C. is to explore these complex challenges. While there may be no one way to battle these obstacles, the government community can work together to fight back, sharing information and best practices to ensure that no one takes on this challenge alone.
The first of our four tracks at the Symposium will focus specifically on these complex challenges, bringing together leaders from industry, government and academia to discuss how best to approach them. There will be two sessions that directly tackle this topic area, discussing two major components agencies currently face.
The first session will focus on “Enemy Number One: Threats from the Inside.” It explores that while data theft from people such as Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning receive national headlines, it is the accidental insider threat that may be more pervasive. The insider threat dynamic is one of the most challenging for agencies as, although there will be some insiders who act with malicious intent, the majority are good employees with good intentions who make a terrible mistake. The insider threat issue is multi-faceted and complex, along with one of the most dangerous in terms of impact on the government mission.
Scheduled speakers on this panel include:
Archana Vemulapalli, CTO, Washington D.C.
Michael Seage, Director for the Defense Insider Threat Management and Analysis Center, Defense Security Service
Joe Kirschbaum, Director, Defense Capabilities and Management, Government Accountability Office
Neil Carmichael, Jr., Director, Insider Threat Program, National Archives and Records Administration
Aubrey Merchant-Dest, Federal CTO, Symantec (moderator)
The second panel to focus on complex challenges will delve into how to stay one step ahead of adversaries. This is easier said than done, obviously, but is an area that has seen tremendous growth in recent years. Public and private sector entities are working together to share information, so when a virus like WannaCry breaks out stakeholders can take proactive measures to protect themselves. This panel will look into how groups currently work together and how they can improve going forward.
Scheduled speakers on this panel include:
Randy Vickers, CISO, U.S. House of Representatives
Maj. Gen. Donald P. Dunbar, Adjutant General, Wisconsin
Christopher Brown, Deputy Director, NGA Cyber Security Operations Cell, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
Patrick Gardner, Vice President, Engineering Advanced Threat Protection, Symantec (moderator)
Cyber security is filled with complex challenges. The best way to beat them is with information. The Symantec Government Symposium will bring government leaders together to discuss the steps that have already been taken, but also to look at what needs to be improved in the future. These are just two of the many sessions designated to this topic. If you are interested in attending the event, please register here. To follow along during the event or to see updates to the program prior to the event, please follow @SymantecGov and #SymGovSym.
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Symantec: Helping to Protect Your Mobile Devices
Security is important now more than ever
We are definitely in strange times. What was once a world of face to face interactions: meeting in person with customers, grabbing my laptop and booting up with a brisk 64GB of memory, have now turned into virtual interactions due to COVID. What this virtual environment has also enabled, is that the bad guys are getting smarter and leveraging mobile technology to further their own malicious activities and agendas such as harvesting credentials, or tricking people into giving up their personal information. This makes it is especially important for enterprises today to be vigilant, as the remote working environment extends more to mobile devices.
With this increase, comes the need to ensure you have a solid Mobile Threat Defense (MTD) solution in your mobile environment.
Symantec, a division of Broadcom (NASDAQ: AVGO), is seeing attackers using mobile as a delivery method for malware, with one area being Smishing (or Phishing via SMS). This is where the attacker sends a text, sometimes “catered” to the recipient with a little social engineering, which contains a URL/Link to a malicious or suspicious website. The same method can be used in “QR” Quick Response codes sometimes referred to as Qrishing, it’s just a different delivery method. The reason this is important is because we now live in a world where we grab our phones before anything else, we are constantly connected to our jobs and personal lives: meaning email, banking, healthcare, or any applications and information on that device can potentially be at risk.
Symantec Researcher, Kevin Watkins, wrote an article in May about the increase in SMS phishing that attackers were taking advantage of due to COVID. With this increase, comes the need to ensure you have a solid Mobile Threat Defense (MTD) solution in your mobile environment. This is not a “Nice to Have”, this is a must, and without protecting your mobile devices, you are leaving one of the most targeted platforms we see today vulnerable to attacks.
What Should You Do?
Ensure you have both MDM (Mobile Device Management) and MTD (Mobile Threat Defense). On occasion I’ll speak with a customer that only has MDM, and MDM alone will not protect you against advanced attacks such as malicious or risky apps, or network based threats.
Leverage a MTD (Mobile Threat Defense). This provides “on device” resource detection and protection to block access to corporate resources when that device presents a risk. If your end users device becomes compromised or has a high risk score, do you want that device accessing corporate email or any SaaS based application?
Ensure you are protected against network based attacks based attacks (Man In The Middle/SSL Stripping). This is extremely important as most any Wi-Fi SSID (Service Set Identifier) can be duplicated, and mobile devices (without folks even knowing it’s happening) can inadvertently be routing all their traffic through the attacker’s hardware.
Ensure you have full visibility into device health, incidents, suspicious urls, installed apps, and a full risk analysis on those apps. Do you know the risk associated with the apps installed on your devices? Are any of those apps violating any corporate policy, AUP (Acceptable Use Policy), or putting the device and end user at risk?
Symantec acquired Skycure in 2017, and integrated their tools and technologies into Symantec Endpoint Mobile (SEP Mobile) that is now part of (SESE) Symantec Endpoint Security Enterprise. SESE is a robust product that integrates with the most prominent MDM providers (Mobile Device Management), with patented technology to help provide privacy of the end users device and data, while providing protection at the same time.
Symantec Intelligence Services
One specific technology to note is the Symantec Intelligence Services that we integrate with the SEP Mobile solution. Through protection actions the customer can fully define in the console, they can block and alert on any web traffic attempts to websites the customer might note as an AUP (Acceptable Use Policy) violation such as: Gambling, Malicious, Suspicious, or Proxy Avoidance just to name a few. Symantec Intelligence Services has well over 80 website categories and was integrated into SEP Mobile, making this one of the many added features that brings the power of website analysis, into the SEP Mobile product. This is just one example of the many different integrations we have including our WSS (Web Security Services/Cloud Proxy) solution, and our CASB solution.
Important Policies
To add onto the protection stack in SEP Mobile, we also have a very powerful Unwanted Application policy which allows you to get as granular as you wish based on your security posture. By using this in tandem with our Protection Actions policy, this will allow you to block access to any Cloud based (SaaS) or internally hosted application.
Staying Secure
By leveraging SEP Mobile to protect your corporate or BYO (Bring Your Own) devices, you can ensure they will remain secure wherever they might be (in the office or remote). SEP Mobile is included in our endpoint security stack called Symantec Endpoint Security Enterprise (SESE), that protects all of the endpoints in your environment, including mobile devices, laptops, workstations, and servers. SEP Mobile is also included in our flagship offering Symantec Endpoint Security Complete (SESC) which builds on SESE and adds EDR, Active Directory Defense, Threat Hunting, Attack Surface Reduction, and other technologies for the most robust endpoint security offering in the market.
Examples:
This is an example of our integration with our Symantec Intelligence Services technology and how we can use this feature to block mobile device web traffic by category.
As seen below, you can define at a very granular level, the criteria for how to classify unwanted applications on mobile devices. This allows you to trigger protection actions based on the device risk posture.
Using Symantec's ICDx (Integrated Cyber Defense Exchange), you can feed SEP Mobile incident data into any Security Operations Center (SOC) dashboard of your choice such as Kibana or Splunk (Symantec SOCView app for Splunk shown below). This data integration will help provide full visibility into incidents, and the ability to track trends and discover hidden issues in your enterprise.
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Symantec Helps Law Enforcement Take Down Cyber Criminals
Tapping its global intel network, here’s how Symantec shares its knowledge with law enforcement agencies to identify and foil attackers
When it comes to combatting online fraud, data theft, malware and other cyber security threats, no single entity – government or private – has all the answers. With the ongoing escalation in volume, diversity and sophistication of cyber attacks, the need for public and private organizations to partner together to limit the attacks and take out bad actors is more important now than ever.
Symantec understands this need well. While the cyber security firm’s mandate and activities remain focused on protecting its customers’ digital environments and data, Symantec regularly gains unique insight into attackers’ strategies as well as the infrastructure and tools they employ. On numerous occasions over the years, Symantec has shared that knowledge with the FBI and other law enforcement agencies around the world to help them identify and shut down the attackers’ operations.
In one recent case, Symantec and several other cyber security firms provided support to the FBI as it sought to dismantle a cyber crime ring that was running a global ad-fraud botnet. The ring had infected as many as 700,000 consumer and data center computers with two types of malware that, together, created counterfeit websites and generated fraudulent traffic to the advertisements on those sites.
On numerous occasions over the years, Symantec has shared that knowledge with the FBI and other law enforcement agencies around the world to help them identify and shut down the attackers’ operations.
All told, the fake visitors generated click-through ad revenue of more than $35 million, paid by businesses unaware that their ads were never actually viewed by real people. The U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Eastern District of New York outlined the scheme in a November 2018 press release that also announced the dismantlement of the network and the arrest of the scheme’s perpetrators.
Symantec was in a prime position to lend assistance to the investigation because it had tracked one of the main malware botnets – called Kovter – since 2013. The bot started out as a ransomware vehicle before changing its payload to support the ad fraud scheme, explains Vikram Thakur, technical director with Symantec’s Security Technology and Response (STAR) organization.
“We made sure our customers were protected from Kovter and moved on,” Thakur says. “Then, in 2017, the FBI asked if Symantec would be willing to participate in a task force to gather information on how Kovter worked, the infrastructure it was using, and ways to identify it at a larger scale than just our Symantec customer base.”
Over the following year, Symantec provided the FBI with technical advice and participated in in-person conferences with the agency as well as other industry partners to pool their knowledge and devise a game plan. Later, when the Department of Justice was ready to make its arrests and shut down the network, Symantec provided the FBI with a tool that affected users could freely download to remove the botnet from their machines.
Symantec cooperates with several law enforcement organizations, both in the US and around the globe. For example, Symantec has partnered with the European Cyber Crime Center of Europol and engaged in a number of international operations such as the takedown of Ramnit and Avalanche botnets, the Wannacry outbreak and the no-more-ransomware project.
Symantec is in a position to provide assistance to law enforcement entities thanks to its large portfolio of cyber security tools, its global user base, and its extensive in-house expertise. Among its strengths, the company operates six security operations centers (SOCs) around the world, offering managed security services, incident response and other offerings to institutional users of cyber security products. As part of their operations, the SOCs monitor close to 200 billion logs each day.
Although it might not be obvious, along with its technical expertise and deep visibility, Symantec’s global footprint also serves as a key strength when it comes to identifying and understanding some threats.
When it comes to countering threats – or aiding law enforcement – the SOCs’ operations are tightly integrated with those of the STAR organization. For its part, STAR oversees research and development for all of Symantec’s security technologies, helping the company’s product teams build-in protections for any new threats identified.
As part of its operations, STAR collects and aggregates technical data that the Symantec products generate and uses it to create a “data lake” of cyber security-relevant information – Symantec’s Global Intelligence Network. Using its response centers located around the world, the STAR group monitors malicious code reports from more than 130 million Internet-connected systems, receives data from 240,000 network sensors in more than 200 countries, and tracks more than 25,000 known vulnerabilities.
“From a customer – or law enforcement – view, our SOC and STAR services are inextricably intertwined,” says John Lionato, vice president of global operations at Symantec, a role in which he oversees the global SOCs and their services. “Combined, the two organizations have more than 1,000 engineers, analysts and other ‘cyber warriors’ behind the pointy end of the stick.”
Although it might not be obvious, along with its technical expertise and deep visibility, Symantec’s global footprint also serves as a key strength when it comes to identifying and understanding some threats, Lionato says.
“In the world of the Internet, you would imagine location is irrelevant,” he says. “In real life, being closer the adversary, both physically and culturally, can make a world of difference.” For example, Lionato explains, when examining malicious code, a native language speaker may be able to spot telltale identifiers or vernacular errors that another investigator might miss.
Symantec understands that helping law enforcement agencies can be a long-term engagement, a partnership that can last year. In one example, Symantec started working with the FBI in 2007 on an investigation into a fraud operation, dubbed “Bayrob,” in which people sent thousands of dollars to a fake website in the belief they were purchasing cars. That case wasn’t wrapped up until late 2016, with the arrest of the three Romanian men behind the scheme. “Our team must have met law enforcement in person at least a dozen times during the course of their investigation,” Thakur says.
“We look at it as our corporate and social responsibility,” he continues. “We’re not just protecting our customers, but the broader community. We’re in this to make life hell for the attackers.”
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Symantec High Risk Isolation
Improving Security and Enabling Productive Web Access
If there is anything that can cause fear, it is fear of the unknown. Not knowing what lies ahead can lead to decisions made in haste and panic, potentially resulting in events that could make the situation even worse.
When users interact with the web, the sites they go to can broadly be viewed as known good, known bad and unknown. The unknown is where there is a classic security trade-off between risk and usability. Organizations can choose to either block unknown and potentially block legitimate sites (or components of those sites) or allow unknown, and depend on reactive security controls to provide protection. What if there was a better way to maintain accessibility and usability without introducing new risks?
Symantec High Risk Isolation
In order to help organizations fight back against network attacks and assure the productivity of their workers, Symantec High Risk Isolation (HRI), part of the Symantec Web Protection Suite, provides an easy way to isolate traffic that is considered risky, but which also lets users get to the where they need to be without having to deal with being blocked from sites that are legitimate.
HRI is a new cloud based capability that relies on a Symantec Intelligence Services risk level assignment: A ranking on a scale of one to ten, with one being the least dangerous risk, and ten being something that needs immediate attention. When we do risk assessments, anything up to a Risk Level of three is considered something very well-known and relatively low risk.
Low risk sites are typically major websites operated by reputable organizations. A risk level four site does not trigger any of our models and is most likely not well known enough to be considered low risk are new, hard to categorize, and until now, have been mostly unknown.
HRI is a new cloud based capability that relies on a Symantec Intelligence Services risk level assignment: A ranking on a scale of one to ten, with one being the least dangerous risk, and ten being something that needs immediate attention.
Risk Level six is the beginning of what we consider truly risky (and not just unknown). Typically a risk level of six means that something about the site or domain triggered our models for higher risk. Risk Level seven and above are generally either associated with known malicious behavior or directly used in a campaign. We find that Risk Level five and six attacks are the sweet spots for many hackers, but companies can also be lax when it comes to addressing such issues. When a site gets categorized at Risk Level seven or higher, companies tend to be happy to block these out of hand.
With HRI, network administrators are able to isolate websites that are either unknown or assigned a Risk Level five or higher. HRI will then execute the web content remotely and send safe, rendering information to a user’s browser, and give administrators the ability to set sites as read only, if necessary, for additional network protection.
Symantec Web Isolation
Symantec Web isolation, also known as Remote Browser Isolation (RBI), isn’t new to Symantec. We dove into the technology with our 2017 acquisition of the cyber security company Fireglass. While Web Isolation can be used as a full Secure Web Gateway (SWG) replacement there are many advantages of applying it in a more targeted way. An organization can walk down risk while minimizing user and operational impacts. A very security conscious organization can choose to maximize the traffic that is isolated while another can concentrate on the highest risk traffic first and find the optimal solution.
Once implemented, Symantec Web Isolation connects the user’s browser to a disposable web browser that does the browsing for the individual. This is done with no endpoint client necessary. When someone goes to a web page, a real page is then recomputed so that a person is interacting with our web application instead of the actual web page. No original content is allowed to be sent through and multiple attack vectors are blocked in the process.
Once implemented, Symantec Web Isolation connects the user’s browser to a disposable web browser that does the browsing for the individual.
It goes without saying that changing workforce requirements over the last year has served as an impetus for organizations to rethink their network security stack. The huge surge in the number of employees working remotely because of the pandemic has only boosted the interest in web security as we have also seen an expansion in the numbers, and types of attacks. But, as we all anticipate the pandemic’s end in the foreseeable future, and the return of some employees to their offices, there is no question that a significant number of people will continue to work from home. This reality should demonstrate to enterprises to not let their guard down when it comes to their security needs, and continue to explore and consider the benefits of Symantec Web Isolation.
What HRI really comes down to is giving enterprises the ability to provide their employees with the web access they need while also ensuring that their devices are protected. It isolates web browsing privileges for authorized users, provides a seamless web browsing experience, supports all devices without the need for an agent and integrates easily with Symantec Secure Web Gateway and the Symantec Web Security Service.
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Symantec Honored to Be Named a Top Player in Radicati’s Market Quadrant
Secure Email Gateway receives recognition
Email represents, by far, the number one delivery mechanism for malware into organizations. The data is staggering: email is being used to deliver 94% of malware, the next highest method is via the web (23%) [1]. When you consider that many malicious emails are now directing recipients to access weblinks, a solution that not only scans inbound email, but ensures that associated links are safe is of vital importance. This isn’t as simple as it sounds, and Symantec has invested in developing technologies to keep customers safer. Email Threat Isolation is a prime example, we can now allow users to follow links to a suspicious website (one that we can’t say for sure is bad) and should that website attempt to deliver malware or steal their credentials we keep them safe.
In light of the continued security risk that email presents, it makes absolute sense to ensure you are protected in the best way. And the latest research from Radicati, where email security vendors are evaluated and rated will help you review the strengths, and weaknesses, of your current approach.
Radicati names Symantec as a Top Player in Secure Email Gateway market
Symantec has been recognized as a Top Player in The Radicati Group's Secure Email Gateway - Market Quadrant 2019, once again reaffirming our market leadership. The Radicati Group reviewed the whole market and analyzed thirteen vendors that provide email security solutions, before awarding Symantec “Top Player” status. Our solution was found to offer leading levels of both functionality and strategic vision, reflecting the ongoing investment we are making in our Email Security portfolio(more on this later).
Radicati highlighted a number of Symantec's strengths including:
The use of a multi-layered approach to protect against advanced threats
Email Threat Detection and Response (ETDR), which provides detailed data on targeted attacks (as determined by Symantec research analysts) and advanced email security analytics on every incoming email scanned. The 60+ data points can easily be exported to a variety of security tools via a granular API to accelerate threat investigation and response.
Innovative use of Email Threat Isolation technology to combat spear phishing, ransomware and credential theft
The addition of Email Fraud Protection to help organizations automate the process of sender authentication, and therefore minimize the risk of email impersonation and Business Email Compromise Attack (a $26Bn problem and growing)
Symantec’s flexibility to protect on-premises, cloud or hybrid email gateways
Symantec’s Global Intelligence Network that provides critical threat intelligence allowing Symantec to protect against a wide range of sophisticated threats
Integration across the wider Symantec product portfolio, including Symantec DLP to provide leading data protection control, and Symantec's Integrated Cyber Defense Platform, a unified way to defend and respond to advanced threats.
You can download a complimentary copy of the full “Secure Email Gateway—Market Quadrant 2019” from The Radicati report here.
Email Security - now upgraded
Earlier this year, we made further enhancements to our service, and these are now available to all our Email Security.cloud customers. We understand the critical importance of high quality, robust security analytics to prevent, detect and respond to incidents - particularly as email still represents the number one delivery mechanism for malware into organizations. In many cases, malware is delivered once the recipient follows a link to a website. We have extended our URL protection to now provide analytics on all URLs - clean or bad - whether they have been clicked by a user or not. This additional information will help security operations and response teams to gain a complete understanding of web risk, ultimately allowing them to be more secure.
We have also enhanced our analytics data feed infrastructure, enabling us to correlate a wider variety of data, and are exploring new ways in which we may be able to enable customers to access these analytics via reporting tools.
If you are not using our email security solution, then perhaps now is the time to find out more.
The product interface has also undergone recent updates. We pride ourselves on making email security simple to manage and we continually review the graphic display, workflows and the way information is presented to achieve this. We have made enhancements to our user interface, and existing customers are already enjoying our new look and feel.
If you are not using our email security solution, then perhaps now is the time to find out more. Our market leading position - over many years - reflects the quality, expertise and breadth of our email security solution. To find out more about our Email Security portfolio, visit our website.
You can download a complimentary copy of the full “Secure Email Gateway—Market Quadrant 2019” from The Radicati report here.
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[1] Verizon, 2019 Data Breach Investigations Report
“BUSINESS EMAIL COMPROMISE THE $26 BILLION SCAM”, FBI, September 2019, https://www.ic3.gov/media/2019/190910.aspx
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Symantec Identity: Stepping Up to Meet the COVID-19 Crisis
COVID-19 confronted healthcare providers and governments with unprecedented requests for access, aid, and assistance. Here’s how one team at Symantec is rising to the occasion
COVID-19 has changed our world forever. Virtually overnight, this strange-sounding virus brought a hard stop to life, work, and play as we know it. But though the ravages of this pandemic are still creating terrible pain and economic hardship for millions, we are also bearing witness to acts of incredible courage and selfless love. The works of our front-line caregivers in healthcare -- and all the others who are helping to mitigate the worst aspects of this crisis -- inspires us all.
Those of us who work in software have our own stories to tell. Stories that also showcase how we as people are often at our best when times are at their worst.
Let’s look at how the impact of COVID-19 affected our customers in healthcare and government.
Virtually overnight, this strange-sounding virus brought a hard stop to life, work, and play as we know it.
In healthcare, the rapid spread of the virus is creating a surge in people needing everything from access to information to testing and treatment -- including from new mobile and drive-up centers. All of which require fast, secure access to patient records and other access data.
Then there is the impact on governments from the economic toll of the virus. As of April 16, 2020, the Washington Post reports that more than 22 million Americans have filed for unemployment. In California alone, more than six million registered for assistance in less than two weeks. Worldwide, the number of people seeking assistance from their governments and healthcare systems is just as staggering.
Rising to the Occasion
Among the challenges is the need to respond to this unprecedented surge while still maintaining patient or citizen privacy rights. Such an explosion in demand also invites a greatly increased possibility of fraud. These challenges are compounded by the reality that the access portals for these services are designed to scale into the millions over the course of a year – not all at once.
Here are just three of the ways that Symantec Identity Security is stepping up to help our customers meet some of their differing COVID-19 challenges.
Scaling Public Services
One of our nation’s most populous states saw its unemployment numbers skyrocket in the aftermath of COVID-19. The state asked us for help in scaling their environment to ensure its citizens could receive the financial support they need while sheltering-at-home. Our team worked around the clock to scale up the site and its security. And I am proud to say that the site is successfully processing 1000 times more unemployment requests through this site than ever before.
Bringing Rapid Relief
Like many countries, our next customer story concerns a nation that has seen its unemployment rise significantly as a result of the pandemic. When the government approved a relief package, its unemployment agency asked for our help in securing a new portal to handle the unprecedented number of unemployment requests. Our team worked non-stop to enable the agency to deliver the app on-time. It processed nearly one million registrations the very first day -- more than 670 registrations per minute. I am proud to note that this app was the #1 priority of its government and we helped make sure it happened.
Enabling the Fight
One of the stories that best exemplifies the way our Symantec team members are stepping up to help customers meet the COVID-19 challenge involves a private, not-for-profit clinical research center, hospital, and medical school located in the United States. The hospital has a lab capable of processing COVID-19 test kits but needed a way to ramp up for new drive-up testing locations.
We were asked to help enable users to access these sites and other needed resources from their electronic devices. One of our sales engineers went above and beyond to help make this happen, working all night long on his day off to help the hospital team to get this done on time. He never asked for any extra consideration or permission from me or anyone else. He just rose to the occasion to ensure that the new drive-up testing sites would be ready for his neighbors and his community.
Software and the Human Experience
I am proud to say that he is not alone in his efforts. As a team, everyone is responding to this extraordinary moment. Together, they are working around the clock, knowing that what they are doing is for people to get the testing they need and the money they need. No one is sending requests up the pipeline. They are doing it on their own, leveraging our best in class technology.
When I talk about what our technology does with others, I often gravitate to large financial services customers. People usually find it interesting to understand how these organizations operate at such massive scale, using our technology to power financial interactions with hundreds of millions of people.
With a pandemic, the stakes are high – life and death – and nothing is more mission critical.
What I’m seeing now is that it wasn’t the scale that was interesting. What is interesting is how we’ve consistently delivered a foundation for mission critical applications everywhere. With a pandemic, the stakes are high – life and death – and nothing is more mission critical. Helping our fellow citizens and neighbors by ensuring that they get access to the health care and financial aid they need in their time of need is one way we are making a difference in the world.
In closing, I would like to add that when this pandemic began, I don’t think we knew what to expect from our customers. We wondered how engaged they would be. Would they push pause on their projects with us or continue pushing forward? The answer is that they continue to move with urgency, often with new priorities and renewed urgency in the face of the challenges presented by COVID-19.
At the end of the day, this crisis is reminding us that it’s not about software, it’s about the human experience.
Webinar - Symantec Identity Security: Innovation and Strategy for Your Success
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Symantec Identity – The Missing Link
How can you implement a Zero Trust Architecture without Identity & Access Management?
Zero Trust is founded on the belief that organizations should not automatically trust anything inside or outside its perimeters, and must verify everything trying to connect to its resources before granting access – based on identity, context, and trustworthiness. At Symantec, as a division of Broadcom, we know this framework has been around for a while, but it gaining more attention recently as it helps to address recent shifts and trends, including the remote workforce, cloud migration, and the automated world of DevOps. And while there are many different technologies that help to establish Zero Trust, Identity and Access Management (IAM) is the cornerstone because it represents the final perimeter.
The Grand Illusion: Perimeters equals walls
There have been a lot of discussions about the disappearing perimeter as organizations move applications into the cloud. In fact, when most all of your environment is running in someone else's infrastructure, the only real asset that will be owned by enterprises is the identities, the access rights that they are given and the information that they interact with. This has led to the realization that Identity is the last (and sometimes the only) defensible perimeter. When you can positively verify the identity of every user and device requesting access, then and only then, can you enforce policies to grant or deny that access request. The process for verifying the identity of a user or device is called authentication, but this is not as simple or straightforward as you would think because not all authentication credentials are created equal.
Social element continues to be the weakest link with cyber attacks focusing on "internal" weak spots through which to orchestrate attacks. The only way to deal with that is to remove the human element and require use of "something you have" (biometrics, hardware authenticators) in addition to, or instead of "something you know/remember". But these extra layers of protection often introduce friction into the digital experience – friction that may not always be necessary.
And while there are many different technologies that help to establish Zero Trust, Identity and Access Management (IAM) is the cornerstone because it represents the final perimeter.
This spotlights the need for Identity Assurance (level of authentication) to be consistent with the level of Risk posed by the desired access. Hence a lot of advanced technology and thinking is going into the art and science of Risk Management – ranging from advanced biometrics tracking people’s reaction time to advanced AI/ML analytics trying to make sense of historical behaviors combined with real-time sensors to use with advanced personal authenticators leveraging crypto capabilities, such as FIDO2 security keys and devices. And we are similarly seeing significant interest from customers for advanced biometrics, predictive analytics, and use of FIDO2/WebAuthN authentication standards.
From Symantec's point of view, all authentication needs to be based on the level of risk measured by how risky an asset is, or how risky a compromised identity is. Dynamic, analytical, AI/ML-enabled Risk Management is the only path forward to mitigate security issues.
Working for a Living: The “always on” world
"Anytime, anywhere, any device" - has been a mantra for several years, but the realization that in the age of always-on, super-connected distributed services and systems acting on their own behalf, as well as on the behalf of people, the machine identity is just as important as the user's identity. The Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem is growing exponentially with smart things making decisions on our behalf, and the IoT devices are just as vulnerable to compromise as humans, and the dawn of 5G dramatically accelerates this, creating the need for significant scalability of identity/security processes to deal with the volume of "connected things" and "security decisions to make".
This will drive adoption of Cloud Computing by enterprises (especially global ones) that take advantage of new digital processes and innovations as they implement Digital Transformation projects to drive customer engagement, improve customer service, and integrate supply chains. Going forward, majority of enterprises simply will not have the necessary skills to securely integrate, operate, and oversee end to end digital processes spanning multiple providers.
Heat of the Moment: The juxtaposition of privacy and access
As the use of human and machine identities continues to grow exponentially, it is becoming exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to understand how the applications and services we consume are interconnected and how our data is being used. This has created (and continues to create) a political environment to regulate use of personal data – to protect citizens from being exploited by businesses looking to monetize their personal data and to try to enable “individual consent” to make it seem "fare", although, in many cases, the genie is already out of the bottle so to speak.
Within this highly charged environment, the cost of avoidance for service providers is starting to exceed the cost of compliance, and this is driving two critical technology trends – for service consumers, it’s the right to have "privacy" and for the service providers, it’s the obligation to build and operate applications and systems using "least privileged" access methodology. Both trends are an architectural "must have" in order to maintain control over personal data while ensuring availability of services.
Along the same lines, we are also seeing emergence of risk-sharing signaling technology that enables Identity Providers to publish notifications about threat levels tied to specific user or machine identity. This is especially important in environment where a large amount of data and access is being maintained, such as Cloud Providers who have begun to share session / risk signals using technology called Continuous Access Evaluation Protocol (CAEP). This pro-active observe --> detect --> prevent approach enables enterprises to be a lot more agile in preventing risky identities from causing significant damage.
Wheel in the Sky: DevOps keeps on turning
Software is the key driver of growth, innovation, efficiency and productivity, but how you deliver it says a lot about how you’ll be able to compete in this world. Business leaders have recognized this new reality, with most investing in the technologies and adopting the processes required to transform and embrace the app economy. But as new apps and services are rushed to market, security is left as an afterthought or ignored completely, creating new targets for hackers to compromise and exploit.
Pipelines are at the heart of DevOps, but simple continuous delivery pipelines are not enough anymore. You need both intelligent and secure pipelines to help you release higher quality software at a greater velocity and reduced risk. We continue to see Secure Dev Ops practices to gain momentum integrating security and identity processes into application development and delivery pipelines. Considering that good security is very hard to implement and must always be evolving, developers are NOT security people and must NOT be solely counted on to build secure applications. Security must be externalized from people running development and operations, and instead be automated via integration with the daily processes. Technologies such as Privileged Account Management to eliminate the need for long-lived shared credentials, Secrets Management to give out short-lived connection credentials only when such connection is needed, and Risk-based Single-Sign-On and Session Management all serve as significant help to reduce operational risk and eliminate human element as the weakest link.
Time for Me to Fly: Summary
In summary, Identity and Access Management, which gained notoriety about 15-20 years ago as a business enabler is seeing a resurgence because many now understand that Identity is the last perimeter, and can, when done correctly, solve many of the emerging challenges facing businesses today. But not the IAM of yesterday; the Risk [Management] aspect of the computing in general that is driving technical and operational advances in modern IAM. Such risk is being evaluated in the context of different dimensions - business risk, brand risk, monetary risk, intellectual property risk, personal safety risk, etc - and this is driving advances in authentication biometrics, AI/ML analytics, and sharing of risk signals. The "Zero Trust" methodology, architecture, and technology is what will make possible to accurately balance the need for security (always restrict) and the need for productivity (always allow). As organizations deploy new technologies, such as Secure Access Service Edge (SASE), they will rely on a modern IAM solution to serve as the foundation, so they can grant the right access to the right people and devices at the right time because they have a high degree of confidence that they are whom they claim to be.
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Symantec Information Security’s Next Chapter Keyed to Data Protection Everywhere
Focusing on Simplification To Help Our Customers & Partners Win
Introduction
It has never been more important for modern enterprises to treat their data as strategic assets, and protecting that data is necessary not just for success but for survival. In today’s digital world, the vectors where that data gets authored, shared, consumed and stored has completely changed. Data protection solutions have to adapt and evolve with this increasingly complex environment.
At Symantec, now officially part of Broadcom, the Information Security Group (ISG) is focused on the next leg of its journey: To take a data-centric approach to securing enterprise data wherever it may be, as part of a holistic strategy built around the concepts of Zero Trust.
Enterprise information security executives are tasked with delivering data security without affecting productivity--if a security solution is disruptive, it will invariably not be used and could potentially be ‘ripped out’. In a productivity-first, cloud-enabled world, the challenge of data security can easily become a daunting task.
How we’re working to improve usage and customer experience
ISG helps customers rise to today’s security challenges with its combination of leadership in enterprise data loss prevention (DLP), cloud access security brokers (CASB), zero trust network access technology (ZTNA), and user and entity behavior analytics (UEBA) to form a single cohesive platform to address various data security use cases. From on-premises and perimeter, to private/public cloud infrastructure and onward to SaaS, ISG solutions apply data controls in a uniformly consistent manner to greatly increase efficacy and minimize disruption to users.
The ISG portfolio was always well positioned to address these challenges. However, myriad offerings in the solution set, coupled with complexity of implementation, prevented customers from efficiently deploying our solutions. At Broadcom, customer success is critical to shaping our future, and we’re committed to reducing friction and improving security. A remedy for the problem of stack complexity is portfolio simplification – and we’ve already implemented the first phase of portfolio simplification as you’ve seen in earlier blogs.
Changing our approach to information security at Symantec
We have distilled data security use cases to four control channels: On-premises, SaaS, IaaS and Private Cloud. At the center of those control channels, will be a single-pass detection layer, powered by our perennially award-winning DLP detection engine, which enables deep content examination on data from the cloud. We’re also greatly simplifying our management approach by converging policy creation, incident response, reporting and user analytics into a unified, cloud-based console that avoids policy duplication and conflict.
To help explain our strategy, we’ve devised a simple illustration:
This level of consolidation enables seamless integration of our entire information security stack with Symantec’s Integrated Cyber Defense (ICD) platform, easily extending to your larger security use cases centered around threat detection and remediation, network access and security, identity access management, and ultimately Secure Access Service Edge (SASE).
By simplifying the various control channels and centralizing management and analytics, the security executive suddenly has more and better options. Protecting data at a single point of entry or egress is no longer the chief concern as the entire path for data is protected. This means security executives can choose the least disruptive option for their users while satisfying broader enterprise security needs. Consider the finance user working on a spreadsheet saved in the cloud--data security policies can be applied at the endpoint, as it travels the network, as part of the SaaS application or in cloud storage, based on the most effective approach.
Simplification also means we can now address the complexity of deployment for large enterprises. You will see us shift away from monolithic releases that come with the challenge of having to fully recertify and deploy. Architectural upgrades will be fewer and far between, but content essential to enforcing the latest data classifications for compliance will come at a much more rapid pace.
Our commitment to putting customers first and executing on ‘data protection everywhere’
When strategy and vision are shared, the proof is in rapid execution. Symantec ISG is already well on the path of execution as demonstrated by our evolving product portfolio. I am personally excited to see this next step for Symantec Information Security.
In future posts, we’ll continue the discussion of our strategic direction and how Secure Access Service Edge fits into our vision for Information Security.
Symantec Information Security: Innovation and Strategy for Your Success
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Symantec Integrations Boost Privacy and Compliance
Balancing business goals, user freedom, and security takes the power of integration
Ensuring data privacy and complying with regulatory requirements are high on the to-do list of practically every organization. Businesses and government agencies are expected to protect the personally identifiable information (PII) of customers and citizens. If they don’t, stiff regulatory penalties thanks to GDPR, HIPAA, PCI-DSS and CCPA violations await – not to mention costly legal action and severe reputational damage.
But privacy and compliance demands must not erode the productivity and morale of users. It’s all a matter of balance – difficult, yet essential to achieve. With this conundrum in mind, we at Symantec, as a division of Broadcom, have implemented several integrations to enable you to achieve data privacy and compliance – both on-premises and in the cloud – without sacrificing the user experience.
Find Data Everywhere
Without Data Loss Prevention (DLP) systems, confidential data can too easily be saved by a careless user to a USB stick or other location, causing your organization to fail compliance audits. An integrated system that provides visibility and protection, wherever your data is ensures that you are not leaving sensitive data lurking the shadows. Below are some of the important integrations Symantec provides.
DLP + CloudSOC (CASB)
Your responsibility for compliance doesn’t end where the cloud begins. Symantec DLP and CloudSOC integration extends data discovery and compliance policies to more than 100 SaaS cloud applications and services, including Office 365, G Suite, and Box. It also enables you to automate policy synchronization with cloud properties.
DLP + Secure Web Gateway and/or Email Gateway
Integration between DLP and Secure Web Gateway (SWG) stops shadow data transfer to the web, even when traffic is encrypted. DLP receives decrypted traffic from the proxy, enabling inspection and policy enforcement.
Email Security Service (ESS), meanwhile, filters unwanted messages and protects mailboxes from targeted attacks. Integration with DLP delivers unified cloud enforcement of your email data policies.
DLP + Microsoft Information Protection (MIP)
MIP performs tagging, encryption, and digital rights management, ensuring that only the intended recipient can open sensitive material, regardless of the recipient’s location or device. Integration with DLP makes great technology from Microsoft even better. DLP implements policy rules to label sensitive data. Then MIP does its thing, applying digital rights management and encryption to the data. The document thus gets identity protection and can only be opened by named individuals. The digital rights follow the sensitive material wherever it goes, even if it’s downloaded to the user’s device.
Build a Cloud-Ready Policy Superhighway
Building, deploying and maintaining DLP policies is critical to ensuring reduced data loss risk. With data found everywhere yet controlled through different systems (e.g endpoint, storage, network and cloud) there are challenges in ensuring consistent protection. Without integration, you might have to create two policies for that data, one for the cloud and the other for on-prem. With DLP integration, you create the policy only once.
For cloud protection, a Symantec Cloud Security Access Broker (CASB) is a natural point of integration. Our CloudSOC (CASB) integrations enable you to extend your continuum of policies – a policy superhighway if you will – from the edge to the core of your network. Here are two examples:
CloudSOC + Cloud Workload Assurance (CWA)
A Dev/Ops contractor misconfigures an application, causing data to leak outside the organization – hardly a far-fetched scenario. Cloud-based services such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure are used widely, but it’s easy to misconfigure cloud-based resources, leading to PII data exfiltration and compliance violations. Symantec Cloud Workload Assurance (CWA) continuously monitors cloud resources and guides remediation with steps that are easy for administrators to follow. Integration allows it to send information to CloudSOC for centralized management.
CloudSOC + Mirror Gateway
It’s not unusual for users with devices outside the scope of IT management to seek access to an organization’s cloud-based applications. These unmanaged could belong to contractors or vendors, or they could be BYOD devices of their own employees.
Your job is to enforce secure access policies or Zero-Trust Network Access (ZTNA). These policies would normally be implemented on managed devices through a Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB). For these unmanaged devices, a critical add-on is needed: Symantec Mirror Gateway. When an unmanaged device logs in, the user’s session is seamlessly redirected to an isolation chamber running a remote browser, which “mirrors” the activity of the remote user, all the while continuously inspecting traffic. The result is to enforce the security controls on unmanaged devices, without an agent, while maintaining a seamless user experience.
Knock-Knock, Who's There?
As the role of compromised privileged accounts and credentials has become clear, regulatory bodies and auditors have focused their attention on the controls that organizations must implement to mitigate these risks. Thus, organizations are subject to an ever-expanding list of data security regulations and standards that mandate increased auditing and controls over users with privileged access.
PAM + IGA
Knowing who is accessing what data gives you a leg up on the bad actors. Symantec Privileged Access Manager (PAM) controls, audits, and records access to managed devices such as servers, instances, and switches. Identity Governance and Administration (IGA) gives you comprehensive access governance and management through an intuitive interface. It also automates the granting and removal of permissions. User self-service features, meanwhile, alleviate the administrator’s management burden.
Integration between PAM and IGA enables you to know who is accessing the data and allows you to enforce a least-privileged access model – an essential tactic in a zero-trust strategy. Integration also significantly improves your compliance posture by providing proof for your auditors that access to all privileged accounts was properly reviewed and authorized.
Symantec does the heavy lifting of integration so you can achieve the right balance between protecting PII and giving employees the freedom to work
Why are integrations so vital to an effective cyber security strategy? Think of integrations as a web of protection woven tightly together. You could implement point products separately, but the result is a difficult-to-manage collection of technologies that might or might not work together. Any gap in the fabric of protection is an open invitation to cyber criminals.
Compliance penalties are no laughing matter, and customer lawsuits can lead to hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of payments. Damage to your reputation can be incalculable and poorly integrated cyber security measures can degrade network performance and the user experience.
Symantec does the heavy lifting of integration so you can achieve the right balance between protecting PII and giving employees the freedom to work. You can have both.
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Symantec Introduces the New SES Complete Threat Intelligence API
New feature gives customers ready access to Symantec’s Global Intelligence Network
When a security threat is at your doorstep, you want information as quickly as possible. Is it new? What do I do first to stop the most urgent threat? Where has it been seen before? How far has it spread and what is it related to? Often the process means manually checking databases from multiple sources. Our new Threat Intelligence API, available through Symantec Endpoint Security Complete (SESC), jumpstarts the process, putting Symantec’s Global Intelligence Network at your fingertips – on a platform you probably already use.
The API has been integrated with Security Information and Event Management (SIEM), Security Orchestration, Automation and Response (SOAR) and Threat Intelligence Platform (TIP) partners ThreatQuotient, Anomali, and Siemplify. It’s also available directly through Symantec’s Integrated Cyber Defence Manager (ICDm) cloud platform. The point here is not to introduce a new toolset – we’re adding this capability to a workflow you already know. What is new is that we’ve opened our full programmatic and human enhanced intelligence capabilities to our customers on an automated basis.
"Broadcom's SES Complete Intelligence provides broad visibility into real cyber threats and their impact on an organization’s infrastructure,” said Mark Alba, Chief Product Officer at Anomali. “With this intelligence integrated into Anomali’s ThreatStream Intelligence platform, security teams can quickly identify the risk, investigate a response and preemptively mitigate cyber threats before they hit.”
Symantec’s Global Intelligence Network is one of the largest civilian networks of its kind in the world. The network applies artificial intelligence to analyze more than nine petabytes of security threat data. It offers the broadest and deepest set of threat intelligence in the industry that allows Symantec to discover and block advanced targeted attacks that would otherwise go undetected. That includes information correlated from 175,000,000 endpoints and 126,000,000 attack sensors. We track more than 25,000 ongoing network vulnerabilities.
The system has a proven track record. Last year, Symantec researchers identified the WastedLocker ransomware code that attackers were about to deploy against dozens of U.S. corporations, including eight Fortune 500 companies. Also, Symantec has assisted in the arrest of almost 200 cyber criminals, including individuals associated with the Blackshades, Bayrob, Nanocore, Scan4You, and Operation WireWire attacks. We’ve also helped law enforcement dismantle some of the biggest cyber crime botnets: Waledac, Bamital, ZeroAccess, GameOverZeus and Ramnit.
Specifically, the new API provides real-time information on any file hash, domain, or IP address. That includes reputation, threat name, prevalence, age, industry, geography, and related indicators. This information assists in making quick decisions on how to prioritize investigations and respond to potential breaches. Even better, there’s nothing to download and store locally.
And when it comes to threat hunting, the API delivers relevant data in a flash directly where you can act on it. You can pull a thread on a threat actor, see related attacks, and chase down new clues more efficiently.
“This is a game-changing approach to managing risk within the MSSP community,” says Dean Papa, VP of Global Service Providers at Siemplify. “The ability to enable Symantec’s Global Intelligence Network provides Siemplify service providers real-time access to the largest global intelligence network in the world to quickly validate the efficacy of the alert and use Siemplify’s platform to automate a response and protect the customer environment.”
You also can use the new feature for planning ahead. In addition to the real-time threat enrichment, this new SES Complete component includes curated, strategic intelligence in the form of regularly updated reports and bulletins on trends and specific threats evolving in the threat landscape. These documents are delivered to customers via email regularly, making it easier to prepare for emerging threats and campaigns, learn more about threats targeting specific industries or geographies, or gain perspective on global threats. We also track and provide in-depth profiles on over 140 threat actors that can help you determine urgency by showing whether a particular threat is part of a known campaign.
“ThreatQuotient is pleased to partner with Symantec to provide organizations with curated threat intelligence to improve their threat hunting and adversary countermeasures. Threat intelligence provided by a trusted source is an effective measure against adversarial TTPs. We encourage network defenders to use Symantec Threat Intelligence to reduce their attack surface,” said Haig Colter, Director of Alliances at ThreatQuotient.
Buying the new API is easy – it’s part of our SES Complete package. No separate purchase is required. The offering provides your organization with the best security at the endpoint for both traditional and mobile devices across the entire attack chain for rapid containment.
Proactive attack surface reduction and innovative attack prevention technologies provide the strongest defense against the hardest-to-detect threats that rely on stealthy malware, credential theft, fileless, and “living off the land” attack methods. Symantec also prevents full-blown breaches before exfiltration can occur. Sophisticated attack analytics, behavior forensics, automated investigation playbooks, and industry-first lateral movement and credential theft prevention provide precise attack detections and proactive threat hunting to contain the attacker and resolve persistent threats in real time.
The smarter you can be about threats – present and future – the better you can protect your network.
That’s what motivates us at Symantec.
**For more information on how to use the Threat Intel API, check out the API documentation here**
Threat Intelligence Platform (TIP) Partners:
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Symantec is Delivering a Better Way Forward
Watch Symantec President and CEO Greg Clark discuss what we’re seeing and where we’re going as the world’s leader in cyber security
Global cyber crime has carried very little risk to criminals until recently. Global law enforcement organizations and governments are prioritizing the difficult task of finding and bringing cyber criminals to justice. As the largest cyber security company in the world, Symantec is proud to play a critical role in this fight.
Global cyber threats have never been more aggressive. Everything is fair game: our personal privacy, our businesses, even our elections. A patchwork of stand-alone security products from multiple vendors is simply too expensive, too complex, and even worse, it’s proven to be ineffective.
Symantec is delivering a better way forward – Integrated Cyber Defense. An open platform that seamlessly integrates security solutions into a single framework across devices, networks, cloud, and data center infrastructure. Best-in-Class Threat Prevention – Detection – Incident Response-Managed Services delivered with lower cost of ownership and ease of use.
That's game changing innovation from Symantec, one of the world's leading cyber security companies. Enterprise-grade security for the masses. Digital safety for all consumers.
Please watch the video below for more information about what we’re seeing and where we’re going as the world’s leader in cyber security.
Symantec Leading the Way
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Symantec is Leading the Way in Reinventing Enterprise Security
Follow this Symantec "Cyber Warrior Series" to learn more
It’s time to rethink enterprise security. The current approach is clearly not working. The rate of cyber attacks, already a major concern before the world shifted to working from home, is off the charts. In fact, more cyber attacks were launched in the first half of 2020 than in all of 2019. According to research cited in Government Technology, ransomware attacks increased in ranges from 72 percent 148 percent during the 2020 Coronavirus pandemic. And given the likelihood that organizations will continue to rely on some combination of work-from-home arrangements for the near, and conceivably long-term future, it’s possible the worst is yet to come.
For anyone in enterprise security, the question needs to be asked: “How did we get here?” It’s certainly not because of a lack of will or budget. The global cyber security market reached nearly $175 billion in 2020, with spending on endpoint security tools accounting for nearly 25 percent of that total. Numbers are only expected to grow and even double within five years. And yet, despite this increasing investment, more than 70 percent of all successful data breaches still originate on endpoint devices.
So, perhaps we should rephrase the question: What can we do to improve our security posture? And how do we hone in on the security solution investments that are most appropriate for where we are today?
It’s time to rethink enterprise security. The current approach is clearly not working. The rate of cyber attacks, already a major concern before the world shifted to working from home, is off the charts.
That’s why we at Symantec, as a division of Broadcom, are more focused than ever on building and executing a cohesive endpoint security strategy—one that addresses the challenges you are facing today. Our singular focus has been on addressing the challenges organizations face in their security operation day-to-day.
Among those challenges are the things your security cyber warriors cannot see. Despite being well-trained, diligent and adept at using the standard endpoint protection and endpoint detection & response tools, enterprises struggle to stay on top of every attack. That’s because threats are evolving, and relentless attackers are getting more sophisticated in their approaches, evading detection, and bypassing security controls. Attackers are taking advantage of your blind spots. These blind spots can significantly impact business operations and assets. Here are the most common ones:
Good / legitimate applications: IT teams use multiple tools and scripts for day to day management of their complex and heterogeneous enterprise environments. The tools and scripts are generally safe when used for legitimate purposes. Applications are permitted to run in the enterprise with full privileges. That’s a problem because attackers are also using these tools against us. It’s called “Living off the Land.” It’s a blind spot because you can’t fully block the applications without crippling your business productivity. Therefore, you need technology that allows legitimate tools to run while blocking malicious and/or suspicious behavior to optimize protection and productivity.
Your Active Directory: Active Directory contains information about users and their credentials, devices, servers, and applications in your enterprise. Every domain connected endpoint in your enterprise has access to Active Directory making it an open book and key target for attackers. An attacker only needs to compromise and perform a few queries on a single device to obtain total domain dominance. Because of how quickly this happens, it would be irresponsible to assume that your SOC team and existing tools would be able to react in time to prevent the damage. That’s why it’s critical to deploy sophisticated technology tools to protect Active Directory from the endpoint and prevent lateral movement by stopping attackers on their first move, before they get the keys to the kingdom.
Myopia – lack of a global view: The third blind spot is an in-flight targeted attack that you know nothing about. These days, your security teams are overwhelmed with massive amounts of data, and it can be a challenge to find an attack in all that data. Without a global view, attack patterns of sophisticated groups are impossible to find. By only relying on patterns from your environment, you simply don’t have a complete picture. What you need is the power of machine learning automation combined with expansive global threat intelligence and the expertise of our highly skilled analysts to find the smallest of clues and assemble them into a picture that details a current attack unfolding in your organization.
Here at Symantec, we have devoted considerable R&D effort to evolving our endpoint security technologies to solve for these blind spots. In this Symantec Cyber Warrior blog series, we will be sharing important information on what you should be concerned about regarding your security posture. If you are a CISO, security practitioner, security administrator, or security operations center analyst, please plan to visit our Symantec Cyber Warrior blog series often. We will point out other endpoint security weaknesses that you need to look out for. These insights will be complemented with details about our technology research and innovations to ensure that you are prepared for the next attack whenever it hits.
The next post on our Symantec Cyber Warrior blog series will talk about what technologies we have embedded in our full-feature Symantec Endpoint Security Complete product to expose the most common blind spots and help you defend against them. Stay tuned!
Where are Your Security Blind Spots?
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Symantec Is Making All The Right Moves for Customers
A reality check in the age of disinformation
Mark Twain’s famous quote, "the reports of my death are greatly exaggerated,” may be the best retort yet to the rampant rumor mongering and attacks being leveled at Symantec since it was acquired by Broadcom last year.
The latest missive was a recent op-ed by author Richard Stiennon on the Forbes web site entitled, “The Demise of Symantec.” The piece, which essentially lifts a chapter from the author’s recent publication, Security Yearbook 2020, is chock full of hearsay and grounded very little in the reality of how this long-time Symantec partner sees the current enterprise security landscape. Here at Infolock, we think Stiennon is doing a disservice to current and potential Symantec customers by oversimplifying the situation. We felt it was important to rebut some of the claims and put to rest assumptions about recent moves at Symantec that only serve to create confusion in the market when things are already overly complex and far too confusing.
One of the most jarring claims Mr. Stiennon and others make is that the acquisition of Symantec by Broadcom spells the end of an era for Symantec as the preeminent security behemoth. We don’t quite understand the logic here. Leading brands get acquired all the time for various reasons—think CVS’ recent acquisition of Aetna, Dell buying EMC, and Fiat and Chrysler merging into an automotive powerhouse. None of the combined entities failed—in fact, in many cases, it’s quite the opposite. The newly-combined companies are doing better thanks to their collective strengths.
There’s now a push to double down on the most strategic security solutions, including directing innovation resources to a core cadre of products as opposed to spreading development resources thin across an overly diverse product portfolio.
We see something similar happening with Symantec/Broadcom. Before the acquisition, Symantec had hundreds of products in its portfolio, some even not directly in the security domain. Post-acquisition, we see far more clarity to the security product line. There’s now a push to double down on the most strategic security solutions, including directing innovation resources to a core cadre of products as opposed to spreading development resources thin across an overly diverse product portfolio. We think Symantec 2.0 is likely to be far more innovative and agile than it’s been in the past. And yes, that’s specifically because it’s whittled down its product line to cut out the superfluous and refocus on what’s important.
Since 2007, Infolock has been a Symantec Platinum Partner; we became a Vontu partner in 2005. Our roots run deep with the Data Loss Prevention (DLP), CloudSOC CASB, End-user Endpoint Protection, and Web Security Service (WSS) solutions, among other Symantec security offerings.
In fact, contrary to reports that Symantec is abandoning resellers and partners in droves, we’ve never been more engaged with the company. In keeping with the same theme, Symantec has pared down its partner ecosystem to those firms that are actively engaged with the technology and that can add value. For Infolock and our customers, that’s a huge upside. We are getting personalized attention, are privy to regular executive briefings, and have a greater opportunity to contribute to product strategy and innovation.
In fact, contrary to reports that Symantec is abandoning resellers and partners in droves, we’ve never been more engaged with the company.
Symantec Senior Vice President and General Manager Art Gilliland underscored the same in a blog post written post acquisition. As Gilliland noted, “Broadcom buys technology companies they can invest in to maintain technology leadership and it takes R&D very seriously.” Seventy percent of Broadcom employees are engineers, and the firm invests 20 percent of its revenue in R&D, which means a whole lot of investment targeted to critical Symantec security platforms like Data Loss Prevention. There is no sense to the argument that a serious R&D company doles out big bucks for a market leader only to let its products and innovation pipeline wither on the vine.
Many are also making a big deal about Symantec scaling back its workforce. Here, too, I see a real upside. Sure, Symantec has made substantial and permanent cuts in sales and non-engineering personnel after the acquisition was finalized, but those cuts were sorely needed. Symantec was over-staffed and had multiple, redundant layers of management, in part because of its prolific mergers and acquisition activity over the last few years. The new Symantec is leaner, more agile, and better able to innovate, and that’s good for customers and for long-time partners like Infolock.
The bottom line: Symantec’s competitors are circling like sharks, spreading fear, uncertainty, and doubt—the dreaded FUD—trying to capitalize on a period of profound change. Yet there is no need for customers to jump ship or panic, thinking that their substantial security investments will soon be obsolete. My message to Symantec and Infolock customers is simple:
Stay focused on your security requirements.
Block out the punditry and noise and make decisions on facts.
Take a measured approach to assessing your security future: analyze your goals, discuss your needs and expected outcomes, and consider available personnel and funding.
I’m fully confident that the new Symantec Enterprise Division is well positioned to meet the challenges of enterprise security today and more importantly, tomorrow.
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Symantec is Named to CRN’s 2021 Mobile 100 List
Award highlights critical need for mobile protection in complete endpoint solutions
Symantec, as a division of Broadcom, has always been about providing its customers with security solutions that adapt to their environments. And as companies and their employees have become more mobile, they have continued to turn to Symantec for best-in-class offerings to fill their security needs.
Recognizing Symantec’s expertise in mobility, CRN, a brand of The Channel Company, has named Symantec to CRN’s 2021 Mobile 100 list. Specifically, CRN is recognizing the Endpoint Mobile Security feature of our Symantec Endpoint Security (SES) Complete and SES Enterprise.
In choosing the companies for its 2021 Mobile 100 list, CRN’s editors considered technologies from four different categories:
Laptops and Tablets
Phones, Accessories and Mobile Computers
Mobile Security and Management Tools
Mobile App Development Platforms and Collaboration Apps
Being named to the CRN Mobile 100 is an acknowledgement of Symantec’s leadership in the endpoint mobility space, and how customers and channel partners are seeing the benefits of working with a vendor that provides security across all endpoints. At its highest level, SES Complete and Enterprise are about prevention and detection. Prevention to keep attackers and threats out of an organization. Preventing an attack means fewer incidents to respond to and less remediation. This reduces the burden on the SOC. But most importantly it means that attackers do not get into your organization. SES Complete and SES Enterprise restore the critical balance needed for a healthy organization by providing world class prevention to all endpoints to complement the extensive detection capability of these solutions.
Symantec is named to CRN’s 2021 Mobile 100 List
The protection and detection features Symantec provides on desktops and laptops also are present in our mobile solution. This is a big plus to customers who need to integrate their endpoint solution with their existing infrastructure. Customers benefit from the SES Complete and Enterprise integration with an organization’s EMM/MDM, SOC (security operations center) and SIEM. It provides analytics directly from a mobile endpoint. And can connect with third parties such as EMM.
With the Symantec Endpoint Mobile Security feature, companies have a consolidated endpoint service under a single pane of glass. All endpoints are covered, traditional and modern. Instead of having various endpoint security solutions and multiple management consoles from Vendor A, B & C, customers have one console. With SES Complete and Enterprise, there is consolidation of platforms. A one-stop-shop for security. This reduces the burden of managing multiple point solutions.
“What we’re really doing is adding value by covering all threat vectors. We play well with the big EMM (Enterprise Mobility Management) vendors, balancing prevention and detection,” said Shaun Aimoto, Symantec Technical Product Owner - Mobile. “With threat vectors and risk associated with mobile endpoints being different from traditional laptops and workstations, it is imperative that mobile protection is an integral part of the overall endpoint security solution. Mobile phones are afforded the same endpoint protections traditional endpoints receive within the boundaries of a corporate network. Symantec’s fully integrated mobile solution provides a full circle of security wherever employees need to work, supporting both managed and unmanaged devices.”
With the Symantec Endpoint Mobile Security feature, companies have a consolidated endpoint service under a single pane of glass.
Companies can be confident that they have an all-in-one offering that includes a highly awarded and recognized mobile protection solution, in addition to the full array of security features present in SES Complete and Enterprise.
In putting together its Mobile 100 list, CRN cited Symantec as an example of a company that provides secure mobile access to the resources that enterprises need to remain competitive. The importance of this capability will only grow, as the pace at which employees adopt mobile devices to conduct business increases in the coming years.
“The IT vendors being recognized on CRN’s 2021 Mobile 100 list have demonstrated an unwavering commitment toward supporting solution providers with the tools and services they need to succeed in today’s mobility-facing business landscape,” said Blaine Raddon, CEO of The Channel Company. “On behalf of The Channel Company, I want to extend my heartfelt congratulations to these forward-thinking companies for their dedication to improving the customer experience.”
The entire 2021 Mobile 100 list can be found at www.CRN.com/Mobile100.
Symantec Endpoint Security
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Symantec Is Prepared for Europe's Newest Privacy Regulation
Symantec places the highest priority in complying with the GDPR
The European Union’s (EU’s) General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) became enforceable today, May 25, 2018, and I’m pleased to share with you that Symantec has taken the necessary steps to ensure we are prepared.
As Symantec’s EVP, General Counsel and Secretary, I am proud of our GDPR compliance efforts and results. We have expanded our global privacy program to satisfy the GDPR requirements and we have already embarked on the next phase of our journey which is aimed at taking our privacy and data protection capabilities to the next level.
As the world’s leading cyber security company, protecting the privacy and security of our employee, customer, partner and other stakeholder data is of utmost importance to Symantec. In preparation for the GDPR, we have launched new Privacy – GDPR and Customer Trust Portals where you can read about what we are doing as a company to protect your data. Like many other companies, we have enhanced our Global Privacy Statement, European employees’ privacy notice, and created new product notices to not only comply, but to remind us of our commitment to every person or entity that shares their data with us.
As part of our preparation, every Symantec employee across the globe, whether located within the EU or elsewhere, has completed GDPR training to better understand the importance of complying with the new regulation.
Looking ahead, Symantec will continue to align our products and services with the latest legal and regulatory requirements, as well as industry-leading practices. In order to continue developing and improving our privacy program, we have created a privacy governance structure and launched a Privacy Ambassador’s Circle to ensure privacy is considered at all stages of personal data processing.
We have made great strides in preparing for the GDPR, but this is just the beginning of a long-term commitment to you that Symantec will work diligently to protect your data and continue to provide products that uphold this commitment.
As a company, we support laws that underscore the value and importance of keeping information safe. Protecting information is at the heart of what we do here at Symantec and we believe all companies should safeguard customer information to the highest possible standards.
For more information about how Symantec is safeguarding your privacy, visit our Privacy portal.
Related links:
Global Privacy Statement
Enterprise Product Transparency Notices
Norton Product and Service Privacy Notices
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Symantec is Stronger as a Division of Broadcom
What that means to Symantec customers
If you are a customer of the Symantec Enterprise Division (SED), you probably have questions about how the Broadcom acquisition of our business affects you. Often, when industry acquisitions take place, company executives say, “There will be no changes,” or words to that effect. Typically, I find those statements disingenuous. For Symantec, there have been considerable changes to our operations and business model. While some of these changes have created short term disruptions, there have been many excellent and positive changes for the business which will improve the experience for our enterprise customers.
A question I am often asked is, “Why did Broadcom buy Symantec?” When making acquisitions, Broadcom looks for companies that have strong, sustainable technology franchises. For Broadcom, a sustainable franchise is a technology area which has enjoyed a leadership position for ten years or more and, with continued investment, could have a leadership position for another ten years and beyond. The important thing to highlight here is that Broadcom buys technology companies that they will invest in to maintain technology leadership. Broadcom is a technology company — seventy percent of its employees are engineers building products. And Broadcom invests twenty percent of its revenue, an extraordinary amount, in R&D. That is good news for our employees and our customers.
Broadcom is a technology company — seventy percent of its employees are engineers building products.
Broadcom also looks for companies where there are opportunities to improve profit. Symantec Enterprise’s profitability prior to the acquisition was poor, but after only four months with Broadcom, our profitability has increased significantly. Broadcom enhances profitability by taking charge of operational tasks like IT, HR, finance and sales, in order to lower costs through economies of scale. This operational transformation means more resources are available to invest back into product development. This focus on technology investment and infrastructure savings is what has enabled Broadcom to maintain its technology leadership across multiple markets while achieving the recognition of the most profitable company on a relative basis in the Fortune 500.
I know that was mostly about us, but, here’s what it means for our customers:
Symantec’s product strategy is unchanged. Our strategy of delivering an integrated cyber defense platform remains intact. We are concentrating on the needs of our enterprise customers with a focus on stability, integration and innovation. A key area of investment is our Integrated Cyber Defense (ICD) strategy. Integration delivers two key benefits: First, it enables our products to work efficiently together, which drives down cost, saving you money; second, our products talk to one another, increasing the effectiveness of our technologies and accelerating your ability to respond to threats.
Solutions are increasing. As part of the Broadcom acquisition, the CA identity security products joined the Symantec portfolio. This addition gives us the broadest cyber security portfolio in the industry. The truly exciting opportunity this provides is Symantec now has all of the solutions required to deliver a complete “zero-trust” platform for our customers. As our customers move more of their services to SaaS and the cloud, Symantec customers will have the ability to identify users and set data access policies across all control points, from the endpoint to the gateway.
Licensing is more flexible. We’re offering more licensing options and consumption flexibility: First, you can get a portfolio license agreement (PLA) that covers the entire Broadcom product portfolio or a “PLA” for one segment: Endpoint, Information, Web & Email or Identity Security. Second, instead of having to buy a license for an on-prem product and then a separate license for the cloud version, as part of a PLA we’re able to offer unlimited licenses to both. This is a much more flexible option for customers that are in transition from their legacy infrastructure to the cloud. Not only are we able to support your technology requirements along that transition but we can now also make that transition more operationally smooth with flexible licensing options for our strategic customers.
The largest cyber security company in the industry is getting even stronger.
Bottom Line: Ignore the Noise
Whenever an industry acquisition takes place, competitors always try to sow fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) in the minds of customers. We see this kind of behavior as a fear inspired, desperate response from competitors who are faced with disruptive change: The largest cyber security company in the industry is getting even stronger. While they talk, we’ll continue to increase our investment in products that respond to your requirements as we keep our focus on an important goal: to keep you and your company safe and successful.
Webinar - Symantec | Broadcom: Innovation and Strategy for Your Success
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Symantec Knows Security Continues to Evolve: The Need for Data-Centric SASE
Protecting data is not just a priority, it’s the whole point of security
Cyber security has never been more important and visible than today. Daily occurrences of breaches and attacks, combined with the open debate of how to ensure infrastructure and data stay protected- have made this issue visible to everyone, not just the CISO or IT professionals.
Symantec, as a division of Broadcom, has been stressing the importance of a Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) solution as a key component of an enterprise’s comprehensive security approach. SASE is a vision of converged technologies to improve network performance and security for users who can be anywhere, use any device, and need access to content and applications from corporate data centers and cloud platforms. Or simply put: single-pass security pushed to the end user.
Symantec has been stressing the importance of a Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) solution as a key component of an enterprise’s comprehensive security approach.
As we have all seen, the world of security continues to change and with it the needs of the enterprise. Digital transformation, cloud computing, workforce mobility, and the wholesale adoption of consumer/digital devices has created a world where there are far more devices, applications, data, and users outside enterprises and their data centers than now exist inside.
With these changes comes a new vision for network security called secure access service edge (SASE). And more specifically, to Data-Centric SASE.
A Security Model for the Modern Enterprise
Data-Centric SASE is a new and comprehensive architecture for reimagining and reinventing network security based on the principles of the Zero Trust philosophy of trust no one or nothing.
Symantec recognizes that solving today’s most important security problems requires tight integration of capabilities that cross traditional product boundaries, such as delivered through a SASE architecture approach. Challenges across network, data, threat protection and secure access.
The SASE approach reflects the realities of the modern digital enterprise. Instead of the current “security theater” approach that relies on a perimeter defense model, SASE solves for the new vectors of security. It provides an architecture and a roadmap for protecting the organization’s crown jewels, the data – regardless of where it’s located.
SASE doesn't do it well if the new, single-pass cloud solution has inferior products stitched together. First, the ideal SASE solution needs to adhere to the philosophy of Zero Trust and protect data wherever it is. Secondly, the ideal SASE solution will adapt to business realities. For many, moving off of hardware overnight is an unreal (even foolish) goal. A hybrid-enabled approach to SASE let's customers move to the cloud at a pace that is both secure and practical. And finally???
Why Data-Centric SASE?
Central to the SASE concept is the need to secure data in a world where everything is data and data is everything. Ultimately, what that means is that the objective of SASE is to reduce the attack surface by creating a software-defined perimeter – as opposed to a network perimeter – around everything and anything data-related. SASE is a data-centric approach to controlling and securing that enterprise data wherever and whatever it is.
Zero Trust is the bedrock principle behind and essential to achieving SASE. Organizations cannot abandon the philosophy of Zero Trust and still embrace SASE. More to the point, it is not enough to just “check off boxes” for a list of SASE critical capabilities.
Organizations cannot abandon the philosophy of Zero Trust and still embrace SASE.
Crucial to creating a genuine SASE architecture is putting all the components in place to ensure security inbound from unmanaged devices and outbound to web and private access applications. That means implementing such components of the overall SASE architecture as data loss protection (DLP), cloud access secure broker (CASB), and Zero Trust network access (ZTNA). In some ways, SASE can be looked on as both extensions and evolutions of each of these security solutions and methodologies.
It is almost a given that the journey to SASE is easier and most cost-efficient if the organization’s SASE vendor or partners can provide the data security expertise and the comprehensive, best-in-class solutions for each of these critical components of the SASE architecture. A hybrid solution, such as that offered by Symantec Web Protection Suite, integrates many of these critical components while allowing organizations to plot their journey to SASE at the pace that’s right for their business.
Security, SASE, and the User Experience (UX)
More than ever, enterprises today also need to take into account the business productivity and need for transparency to the user. Prior to cloud adoption and digital transformation, the enterprise controlled the user experience. That’s just not true anymore. Users now have vastly different performance expectations. Tools and applications such as Box and Google need to be built into the workflow and accounted for in enterprise security planning and policy-setting.
Security is no longer operating in a silo, if it ever was. But now the user experience is just as important to the security plan. If the security solution degrades the user experience, that hinders productivity. Simply put, no one wants six different logins, and no security operations center (SOC) wants a stack of alerts as users attempt to use the tools they consider necessary to do their work. One of the great advantages of a data-centric SASE is that it will enable that flexibility and transparency as the security architecture is baked into the IT environment.
In an enterprise security world turned inside-out and inverted priorities, the bottom line is that a data-centric SASE is necessary to protect your organization, its people, and most important, the crown jewels of the enterprise, its data. The time to begin that journey is now.
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Symantec Leads With Growth and Innovation
Our customers are seeing the results
Crisis situations like COVID-19 confront companies with the ultimate pass-fail test. Even enterprises that had been slow to digitally transform their processes scrambled to make sure their cloud infrastructure could securely handle unprecedented security demands as a global pandemic forced businesses to shift, seemingly overnight, to work from home routines.
Theory and practice are getting a real-world vetting as threat actors seek new opportunities to pounce on vulnerabilities. During this historic transition, there is little room for error. That’s why I couldn’t be prouder of how our team has responded to this most unique challenge.
Not only did we continue to deliver industry-leading network security software to customers, but we accelerated our cloud roadmap and strengthened integrations within the portfolio.
In a nutshell, Symantec crushed this transition and continues to lead the way.
As we finished integrating into Broadcom over the last year, Symantec registered a myriad of operational and business achievements that resulted in a sharper focus and a stepped-up cadence. Not only did we continue to deliver industry-leading network security software to customers, but we accelerated our cloud roadmap and strengthened integrations within the portfolio. Here are some of the highlights:
The Growth Continues
As Broadcom put its full weight behind Symantec, a division of Broadcom (NASDAQ: AVGO), our exclusive concentration on the enterprise allows us to fine-tune our development approach. In practice, that is clearing the way for Symantec to customize its engineering focus to meet the specific needs of our strategic customers. We are on the right track, despite the disruptions caused by the acquisition work and COVID-19.
This success has also been true for Symantec’s Secure Web Gateway (SWG). A closer examination of web proxy architecture reveals that its role is more critical today than ever, and that it is in fact the strongest architecture that can provide full protection against today’s web-based threats. With continued investment in R&D within Broadcom, SWG continues to be a focus, and we have experienced roughly a 333% increase in our Web Security Service (WSS) Agent connections in a 9-month period, demonstrating our customers also agree on the importance of a cloud-based SWG for the future.
Investing in SASE for the Future
Taken as a whole, these measures are helping our customers weather the COVID storm and prepare for the future once we exit from the pandemic. Given that focus on the future, one of our key areas of focus is on Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) architecture. A cloud-based security architecture that prioritizes data protection over hardware or even company networks. SASE combines networking and security-as-a-service capabilities.
The SASE model is driving our roadmap and organization structure. We have already made a significant investment in consulting and advisory services with Gartner to drive our SASE strategy and our innovation in SWG takes a giant first step toward SASE because it provides:
Cyber-attack prevention and detection:
When browsing risky or uncategorized sites, isolation of the session eliminates the web threat vector
When downloading a file, Advanced Content Analysis implements white lists and black lists; considers file reputation analysis and AV Scanning with multiple engines; and sandboxing
Works with Symantec’s Data Loss Prevention (DLP)
Visibility into all web traffic: Monitors and logs transactions; supports cloud apps to ensure compliance and reduce risk
Lower total cost of ownership (TCO) for security: It improves the overall performance and availability of your business apps and media, with bandwidth management, content caching, traffic optimization, and streaming media splitting and caching features
Gartner projects “By 2024, at least 40% of enterprises will have explicit strategies to adopt SASE, up from less than 1% at year-end 2018.”* While adoption is gaining momentum, SASE may take half a decade or longer to become the predominant cyber security architecture. Some of the pieces, such as SWG, are more mature than others. The Symantec portfolio of SASE solutions will act in harmony to provide industry-leading architecture that meets or exceeds your security KPIs.
**This graphic was published by Gartner, Inc. as part of a larger research document and should be evaluated in the context of the entire document.
Integrated Cyber Defense
A key area of investment is our Integrated Cyber Defense (ICD) strategy. Integration delivers two key benefits: First, it enables our products to work efficiently together, which drives down cost, saving you money; second, our products talk to one another, increasing the effectiveness of our technologies and accelerating your ability to respond to threats.
Symantec now boasts a formidable assortment of offerings and advanced threat detection components so customers can eliminate blind spots in their network defenses. The collaboration and intelligence sharing we have engineered adds up to a powerful portfolio – Global Intelligence Network (GIN), Secure Web Gateway, Cloud Firewall, Security Analytics, Malware Analysis (sandboxing), Email Security, Web Isolation, Endpoint/Mobile, SSL Visibility, Cloud Access Security Broker, and Secure Access Cloud solutions – that provides customers with an unrivaled umbrella of threat protection.
Innovation
At Symantec, we never stop innovating. One of our largest innovation projects that is currently underway is migrating WSS to the Google Cloud Platform (GCP) for added customer value. It will provide such benefits as:
Elastic scale and improved resilience
Increased focus on cyber security innovation
Quicker deployment of new services
Reduced reliance on congested public internet routes
Increased quantity and scope of infrastructure certifications
Beyond WSS we are also utilizing this innovation to allow one platform for all Symantec cloud services – CASB, Email and other services are all moving to GCP. This allows us to drive cross-product efficiencies, component deduplication and standardization, and reduced latency between integrated services. The speed at which we have been able to execute on this migration has been enabled by our move to Broadcom, with our increased focus and investment on innovation.
Symantec: A Leader in Cyber Security
2020 has been a year of unprecedented change for everyone. At Symantec, security is in our DNA and we remain the most trusted advisor to enterprises when it comes to protecting their networks. Our commitment to you: We will continue to be a leader for the industry in cyber security - now and for the future.
* * *
Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner's research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
*Source: “Hype Cycle for Network Security, 2020”, Pete Shoard, June 2020, Gartner
**Source: "The Future of Network Security Is in the Cloud”, Neil Macdonald, Lawrence Orans, Joe Skorupa, Aug 2019, Gartner
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Symantec Localization Zones: A Great User Experience Transcends Borders
Building the world's best data-centric SASE applications
It starts with network performance
After moving Symantec’s cloud infrastructure to Google Cloud, we received fantastic feedback from our customers about the improved user experience. There has been faster time to value, on-boarding users much quicker. We've done testing that's shown a before and after latency improvement of 20%. So, as Google Cloud adds new points of presence – “PoPs” - in places like Delhi, India, Jakarta, Indonesia, while doubling down in locations like Belgium, it's hard not to get excited about how we'll be able to continue optimizing the user experience.
But the PoP footprint is just a small part of the user experience picture. What matters more is what type of network those PoPs are connected with. If they're only connected to the public internet with basic internet circuits, customers are at the mercy of the public internet between end users and the content. In a recent blog, we laid out how our Google internet backbone helps Symantec, as a division of Broadcom, deliver world-class performance and avoid the pitfalls of the do-it-yourself network approach adopted by many Cloud SWG vendors.
After moving Symantec’s cloud infrastructure to Google Cloud, we received fantastic feedback from our customers about the improved user experience.
The Symantec team, as part of Broadcom Software, is happy to be focused on building the world's best Data-Centric SASE applications, and not worrying about physical and connectivity layers. We think the public cloud providers are always going to be better at that than us and our competitors. What we like to say is “it's pretty tough to out-Google Google” when it comes to infrastructure. In addition, because so many third party applications have been, and will continue to be, moved into the public cloud, it gives us a big advantage to be hosted on the same cloud fabric as many of those apps.
Introducing Localization Zones – further improving the user experience
Job number one of a great network is to provide a good user experience in terms of performance. However, speed doesn’t matter if you end up at the wrong destination, at least in terms of how the end user sees the web. Customers are often reminding us that the user experience is not only shaped by network metrics such as latency, up-time, and throughput but it’s also about getting the correct content. That can go a long way in keeping users happy, and happy users mean faster, lower friction cloud deployments. That brings us to Localization Zones, a key new feature of our Cloud Secure Web Gateway (SWG) solution.
Users may be working from locations where we, our competitors, or even public cloud providers can't rationalize placing a physical PoP. A great example of this is Mauritius, a small island off the eastern coast of Africa, where a data center is unlikely to ever be prioritized by a SASE vendor. It’s unfortunate, but it's a business reality. The result is that users in Mauritius will always be accessing content through a SASE PoP in a different country, and content providers will return content based on the SASE PoP’s country of origin, rather than the user’s country of origin. Imagine searching for a restaurant and getting recommendations for another country and in the wrong language!
Localization Zones allow our Cloud SWG to request content in a manner that content providers think is coming from the user’s home country. Consequently, users get web content localized in a familiar way. Simply put, we are delivering a native user experience in terms of both performance and localization, but completely secured by our SASE Cloud. Best of all, it’s all automatic and available to all customers at no extra charge, with nothing for end users or administrators to configure.
What it means for IT teams
Localization Zones really help our customers’ IT practitioners who want an easier, lower-friction roll out. They experience lower stress, fewer delays, and the solution is better accepted by the user population as they deploy it to the various countries where they operate. As more IT teams are challenged with rapid cloud deployments, they are requesting more friction-reducing features to reduce deployment headaches and emotional pushback. It's a marriage of high performance and a great user experience - that results in an accepted solution. Of course, when the solution is accepted, that's when the users are the most secure. When users reject a solution, that’s where they may circumvent security or throw up roadblocks for the IT team. And more trouble tickets and shadow IT are not what customers are looking for. It’s much better to provide a great user experience, and remove the incentive for users to complain or go underground.
Solving the problem with the browser?
Mass deploying global settings, by fiat, it's just not a formula for success. Every time something goes wrong you’ll have even more upset users and trouble tickets. Customers really need an adaptive solution that lives in the cloud, and that's what we're delivering. We don't ask end-users to solve problems and we also don't want customers to deploy more on-device customizations or network hardware just to solve content localization problems. Before the Localization Zone capability came along, customers occasionally asked us to solve the localization problem with browser workarounds, yielding spotty results. We quickly realized that we needed the Localization Zones concept, something only possible with a cloud native service mesh like ours.
Why doesn’t every Cloud SWG offer Localization Zones?
It all comes back to the network. Other Cloud SWG vendors build a PoP in a location, and then order internet circuits from the local ISP. But once they have those internet circuits, every packet that leaves their network is subject to the whims of the public internet. They get what the public internet gives them, including inefficient routing and a data path that they have no control over. On the other hand, once you control a large percentage of that data path, on a private backbone network such as the one operated by Google Cloud, you have tools that are much more powerful than if you're relying on public internet transit. That's the key to being able to provide the Localization Zone capability that we've layered on top of the Symantec Cloud SWG - control of the data path.
Who, When, Where and How Much
The Symantec SASE Cloud team began rolling out the first of 25 Localization Zones in late August of 2021. Our strategy is to enable Localization Zones throughout the world in nations which are unlikely to see a local facility in the near future. There we can release the full potential of Localization Zones and deliver great, native user experience on top of our industry-leading network and data security.
As I’ve previously mentioned, the best part is there's no extra charge. Cloud SWG customers who are purchasing Symantec Web Protection or renewing their Web Security Service licenses get it absolutely free. One day, you wake up and there's more value in the service, exactly how subscription SaaS services should work.
Contact a Broadcom Software representative today to learn more about Localization Zones and how Symantec Web Protection can help you with a flexible, better, and more secure, user experience.
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Symantec Mobile Threat: Attackers Can Manipulate Your WhatsApp and Telegram Media Files
New research by Symantec reveals a Media File Jacking flaw affecting WhatsApp and Telegram for Android
WhatsApp and Telegram media files could be exposed and manipulated by malicious actors according to new research by Symantec’s Modern OS Security team, focused on the protection of mobile endpoints and operating systems. The security flaw, dubbed “Media File Jacking”, affects WhatsApp for Android by default, and Telegram for Android if certain features are enabled. It stems from the lapse in time between when media files received through the apps are written to the disk, and when they are loaded in the apps’ chat user interface (UI) for users to consume. This critical time lapse presents an opportunity for malicious actors to intervene and manipulate media files without the user’s knowledge. If the security flaw is exploited, a malicious attacker could misuse and manipulate sensitive information such as personal photos and videos, corporate documents, invoices, and voice memos. Attackers could take advantage of the relations of trust between a sender and a receiver when using these IM apps for personal gain or to wreak havoc.
However, as we’ve mentioned in the past, no code is immune to security vulnerabilities.
The Media File Jacking threat is especially concerning in light of the common perception that the new generation of IM apps is immune to content manipulation and privacy risks, thanks to the utilization of security mechanisms such as end-to-end encryption. Users generally trust IM apps such as WhatsApp and Telegram to protect the integrity of both the identity of the sender and the message content itself. This is in contrast to older apps/protocols such as SMS, which are known to be spoofed pretty easily. However, as we’ve mentioned in the past, no code is immune to security vulnerabilities. While end-to-end encryption is an effective mechanism to ensure the integrity of communications, it isn’t enough if app-level vulnerabilities exist in the code. What the Media File Jacking research we found demonstrates is that attackers may be able to successfully manipulate media files by taking advantage of logical flaws in the apps, that occur before and/or after the content is encrypted in transit.
We explore Media File Jacking, how it can be exploited, and its potential impact in more detail below.
Technical background
Android apps can store files and data in two storage locations: internal and external storage. Files saved to internal storage are accessible only by the app itself, meaning other apps cannot access them. Files saved to an external storage public directory are world-readable/writeable, so they can be modified by other apps or users beyond the app's control. According to Android developer documentation, “internal storage is best when you want to be sure that neither the user nor other apps can access your files.” By contrast, “external storage is the best place for files that don't require access restrictions and for files that you want to share with other apps or allow the user to access with a computer.”
By default, WhatsApp stores media files received by a device in external storage, in the following path: /storage/emulated/0/WhatsApp/Media/. In Telegram, if a user enables the “Save to Gallery” feature, under the assumption that this is safe and without understanding its indirect ramifications, Telegram will similarly store files in: /storage/emulated/0/Telegram/. Both are public directories. The apps load the received files from the public directories for users to see in the chat interface, when they enter the relevant chat.
The fact that files are stored in, and loaded from, external storage without proper security mechanisms (see more on this under “How app developers can protect against the threat” below), allows other apps with write-to-external storage permission to risk the integrity of the media files. Write-to-external storage (WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE) is a common permission requested by Android apps, with over a million apps in Google Play having this access. In fact, based on our internal app data, we found nearly 50% of a given device’s apps have this permission.
When we researched the flow of how media files are handled in WhatsApp and Telegram, we found that in the time between when files are first received on a device and written to the disk (STEP 1), and when they are loaded for users to consume via the apps (STEP 3), the ideal opportunity for exploitation arises: malware can instantaneously analyze and manipulate the files (or just replace them with the attacker’s chosen files) for malicious gain (STEP 2).
Think of it like a race between the attacker and the app loading the files. If the attacker gets to the files first - this can happen almost in real time if the malware monitors the public directories for changes - recipients will see the manipulated files before ever seeing the originals. Moreover, the thumbnail that appears in the notification that users see will also show the manipulated image or file, so recipients will have no indication that files were changed. Additionally, data can be manipulated on WhatsApp both when sending files - meaning the attack is launched on the sender’s device - and when receiving files - with the attack happening on the receiving device.
As discussed, the WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE permission is very common among Android apps and users generally don’t hesitate to grant the permission as part of the on-boarding process. It’s therefore possible a user could unknowingly install the aforementioned malware as opposed to installing another app that asks for more aggressive permissions (such as critical device sensors or resources access) - in this case, a user may be more cautious before agreeing to install.
Additionally, the Media File Jacking vulnerability points to a bigger issue of app developers’ non-secure use of storage resources. In 2018, researchers discovered a similar flaw related to how some Android apps utilize external storage, opening the door to data manipulation by attackers. A so-called Man-in-the-Disk attack can occur when developers fail to take security precautions when storing files in external storage. It can result in silent installation of potentially malicious apps and denial of service for apps.
Impact
Let’s look at a few scenarios where attackers could exploit this vulnerability to scam victims:
1. Image manipulation. In this scenario a seemingly innocent, but actually malicious, app downloaded by a user can manipulate personal photos in near-real time and without the victim knowing. The app runs in the background and performs a Media File Jacking attack while the victim uses WhatsApp. It monitors for photos received through the IM app, identifies faces in the photos, and replaces them with something else, such as other faces or objects. A WhatsApp user may send a family photo to one of their contacts, but what the recipient sees is actually a modified photo. While this attack may seem trivial and just a nuisance, it shows the feasibility of manipulating images on the fly. In a similar scenario with wider-reaching consequences, the media files of a politician running for office or a company executive could be manipulated, allowing attackers to extort or frame targets.
2. Payment manipulation. In one of the most damaging Media File Jacking attacks, a malicious actor can manipulate an invoice sent by a vendor to a customer, to trick the customer into making a payment to an illegitimate account. As in the previous scenario, an app that appears to be legitimate but is in fact malicious, watches for PDF invoice files received via WhatsApp, then programmatically swaps the displayed bank account information in the invoice with that of the bad actor. The customer receives the invoice, which they were expecting to begin with, but has no knowledge that it’s been altered. By the time the trick is exposed, the money may be long gone. To make matters worse, the invoice hack could be broadly distributed in a non-targeted way, looking for any invoices to manipulate, affecting multiple victims who use IM apps like WhatsApp to conduct business.
3. Audio message spoofing. In this scenario, an attacker exploits the relations of trust between employees in an organization. A CEO sends his CFO an audio message, via WhatsApp, requesting updated slides for a board meeting next week. The attacker, using voice reconstruction via deep learning technology – something that is becoming more and more feasible today – alters the original audio file to communicate to the CFO, in the CEO’s own voice, that a payment needs to be transferred immediately to a fictitious party, which is in fact the attacker. The bad actor not only manipulates the communications of the CEO, but goes a step further to reconstruct his voice, resulting in a very effective deception technique. The original message from the CEO is replaced when it arrives at the CFO’s phone. What the CFO hears in the end is a credible audio message from his boss to make a payment, something that can easily be perceived as a legitimate request by an unaware employee.
4. Another interesting example where we might encounter a Media File Jacking attack is fake news. In Telegram, admins use the concept of “channels” to broadcast messages to an unlimited number of subscribers who consume the published content. An attacker can change the media files that appear in the channel feed in real time. Let’s consider, for example, a trusted news network that maintains a Telegram channel. Subscribers rely on the channel to get credible news. An attacker can communicate falsities in the channel by manipulating the media files received there. Interestingly, this can happen without the knowledge and consent of both the channel owner and the end-victim. This example illustrates how both the sender and receiver can be harmed by the attack: receivers consume fake news and the channel owner’s reputation or credibility takes a hit.
How app developers can protect against the threat
As previously mentioned, WhatsApp saves files to external storage automatically, while Telegram does so when the “Save to Gallery” feature is enabled. In both cases, however, neither apps have any measures in place to protect their users from a Media File Jacking attack.
To ensure that media files are kept safe from malicious actors, we recommend the following measures:
Validate the integrity of files: Store in a metadata file a hash value for each received media file before writing it to the disk. Then, confirm that the file has not been changed (i.e. the hash is the same) before the media file is loaded by the app in the relevant chat portion for users to see. This step can help developers validate that files were not manipulated before they are loaded. This approach balances between the security (protection against Media File Jacking attacks) and functionality (e.g., supporting third party backup apps) needs of the IM apps.
Internal storage: If possible, store media files in a non-public directory, such as internal storage. This is a measure some IM apps have chosen.
Encryption: Strive to encrypt sensitive files, as is usually done for text messages in modern IM solutions. This measure, as well as the previous one, will better protect files from exposure and manipulation. The downside is that other apps, such as photo backup apps, won’t be able to easily access these files.
With the release of Android Q, Google plans to enact changes to the way apps access files on a device’s external storage. Android’s planned Scoped Storage is more restrictive, which may help mitigate threats like the WhatsApp/Telegram flaw we found. Scoped Storage means that apps will have their own storage area in an app-specific directory, but will be prevented from accessing files in the entire storage partition, unless an explicit permission is granted by the user. While this promises to improve user privacy protection, it also includes major changes to the way millions of applications utilize external storage. Partially because of these challenges, Google recently announced that it plans to push the API’s enforcement only in 2020, in the next major platform release. Even then, the impact of the enforcement will take time due to the version fragmentation of the Android operating system.
Disclosure Process
Symantec notified Telegram and Facebook/WhatsApp about the Media File Jacking vulnerability.
Protection
Symantec’s malware detection engines, which power Symantec Endpoint Protection Mobile (SEP Mobile) and Norton Mobile Security, detect apps that exploit the described vulnerability.
As such, enterprises and consumers leveraging SEP Mobile and Norton Mobile Security respectively, benefit from the engines’ deep analysis of apps and detection of malicious, suspicious and unwanted behavior, and are already protected from the described threat.
Mitigation
Disabling the storage of media files in external storage
IM app users can mitigate the risk Media File Jacking by disabling the feature that saves media files to external storage. We show how to do this in WhatsApp and Telegram below.
WhatsApp: Settings -> Chats -> Media Visibility
Telegram: Settings -> Chat Settings -> Save to Gallery
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Symantec Mobile Threat Defense: A Snapshot of Mobile Security Incidents in Q1 2019
From the FaceTime bug to risky apps leaking millions of sensitive files from employee devices – mobile security threats kept us busy this quarter
It was an active winter for mobile security attacks: hackers exploited new and old ways to break into our mobile devices, creep on user privacy and threaten enterprise data, including using legitimate avenues such as Apple’s Developer Enterprise Program. Mobile security breaches spread across the threat landscape – some triggered by popular apps used every day, as well as by known OS vulnerabilities and network exploits. And, in case anyone doubted it, threats affected both Android and iOS, sparing no victims.
Here is a taste of notable mobile security incidents that happened this quarter, curated by Symantec’s Modern OS Security team, committed to the protection of modern endpoints and operating systems in enterprise.
Pirate App Stores Exploited Apple Tech to Distribute Hacked iPhone Apps
Hackers exploited Apple technology to distribute modified versions of popular apps like Spotify, Angry Birds, and Minecraft to enterprise employees. Using enterprise developer certificates, pirate app distributors such as AppValley and TutuApp provided hacked versions of apps to consumers, misusing Apple’s Developer Enterprise Program which was introduced to allow companies to distribute business apps to employees without needing to go through the App Store’s official review process. Once they are trusted by mobile users, enterprise developer certificates can be deployed to allow the use of sideloaded apps on iPhones, and so certificate misuse can open devices to malware and risky apps.
Incidentally, following the discovery of the Apple certificate exploitation, Symantec Endpoint Protection Mobile (SEP Mobile) detected the presence of 3rd-party app store TutuApp on a number of corporate-owned iOS devices among SEP Mobile’s global pool of customers. SEP Mobile also found a number of sideloaded apps on the devices after identifying suspicious enterprise developer certificates that were trusted by mobile users while TutuApp was installed. The 3rd-party app store was classified as malware and, based on the company’s compliance policy, access to corporate resources was blocked on the device to keep sensitive data from being exposed.
Golduck Malware Extended to iPhone Apps, Risking Customer Data
In January, security researchers identified several iPhone apps linked to Golduck, a traditionally Android-focused malware campaign, first discovered by Appthority (acquired by Symantec) in 2017. Popular game apps on iOS were found to be communicating with Golduck’s command and control server, which enables hackers to run malicious commands on a victims’ device, such as sending SMS messages to earn money. Malicious and risky apps remain one of the biggest and most common threats to enterprise mobile security, with one in 36 devices having a high-risk app installed.
Shortly after the iOS-Golduck link was discovered, SEP Mobile detected communication to Golduck’s C&C server from a number of iOS devices with SEP Mobile running on them. Our on-device protection action automatically and immediately blocked the app’s communication with the malicious C&C server, protecting both managed and unmanaged devices in real-time.
HospitalGown Vulnerability Leaked Sensitive Enterprise Data, Including Medical Records
A new variant of the HospitalGown vulnerability, initially discovered by Appthority in 2017, was found to put enterprise app data at risk including financial documents, medical records, and customer invoice and billing details. HospitalGown data exposures occur when app developers fail to properly secure backend servers with firewalls and authentication. Research by Symantec found that apps connected to poorly-secured datastores have leaked more than 200 million data records, including 1.6 million user and employee login credentials.
After defining apps that are exposed to HospitalGown as “unwanted” in its environment, a SEP Mobile customer was able to prevent an app with this vulnerability from leaking sensitive corporate information. SEP Mobile detected the app as exhibiting risky behavior and blocked its communication on the device.
More than 100,000 Home Routers Hijacked by GhostDNS
As the year began, researchers from the Modern OS Security unit detected untrusted DNS servers in networks used by Android devices in our install base. While trying to access the Banco do Brasil website through the network, the mobile users were redirected by the suspicious server to a different IP address, arriving at fake website that looked exactly like the legitimate bank site. The incident followed renewed activity by GhostDNS, a known DNS hijacking campaign, at the end of 2018. GhostDNS attempts to trick victims into entering their personal credentials on phishing websites that look identical to Brazilian bank sites. Hackers were able to easily break into more than 70 types of routers with known security vulnerabilities, allowing them to modify DNS settings and redirect victims’ traffic.
Cloned phishing website of the Banco do Brasil site that a SEP Mobile end-user was redirected to in a DNS hijacking attack
DNS hijacking campaigns like GhostDNS usually initiate their activity in vulnerable routers and affect all devices, not just mobile, connecting to the compromised networks. The untrusted DNS server detected by SEP Mobile was found to have similar attributes to GhostDNS. Our system activated network protection actions to secure the affected devices and alerted the admins that the router in the specific network may have been compromised.
iPhone FaceTime Bug Allowed Hackers to Listen in on Private Conversations
iOS users received some unexpected news in January when a major security vulnerability in Apple’s popular FaceTime calling app was discovered. The vulnerability allowed users who initiated a Group FaceTime call between three or more people to access the microphone and front-facing camera of the person they were calling, without victims being aware of it. Once the vulnerability was exposed, Apple quickly took the Group FaceTime functionality down so that users wouldn’t be affected, and subsequently patched the vulnerability in the release of iOS 12.1.4. However, the incident underscores just how easily a mobile operating system vulnerability – across all operating systems – can be exploited to threaten user privacy and data.
SEP Mobile identified the CVE for the Group FaceTime bug on customer iOS devices.
Jailbreak for iOS 12 – iOS 12.1.2 Released
February saw the release of a new jailbreak for iOS 12, allowing iPhone users to unlock restricted access to apps and functionality not permitted by Apple – and opening the door to security exploits. While Apple constantly introduces new OS versions and more sophisticated security measures to patch iOS vulnerabilities, the frequency of these updates only highlights how often security flaws continue to appear on iOS (and Android for that matter).
Security Professionals are Taking Note: Mobile Tops Enterprise List of Concerns
Verizon’s 2019 Mobile Security Index made our list of highlights because it demonstrates organizations’ increasing concern over mobile threats. The report found that the majority of organizations (41%) rank mobile devices as their biggest cyber security challenge. Still, organizations are not doing enough to protect themselves against mobile risks, with two-thirds saying they are less confident about the security of their mobile assets than other devices.
*** The above list is just a small sample of incidents among many other stories that made headlines this quarter – such as Facebook’s collection of personal data via “research” VPNs installed on iPhones, a high-risk Android vulnerability that went undetected for years, and iPhone apps using analytics SDKs to record users’ screens without them knowing – reminding us that mobile attacks reach across all threat vectors and operating systems. Bearing these risks in mind, organizations need to make sure they have the right tools and protections in place to effectively secure their data.
SEP Mobile customers can stay on top of the latest mobile threats through the Mobile Security Headlines tab in their environments. We’ll return with a highlight of next quarter’s top threats at the end of Q2.
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Symantec Mobile Threat Defense: A Snapshot of Mobile Security Incidents in Q2 2019
Threats associated with risky apps, iOS-device hacking and mobile phishing were among the major incidents
App vulnerabilities and malware accounted for a large part of mobile threats that made headlines in Q2.
Symantec’s Modern OS Security team saw spyware affecting the popular Instant Messaging (IM) app WhatsApp, enterprise apps gaining unwarranted access to user data, and several categories of Potentially Harmful Apps (PHAs) reportedly hiding in the Google Play Store. Beyond app risks, new phishing techniques revealed holes in mobile browser protection.
As part of our quarterly threat recap series (see the previous quarter’s recap here), we review some of these noteworthy mobile security incidents below.
WhatsApp Flaw Opens Encrypted Communications
A WhatsApp vulnerability discovered in May, which has since been patched by engineers, reportedly let hackers break into the secure communications of iPhone and Android users. Security researchers said they found spyware – reportedly associated with cyber-intelligence company NSO Group, the makers of the Pegasus spyware – that exploits the WhatsApp flaw. Hackers could remotely insert malicious code and steal sensitive data from mobile devices just by placing a WhatsApp call, even if victims don’t answer. In a statement, WhatsApp said the vulnerability exists in older versions of the app and encouraged users to upgrade to the latest version, which includes the most recent security fix. However, users of older versions may still be at risk of compromise.
Symantec Endpoint Protection Mobile (SEP Mobile) protects against this vulnerability (CVE-2019-3568) by allowing customers to set a rule in their unwanted apps policy. According to the rule, older WhatsApp versions that are vulnerable to the bug will be flagged as risky.
OAuth Misuse Could Risk Corporate Data in G Suite apps
Researchers from Symantec's Modern OS Security team released new research in April showing that many enterprise iOS and Android apps are misusing the OAuth authorization protocol to obtain sensitive, persistent access to data in G Suite services such as Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Calendar. These apps can continue accessing personal or corporate data in Google, even if they are uninstalled from the device, as long as their access is not revoked, and even when users are offline.
Example from enterprise device running SEP Mobile. An app on the device was detected to be requesting excessive service permissions using OAuth.
In June, Google announced an improvement to its G Suite OAuth Token Audit API which can help mitigate OAuth misuse. The improvement gives enterprises more visibility and control over how third-party apps utilize G Suite APIs they’ve been granted. Essentially, admins can better see which apps have unauthorized access as well as what data they can access and when. Based on this, admins can revoke access tokens if necessary.
In addition to these improvements, SEP Mobile customers can protect against apps misusing OAuth by leveraging the recommended unwanted app policies.
Forensics Company says Commercial Product can Break into any iOS device
A commercial tool manufactured by Cellebrite, a mobile device forensics company, can break into any iPhone or iPad running any iOS version, including the newest iOS 12.3.2 release, the company announced in June. Cellebrite says the product is intended for law enforcement use, allowing investigators to extract data from locked smartphones. The story is yet another example of how mobile devices and operating systems are not immune to vulnerabilities, even with the latest releases and security improvements. According to Forbes, Cellebrite devices have sold on eBay for as little as $100, making them easily available to hackers and putting the world's 1.4 billion iOS users at risk of attack.
Frost & Sullivan: Hackers can Exploit Barriers between Mobile and Traditional security
Silos between mobile security and traditional security deployments in enterprise can leave holes for hackers to exploit, Frost & Sullivan analysts write in an executive brief on "The Evolution of Mobile Security." While organizations invest resources to secure traditional endpoints, mobile device protection is not given the same consideration. This can be a detriment to the overall security posture, as modern endpoints can make up 50% of endpoints that access corporate data in an organization, according to the brief. Additionally, analysts say that to provide a better defense against mobile attacks, organizations need to advance to “Tier Three” mobile security solutions that provide more holistic security configurations.
Android Year in Review 2018: Click Fraud, Malware, Other harmful Apps Found in Google Play
Google's annual Android Security & Privacy Year In Review found that Potentially Harmful Apps were installed from Google Play in 2018, among them click fraud apps, malware, SMS fraud, and spyware. The report also found that devices installing apps from pirate app stores were exposed to PHAs eight times more often than devices downloading apps from the official Google Play Store. Despite Android security improvements, risky apps still manage to bypass Google’s vetting mechanism and sneak into the Play Store.
Phishing threats Reveal Protection Gaps in Popular Mobile Browsers
In April, developers found an exploit in Chrome for mobile that displays a fake address bar which won’t disappear until users visit another site. Attackers can even create a page that can prevent users from seeing the real address bar when they scroll up. Additionally, research by the Laboratory of Security Engineering for Future Computing, found that mobile browsers protected by Google’s anti-phishing mechanism failed to detect any phishing sites between mid-2017 and late 2018. The research revealed that URL blacklisting did not function as intended in popular mobile browsers, such as Chrome, Safari, and Firefox, leaving users of these browsers vulnerable to phishing.
The above incidents make up a sample of Q2’s major mobile security headlines. Other incidents worth mentioning include: last month’s confirmation by Google that an advanced backdoor came preinstalled on Android devices; the inadvertent leaking of SmartThings source code and secret keys by a Samsung lab; and an announcement by Google that only 10% of Android devices are running the latest version of Android Pie months after its release. These stories, and the growing frequency and sophistication of mobile attacks, serve as a reminder of the importance of implementing effective security solutions, including across mobile endpoints, to protect enterprise data.
SEP Mobile customers can stay on top of the latest mobile threats through the Mobile Security Headlines tab in their environments. We will return with a highlight of next quarter’s top threats at the end of Q3.
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Symantec Mobile Threat Defense: A Snapshot of Mobile Security Incidents in Q3 2019
Risky apps used by millions of users and OS vulnerability exploits enabling hackers to compromise devices, were prominent among Q3’s mobile threats
Malware and exploitation of OS vulnerabilities seemed to be the name of the game for mobile hackers this past quarter. From malicious and vulnerable apps, with over a billion users, found in the Google Play Store, to a new iOS jailbreak affecting even recent iOS 12 versions, the mobile threat landscape in Q3 was a stark reminder of our favorite mantra: no endpoint is immune to security exploits.
As part of our quarterly threat recap series (see the previous quarter’s recap here), we take a look below at some of the major mobile threats that caught headlines this quarter.
Risky Apps
Attackers can manipulate WhatsApp and Telegram media files
WhatsApp and Telegram media files on Android devices could be exposed and manipulated by malicious actors according to new research released in July by Symantec. The security flaw, which we call "Media File Jacking", affects WhatsApp for Android by default, and Telegram for Android if certain features are enabled. It stems from the lapse in time between when media files received through the IM apps are written to the disk, and when they are loaded in the apps’ chat user interface (UI) for users to consume. This time lapse presents an opening for malicious actors to intervene and manipulate media files without victims knowing. A malicious attacker could manipulate sensitive information such as personal photos and videos, corporate documents, invoices, and voice memos. The threat is especially concerning due to the common perception that the new generation of IM apps is immune to content manipulation and privacy risks, thanks to the utilization of security mechanisms such as end-to-end encryption. However, this mechanism isn’t enough to ensure the integrity of communications when app-level vulnerabilities exist in the code.
Symantec's malware detection engines, which power Symantec Endpoint Protection Mobile (SEP Mobile) and Norton Mobile Security, detect apps that exploit the described vulnerability, across both managed and unmanaged mobile devices.
CamScanner app, with over 100 million downloads, found to contain malware
The free version of popular Android PDF creator app CamScanner, which has more than 100 million users, was removed from the Google Play Store after security researchers found a hidden dropper Trojan in it. Malicious actors can use the malware to show victims intrusive advertising or worse - remotely hijack devices and steal money from mobile accounts by charging paid subscriptions. Researchers said the malware was likely added to the app following the developers' partnership with a 3rd-party advertiser.
SEP Mobile protects both managed and unmanaged mobile devices from this malware. Our malware analysis engine detected the CamScanner app on several devices among our global user base.
Hundreds of vulnerabilities affect Google Play apps, researchers find
App developers do not have a clear understanding of liabilities associated with mobile app backends that may leave data exposed, according to research that was presented at the USENIX Security Symposium in mid-August. Researchers analyzed 5000 free mobile apps in the Google Play store and found hundreds of vulnerabilities - affecting operating systems, databases, mail servers, DNS servers, and others - in thousands of apps.
The below data, from table 6 in the research paper, shows the top three vulnerabilities found per cloud layer along with the number of affected mobile apps.
Source: https://www.usenix.org/system/files/sec19-alrawi_0.pdf
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Other notable app vulnerabilities we saw this quarter include: another privacy flaw in WhatsApp and Telegram involving the “Delete for Everyone” feature which doesn’t delete media files sent to iPhone users; and popular flashlight apps on the Google Play Store asking for between 50 and 77 permissions, most of which are unnecessary and can give developers access to personal data.
OS vulnerabilities
Hackers release jailbreak affecting even latest iPhone versions
In the leadup to the long-awaited release of iOS 13, hackers flexed their muscle to show just how much they were still in the game despite security improvements from Apple. After researchers discovered in August that Apple accidentally unpatched a bug it had previously fixed, hackers quickly released a jailbreak for iOS 12.4 released in June. This marked the first public jailbreak for a latest iPhone version to be released in years, making all devices of this version and below it jail-breakable. Essentially, malicious actors could exploit the bug to escape iOS sandboxing and steal sensitive user data from devices. After the issue was flagged by researchers, Apple re-patched the vulnerability in iOS 12.4.1.
SEP Mobile detected jailbreaking attempts on several devices running recent iOS versions in our install base (see example below). We ensured corporate data stayed safe using both on-device protection actions and enforcement capabilities, as well as by sharing telemetry with external sources, such as Enterprise Mobility Managers (EMMs).
Apple AWDL vulnerabilities allow hackers to track users, intercept files
The Apple Wireless Direct Link (AWDL) protocol, installed on over a billion Apple devices, was found by researchers to contain vulnerabilities that allow malicious actors to tamper with devices and steal data via man-in-the-middle (MiTM) attacks. AWDL is a key component of Apple services such as AirPlay and AirDrop, and it comes pre-installed on all Apple devices including iPhones, iPads, and Apple watches. In one of their findings, researchers discovered that a MiTM attack, which intercepts and modifies files sent through AirDrop, can effectively allow for the planting of malicious files. The fix for the AWDL bug (CVE-2019-8612) was rolled out in iOS 12.3.
Watering hole attacks allowed websites to hack iPhones for two years
In August, researchers at Google revealed a long-running iPhone hacking campaign that attempted to infect devices with malware using exploits delivered through compromised websites. The websites were well-known sites that had thousands of visits per week and were active since 2017. They used exploit chains that allowed hackers to break through iOS protections by abusing a range of security flaws impacting the iPhone web browser, sandboxing mechanism, and kernel. Nearly all versions of iOS 10 through 12 were at risk of exploitation. According to Wired, “The attack is notable not just for its breadth, but for the depth of information it could glean from a victim iPhone. Once installed, it could monitor live location data, or be used to grab photos, contacts, and even passwords and other sensitive information from the iOS Keychain.”
Vulnerability exploits leading to privacy and data breaches
This quarter also saw mobile threats involving unsanctioned surveillance activity on devices. According to reports, Pegasus spyware maker NSO group claimed that it has the ability to scrape data from the servers of Google, Amazon, Apple, and Facebook products. Moreover, in September, security researchers disclosed an SMS-based attack method that has been used by a surveillance vendor for at least two years to track and monitor smartphone users. The “Simjacker” attack abuses the S@T Browser, an application that resides on a device’s SIM card, to instruct a victim’s device to submit location data and IMEI codes to a third-party device.
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Additional OS-based threats worth mentioning in Q3 include: the discovery of a lockscreen bypass on iOS 13 even before the OS version was widely released, allowing hackers to gain access to all contact information on an iPhone (Apple introduced a fix for this bug with the release of iOS 13.1 in late September); and a major flaw found in SQLite that can be used to run malicious code in the iOS Contacts app.
With a host of new iOS exploits emerging in recent months, it may come as no surprise that these exploits aren’t as valuable as they used to be. Zerodium, a large exploit acquisition platform, has assigned a higher cash value to Android zero-day exploits – at $2.5 million, surpassing iOS exploits at $2 million. This marks the first time an Android zero-day has been valued at more than its iOS equivalent.
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The release of Android 10 and iOS 13 this quarter brought with it new features and security enhancements for devices running these OSs, but mobile users should not be mistaken: new versions do not mean non-exploitable versions. The threats highlighted above and their growing complexity require enterprises to be vigilant about their mobile threat landscape and take security measures to mitigate the risk of privacy and data breaches.
SEP Mobile customers can stay on top of the latest mobile threats through the Mobile Security Headlines tab in their environments. We’ll return with a highlight of next quarter’s top threats at the end of Q4.
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Symantec Mobile Threat Defense: Leveraging MTD to Protect Against Hacked Routers
New technology protects mobile users from DNS hijacking attacks and gives greater visibility into what’s happening on your network router
Researchers at Symantec recently spotted an interesting mobile security affecting one of our customers. While trying to access the Banco do Brasil website on his phone, an employee was redirected to a different IP address, arriving at a fake website that looked exactly like the legitimate site operated by the Brazilian bank.
Cloned phishing website of the Banco do Brasil site that a SEP Mobile end-user was redirected to in a DNS hijacking attack. Would your employees be able to notice a difference?
Our system found that the network connection through which the employee tried to access the Banco do Brasil website was subject to “suspicious domain name system (DNS) resolutions.” This indicates that DNS server settings were modified. Attackers generally change DNS settings to spy on victims’ communications, intercept their traffic, and redirect them to different destinations. In this particular DNS server incident, it appeared someone had changed the default DNS server into a “rogue” server in an attempt to intercept employee traffic and send them to cloned, fake phishing sites.
Sound familiar? It should.
The incident is likely part of a wider malware campaign that targeted Brazilian bank websites just a few months earlier. In October 2018, security experts reported increased activity of a malicious agent trying to modify the DNS server settings in the home routers of thousands of Brazilian residents. The DNS hijacking campaign – dubbed GhostDNS – attempted to redirect victims’ DNS requests for certain websites, in particular Banco do Brasil, through a malicious DNS server. Instead of bringing victims to the legitimate sites, the malicious DNS server would take them to nearly-identical phishing websites where the attacker attempted to steal their personal credentials. More than 100,000 home routers have been hacked by GhostDNS to date, mostly in Brazil, with over 50 domain names, such as Netflix, Citibank.br, Itau Unibanco, and other Brazilian bank sites, said to have been targeted by the malware campaign.
It All Starts with Your Router
While we don’t know the extent of GhostDNS’s success, we know where the problem began – a place that is often overlooked when people think of Wi-Fi connection security: a router. Like in similar DNS hijacking campaigns (VPNFilter and DNSChanger to name a few), the attackers were able to get access to DNS server settings by hacking into vulnerable routers. This is done fairly easily. Publicly-known vulnerabilities, such as weak passwords and outdated firmware, can be exploited to remotely execute code and gain control of routers.
Once inside, hackers can override a router’s network DNS settings, leaving it vulnerable to a number of potentially harmful attacks and activities such as:
Man-in-the-Middle attacks where a malicious third party can intercept communications and redirect users to malicious websites
Phishing attacks in which a victim is tricked into entering personal information, such as usernames and credit card numbers, on forged websites that seem reputable by mimicking the appearance of real websites
Spying on user behavior on the network (what sites they are visiting)
Injecting fake content into insecure traffic, for example fake news on insecure news websites
Malware attacks in which scam sites prompt users to download malware disguised as legitimate software
Exploitation of browser vulnerabilities to gain remote code execution on mobile devices (victims are redirected to an attacker’s DNS that launches browser-based exploits to infect devices with malware)
Most of these attacks occur without the end-user having any idea something is wrong. Furthermore, even after a mobile device has disconnected from the infected router network, attackers can continue to control a compromised device if it has been infected with malware, as in the last two examples above.
What You Can Do About DNS Hijacking
DNS hijacking is a not a new phenomenon and we’ve seen increased efforts to prevent attacks or mitigate their impact in recent years. One solution more website operators are turning to is the adoption of a web security mechanism known as HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS). Browsers with an HSTS policy refuse to load a website if it is served over an unencrypted connection (HTTP), what DNS hijackers attempt to do. However, it’s not impossible for attackers to circumvent this security mechanism by installing valid domain name certificates on their malicious DNS servers. There have been instances where attackers have managed to access fraudulent certificates, enabling them to make phishing websites appear to be secured with valid HTTPS encryption.
As in our Banco do Brasil example above, mobile users may not notice - or even be able - to recognize if a website they are accessing is a phishing site. The good news is that with SEP Mobile’s protection against untrusted DNS servers, they don’t have to know. SEP Mobile, Symantec’s Mobile Threat Defense (MTD) solution, ensures users are safeguarded from DNS hijacking threats in all scenarios: where web security mechanisms such as HSTS exist, where HSTS can be bypassed by attackers, and where no security mechanisms exist at all. Organizations can be confident that whatever network threats their employees are exposed to, they are automatically protected.
SEP Mobile detects network threats such as unwanted DNS servers by analyzing all the different network connections mobile devices encounter. We look at the data to find suspicious anomalies using: 1.) Symantec’s Global Intelligence Network, one of the largest crowdsourced threat intelligence networks in the world; 2.) Reputation services that collect information and categorize websites according to security risk; and 3.) our patented Active Honeypot technology which thoroughly analyzes network connections end-to-end to keep communications safe.
How to Protect against Network-based Attacks
As the first mobile threat defense (MTD) solution to offer protection against suspicious DNS servers, SEP Mobile not only safeguards organizations and their employees from DNS hijacking attacks, but it also extends their security visibility beyond the mobile device itself. As mentioned before, because one of the most common ways attackers can modify a network’s DNS server is by hacking into the router, when suspicious DNS resolutions are detected on the network, this is often a sign of a compromised router.
In practice, if SEP Mobile detects a network attack like DNS hijacking, two simultaneous things happen. First, our automated network protection actions kick in, such as: tunneling traffic from the mobile device through a secure VPN connection or blocking the mobile device from accessing sensitive corporate resources (email, work applications, etc). Second, both enterprise security admins and end-users receive alerts on the threat, with the alert suggesting that the network router may have been compromised due to suspicious domain name resolutions.
Admin alert. *Names and personal information have been changed to protect user privacy.
End-user alert. *Names and personal information have been changed to protect user privacy.
Both our protection actions and alerts can be configured in accordance with an organization’s security policy.
With mobile devices connecting to several more networks (and connecting more often) than traditional endpoints, network-based mobile attacks pose a significant security risk to organizations today. This risk, combined with the rising sophistication of attacks, and their ever-increasing ability to tap into sensitive corporate data, underscore the need for MTD solutions that provide robust protection.
Our Banco do Brasil incident had a happy ending: the end-user’s mobile device and personal data, as well as the organization’s corporate resources, were protected by SEP Mobile from falling into the wrong hands. Other organizations without advanced MTD capabilities (or without an MTD at all) may not be so lucky.
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Symantec Mobile Threat Defense: Mistakes App Developers Should Avoid – Blind Trust
Developers shouldn’t assume that their DevOps, IT, or cloud service provider adequately protects their app users’ private and sensitive data
We owe a lot to mobile app developers. Their apps have enabled us to simplify, accelerate, and improve just about everything we do: get to and from places, communicate, work, access entertainment, make purchases – the list goes on and on. Because app developers are today’s innovators, they also have a unique responsibility to safeguard data. When it comes to security, many developers intentionally or unintentionally fail to implement key controls and processes to secure users’ data and privacy. Take a look at our recent snapshot of mobile security headlines and you’ll understand just how often poor app security controls lead to breaches.
This is the first in a series of articles that takes a look at the top security mistakes app developers must avoid. These oversights can lead to cracks in an app’s security, giving bad actors a way to get in and exploit sensitive data. Below we take a look at the first common mistake developers must avoid: not safeguarding user data from unauthorized access in the cloud.
Substandard Access Control to Cloud Data
Failing to protect users’ private and sensitive data in the cloud can have a huge impact on app users. Apps often communicate with users via one or more cloud services – and attackers know this – making this flaw one of their primary targets.
Access control to cloud data is critical, requiring app developers to have a solid understanding of how to use it to protect user data. Often, as we will show, app developers blindly trust that the cloud service provider already implements access controls for them, or they fail to understand what access controls to use, or they even overlook them completely. Regularly, we find no access controls in apps at all – that is, all private user data in an app is exposed to the world – or the private keys are easily found, or hard-coded, inside the app binary. In fact, chances are there is at least one app on your mobile device containing private cloud keys that expose your private data. The keys – as is often the case – open up the doors to the corporate kingdom, putting sensitive data at risk of exposure.
App developers often assume that the DevOps, IT, or cloud service provider adequately protects app users’ private and sensitive data without the need for additional security controls.
In the following sections, we’ll explore past research looking at the scope of this mistake and its impact, with a few real-world examples of apps and app developers. We’ll also provide tips for how you can avoid making this mistake to improve your app's security and user experience.
Scope
Past research conducted by Symantec’s Modern OS Security team looked at the largest cloud providers in use by mobile apps, and your app is likely using one of them. Our research discovered that many enterprise apps using the cloud providers below were providing substandard access control to cloud data.
Microsoft Azure
From millions of apps analyzed we discovered 8225 mobile apps connecting to over 25000 different Azure accounts.
460 mobile iOS and Android apps were found to be leaking files – over 1.1 billion Android downloads, alone – were found leaking files from 223 unsecured Azure Blob service accounts
More than 200 million database records were exposed, containing PHI (Protected Health Information) records (patient names, health symptoms, and medical history) and corporate documents, including contracts, invoices, inventory costs and tracking data
Google Cloud Platform
3,000 mobile iOS and Android apps – accounting for 620 million+ Android downloads alone – were found to be leaking data from 2,300 unsecured databases
More than 100 million records were exposed, including:
2.6 million plain text passwords and user IDs
4 million+ PHI records including doctor/patient chat messages and prescription details
50 thousand financial records including banking transaction details, payment, and cryptocurrency credentials
Amazon AWS
Thousands of apps were found to be exposing Amazon S3 credentials
In apps that leaked AWS credentials, in almost half the time (46%), we were able to access all Amazon S3 data buckets without requiring a username or password
Data that could be accessed includes medical claims, algorithms, legal documents, invoices, compliance records, CRM data, BI/analytics, AWS data, logs and backups
Impact
Failing to implement access controls to cloud data can result in financial and reputational consequences for app developers. Data hijacking by malicious actors could lead to ransomware, loss of user confidence in the app developer, and hefty regulatory fines. With GDPR in full enforcement, we recently saw British Airways receive a notice of intent proposing an eye-popping $228 million fine for a data breach affecting about 500,000 customers, and Marriott International received a notice of intent to be fined $124 million for a data breach exposing 339 million guest records.
Case Studies
Below are some examples of enterprise apps we found that could improve the way they secure data in the cloud. For the apps, we have contacted the vendor and app developers and followed responsible disclosure, protecting individuals, enterprises, and the internet infrastructure from exploitation whenever possible.
Digicard by Microsoft Corporation
Digicard for iOS is an app developed by the Microsoft Office team. It is used by businesses to save, organize, and share work data in common formats, such as PowerPoint presentations, Word documents, or text files containing passwords and credentials.
Digicard uses Azure Blob storage, Microsoft's object storage solution for the cloud which is often used by apps to store pictures and documents. If this was your app, how would you go about setting up the proper access controls to protect your users’ data?
Looking at what Azure Storage offers for authorizing access to resources, we find the following options:
Shared Key (storage account key)
Shared access signature (SAS)
Azure Active Directory (Azure AD)
Anonymous public read access
User data should only be saved and accessible to users in the cloud, using, for example, the role-based access control (RBAC) provided by Azure AD. Data shouldn’t be accessible to the world (Anonymous public read access) nor should it be accessible to other users (Shared Key). What we often find, as is the case with Digicard and thousands of other apps, is the hard-coding of a shared key inside the app, which could expose all user data to the public.
When querying the data exposed by the shared keys, we find user's data and files are exposed.
Microsoft Blob Storage Directories
https://digicard.blob.core.windows.net
dragoneyes/
files/
mydeployments/
web/
https://dragongate.blob.core.windows.net
avatars/
companynews/
de-alpha/
de-alpha-fs/
dghelp/
digicardfiles/
Cryptoport
Cryptoport is a popular app used to monitor and manage cryptocurrencies across exchanges. Cryptocurrency investors use the app to have a single API key to access all their cryptocurrency accounts on multiple exchanges, and manage external accounts.
Cryptoport uses the Google Platform for cloud services, especially the Firebase Realtime Database, to store users’ cryptocurrency information, including private API keys to external exchanges and accounts. What access controls can be implemented here to protect user data?
Firebase Security Rules give Attribute Based Access Control (ABAC). The rules allow public read/write access to the data, or data sharing between all users. Firebase provides online tools for app developers to directly set and/or disable these security rules. Fortunately, these tools have a default behavior of setting a project in Locked Mode protecting full read/write access to all user data by default. Unfortunately, app developers sometimes intentionally set the project in 'Test Mode' exposing user data and/or misconfiguring rules in a way that exposes the data.
Cryptoport is among the thousands of apps we found allowing access to their users’ data without requiring authentication. Worse, the exposed data included users’ private access tokens to various exchanges, potentially allowing a bad actor to drain users’ cryptocurrency accounts, amounting to losses of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Jacto Apps
In our first HospitalGown report in 2017 we highlighted Jacto Apps use of insecure backend servers to show it’s not just the big cloud providers that expose private data. Jacto is a global manufacturer of agricultural machinery such as self-propelled sprayers, tractor-mounted sprayers, and telemetry and autopilot systems for large-scale farms. Their machines connect to cellular and Wi-Fi networks to send information to dedicated servers via Jacto apps. Three apps were found to share the same insecure backend servers: Jacto Smart Selector, OtmisNET and OtmisNET - Homologation. These apps help set autopilot parameters and monitor operational data in real-time through their on-board mobile devices to manage the operational efficiency of spraying equipment. We found that the backend server, Elasticsearch, does not have adequate security controls in place, exposing all the data to the public.
Further, we found Jacto’s exposed tractor data had already been held for ransom at least once by an attacker demanding bitcoins for payment. The attacker apparently took a copy of the entire data store, offering to delete their copy after being paid. Judging by the presence of the ransom index dating back to January 2017 on the server, Jacto may not have responded to the attacker’s demands, or perhaps they paid, and failed to remove the reference to the attack from the data store.
How best to avoid “blind trust” as an app developer
Developers don’t always use shared keys. Sometimes they use shared keys for all user data without implementing or setting up proper role-based account controls. Other times, the insecure shared keys are obtained from corporate IT, and app developers mistakenly assume the keys are secure without checking.
Developers should follow security best practices for sharing and using resources from the cloud storage provider. As we see in our app examples examined above, using the right access control options can prevent data exposure. Microsoft publishes a helpful security checklist and guidance for Azure Storage that can be found here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/common/storage-security-guide.
In particular, developers should never reuse cloud resources meant for user data, for internal corporate data, and should ensure all shares are appropriately locked down with permissions designed for the stored data.
Developers can also rely on tools to automate the discovery of insecure cloud services as part of their application Software Development Life Cycle (SLDC).
Finally, developers should strongly consider hiring an app security expert to validate and verify the data is protected. This is especially important in cases where developers do follow security best practices only to have resources outside their control – often from Dev-Ops and IT – fail to protect their users data. For enterprises, Symantec Endpoint Security (SES) protects corporate mobile devices from exploitation of vulnerabilities occurring as a result of app developer oversights. SES detects issues within the app itself – for example, hard-coded credentials, usage of third-party cloud services, and data exfiltration – as well as protects mobile devices from other network, OS and app-level threats.
Additionally, Symantec Cloud Workload Protect (CWP) proactively scans enterprise cloud services for misconfigurations exposing data, to protect endpoints. CWP can be used to ensure that corporate accounts on cloud services are properly configured and secured.
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Symantec Mobile Threat Defense: New Google Update Could Mitigate OAuth Misuse Risk
Google improves OAuth exposure visibility, but all security stakeholders must contribute to a safer mobile ecosystem
A few months ago, Symantec’s Modern OS Security team published findings on an evolving mobile security threat: apps misusing OAuth, an open standard for access authorization, could put corporate data at risk. Our research found that well-known iOS and Android apps used in enterprise are using OAuth to gain persistent access to sensitive user data in Google services such as Gmail, Google Drive and Google Calendar. While the apps themselves may not be inherently risky, they request permissions (scopes) to access sensitive data that is not always necessary for their main functionality. Additionally, we found that, depending on the requested scope and access type, an app can ultimately keep a user authenticated forever and continue accessing personal and enterprise data in G Suite apps, even when the app is no longer installed on the user’s device.
Now, Google has taken steps to mitigate the risk – good news for both end users and admins. We see this as a great example of how different players across the industry can share the goal of finding solutions to today’s app security challenges.
Specifically, earlier this month, Google announced two new updates to its G Suite OAuth Token Audit API, focused on giving enterprises more visibility and control over how third-party apps use G Suite APIs they’ve been granted.
Analyzing these monitoring logs can help admins detect and prevent some of the OAuth security concerns found in our research.
The first update is the addition of a “scope_data” field to the two existing “authorize” and “revoke” events. Previously, admins could use these events to see only which apps had been granted access to scopes and which had their access revoked. Now, with the new “scope_data” field, an app’s authority/access level can be monitored more thoroughly. Analyzing these monitoring logs can help admins detect and prevent some of the OAuth security concerns found in our research. For example, if admins have a list of active apps on corporate devices, they can identify any unauthorized access by third-party apps. Admins can then revoke such access and prevent sensitive data in G Suite from being leaked by apps that have been removed from a device.
Moreover, Google has introduced a new event called “Activity” to the Reports API and Reports section of the G Suite Admin console. The event shows method names being called on behalf of users via OAuth grants. This means enterprises can now monitor apps’ behavior on a granular level and identify those apps which make sensitive API calls on a user’s behalf, such as permanently deleting email threads.
Together, these updates enable admins to better see which apps have unauthorized access, what they can access and when, and then revoke the access token if necessary.
Google’s OAuth token audit additions provide a new way to mitigate OAuth misuse risk, and it is a welcome update. However, app developers must also shoulder the weight of reducing the risk. Coding best practices exist – such as avoiding sensitive permission requests in offline mode or following an incremental authorization practice – but they have largely been a recommendation and not a requirement of developers. Rather than relying solely on operating system vendors, app developers or any single source to mitigate mobile threats, we believe the most effective solutions will come from a partnership of stakeholders, including security providers, developers, OS vendors, enterprises and their end users, working together to create a more secure mobile ecosystem. At Symantec, we value such initiatives and continue to work with our partners to consistently provide value to users.
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Symantec Mobile Threat Defense: OAuth Misuse Could Risk Corporate and Personal Data
Symantec’s Modern OS Security team explains how iOS and Android apps misuse the OAuth authorization protocol to obtain excessive Google service permissions
OAuth is a popular authorization schema used by many iOS and Android apps to delegate user authentication and authorization to a known third-party entity such as Google, Facebook or LinkedIn. This includes apps that enterprises develop to connect to G Suite, or other social media apps accessed by employees on a daily basis. When installing such apps on their mobile devices, users see a consent screen like the below asking for access to other Google services:
Figure 1: Microsoft Outlook app authentication through Google
Users often grant app access to their Gmail account or Google Drive without thinking about what this access allows app developers to do. There are several functionalities app developers can tap into when they get access, even when the app is not in use. This may come as a surprise to mobile users because they are often not aware of the amount of data an app can access both online and offline, nor of the consequences of sharing data with the app. Depending on the requested permissions and access type, an app can essentially keep a user authenticated forever and continue accessing personal data from their Gmail, Google Drive, Google Calendar, or other services containing sensitive information.
OAuth and Google Authorization
To begin using the Google Authorization service, an app developer first needs to register and obtain OAuth client credentials from the Google Developer’s Console. Unlike web applications where the client secret can be securely stored on the server and be used in combination with a client ID for authentication, there is no secure way for mobile apps to statically store the client secret. As a result, apps commonly authenticate to Google’s authorization server using only their public client ID. The client ID is used to exchange an authorization code for an access token.
App developers also need to define scopes (permissions) they require access to in the OAuth consent screen:
Figure 2: Example of consent screen setup
Scopes can later be requested in both online and offline mode when redirecting the user to the authorization page. If scopes were requested in offline-mode, then the app can request access tokens at any time, even when the user is offline. Figure 1 above shows Microsoft Outlook’s consent screen requesting full access to Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Calendar in offline mode. As can be seen in the picture, from the consent screen itself, there is no way for the user to know if the app is requesting offline or online access.
Here is the request made to redirect the user to the Google consent screen (figure1) with the list of scopes that the app has requested. The user can then select “allow” or “deny” on the consent screen.
Figure 3: Authorization request for scopes in offline mode
If the end user allowed access, an authorization code is then returned to the app. The app can exchange this authorization code for an access token allowing it to read a user’s protected resources through Google APIs:
Figure 4: Code exchange request
In mobile apps with public client IDs, anyone who can intercept the authorization code can exchange it for an access token. OAuth providers such as Google secure this code exchange process by adding a PKCE (Proof Key for Code Exchange) mechanism. With PKCE the app generates a high-entropy random string called “code_verifier” and sends its encoded value (“code_challenge”) to the server in the first authorization request. When exchanging the authorization code for an access token, the original value of Code_verifier is sent to the server and is compared with the previously received encoded value. This process is not as secure as the passing of client secrets in web applications, but it makes forging code exchange requests harder in mobile apps where statically-stored client secrets can be stolen more easily.
In response to the above code exchange request (Figure 3), the app will receive an access token, and an optional refresh token, if offline access type has been requested in the first authorization request (Figure 2). In our example, the app will receive both:
Access tokens have a short shelf life and generally expire after an hour. In order to maintain continuous access, a refresh token is used to renew access tokens. As mentioned earlier, refresh tokens are only provided to the app if offline access type has been requested. This access type is required for apps that need access to Google APIs when a user is not present, e.g. for running scheduled tasks. However, for security reasons, offline requests to sensitive scopes must be avoided or be limited to the exact required functionality. Full access to Gmail and Google Drive are the two most restricted scopes apps can ask for, and developers should avoid and replace them with other, less-permissive scopes, as advised in Google Developers Documentation.
Requests to Sensitive Scopes Are Not Always Needed
Our research shows that requests to restricted permissions, especially in offline mode, are not necessary for the main functionality of many apps, and in most cases can be replaced with less sensitive scopes (e.g. gmail.readonly, gmail.compose, gmail.modify, etc).
To demonstrate how the refresh token process happens in offline mode, we modified the Approov Books App, part of Approov’s collection of open-source code examples which implement OAuth2 by using the AppAuth SDK. AppAuth is a popular SDK used by Android and iOS apps to communicate with OAuth 2.0 and OpenID Connect providers. The AppAuth library “follows the best practices set out in RFC 8252 - OAuth 2.0 for Native Apps,” and also “supports the PKCE extension to OAuth which was created to secure authorization codes in public clients when custom URI scheme redirects are used.”
Our demo app requests full access to Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Calendar in offline mode. The below are descriptions of what each of the scopes provides access to.
https://mail.google.com
“Full access to the account, including permanent deletion of threads and messages. This scope should only be requested if your application needs to immediately and permanently delete threads and messages, bypassing Trash; all other actions can be performed with less permissive scopes.”
https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive
“Full, permissive scope to access all of a user's files, excluding the Application Data folder. Request this scope only when it is strictly necessary."
https://www.googleapis.com/auth/calendar
“See, edit, share, and permanently delete all the calendars a user can access using his Google Calendar.”
Refresh tokens have a long shelf life and are subject to strict storage requirements to ensure they are not leaked.
See the video below that shows how easily the app can get new access tokens outside the app, using only a refresh token and its public client ID.
To prevent token leakages (which is more likely to happen in apps) some apps save tokens outside the app in a server-side database. This added layer of protection might secure tokens from attacks, but it gives more authority to app developers to keep and/or misuse tokens.
Despite mobile users’ common assumptions, neither signing out from the app or Google, nor app removal will cause the refresh token to expire unless the app or the user revokes access. To prevent any misuse or exposure of a user’s sensitive data, it is important that apps revoke the given access when the user uninstalls the app. Surprisingly, among the 1800 apps we analyzed with offline scopes to Google APIs, none of them revoke access during the uninstall process. This includes known email clients such as Microsoft Outlook email & calendar app (Android and iOS).
The following shows examples of apps in different categories which request sensitive scopes in offline mode.
Name Category Scopes
Boxer - Workspace ONE Business/Finance, Email Client Gmail, Calendar
Newton Mail - Email App Business/Finance, Email Client Gmail
Microsoft Outlook Business/Finance, Email Client Gmail, Drive, Calendar
Flow Mail - tames mobile inbox Business/Finance, Email Client Gmail
Email - email mailbox Email Client Gmail
Email TypeApp - Mail App Email Client Gmail
Blue Mail - Email & Calendar App - Mailbox Email Client Gmail, Calendar
Monster Job Search Business/Finance, Job Search Gmail, Drive
OneReceipt Shopping/Receipt Tracker Gmail
Slice - Package Tracker Shopping/Receipt Tracker Gmail
Paribus: Money Back Shopping Shopping/Receipt Tracker Gmail
Postagram: Photo Postcards Social Networking/Hobbies & Interest Gmail
Meme Soundboard 2019 - DANK, MLG, Ringtone & More Social Networking/Hobbies & Interest Drive
Adobe Sign Business/Finance, Technology Drive
AppSheet Business/Finance Drive
Home Security Camera WardenCam - reuse old phones Home Surveillance Drive. Files
Smart Home Surveillance Picket - reuse old phones Home Surveillance Drive. Files
Additionally, the figure below shows the distribution of apps requesting full access to Gmail, Google Drive, and/or Google Calendar in iOS and Android:
What’s at Risk?
When users give an app access to their Google services, they are essentially allowing the app’s developer to make a copy of their data and store it on the developer’s servers. Google holds no responsibility for the security of data stored in third party servers. This means that, while Google may be doing its best to secure users’ emails, if they have given an app access to their Gmail, that app can store their emails in a non-secure way in the app server, putting the data at risk of leakage.
Persistent access to user data augments the risk. Imagine an app with access to your Google Drive. You uninstall the app, and assume the app developer doesn’t have access to your files anymore. However, unless you or the developer revoke the authorization, that app can still access new files you add to your Drive.
Conclusion and Recommendations
Despite the use of OAuth security techniques such as PKCE or state-based parameters for preventing cross-site request forgery attacks, authorization misuse prevention has been left to developers, usually as a “recommended” but still “optional” choice. Unfortunately, this can open the door to malware, including ransomware where unauthorized access to files can occur outside the app while the user is offline. This also could lead to exposure of sensitive corporate data including emails, Google Drive files, and calendar information.
In this article, we looked at Google as the major OAuth provider. Facebook and LinkedIn are two other players which are exposed to OAuth security concerns; the concerns may be smaller compared to Google, but can still be significant for certain organizations. Access tokens in Facebook and LinkedIn by default expire after 90 and 60 days respectively, leaving a smaller window for exploitation. However, Facebook has a set of permissions that never expire. For instance, Publish_pages and Manage_pages, can give an app unlimited access to publish to the user’s pages.
Based on secure coding best practices, apps should:
Avoid requesting sensitive permissions specially in offline mode. Sensitive permissions should be replaced with less permissive scopes that the app requires to perform its main functionalities while the user is offline.
Ask for offline access only if it is necessary for the app’s main functionalities.
Follow an incremental authorization practice, i.e. request for the basic scopes and then ask for additional scopes when the user wants to perform an action that requires additional scopes.
Programmatically revoke the given access whenever the user uninstalls the app.
SEP Mobile Protection Against OAuth Authorization Misuse
Symantec’s mobile threat defense solution, Symantec Endpoint Protection Mobile (SEP Mobile), enables organizations to set an “unwanted apps” policy through which they can mitigate the risk from apps asking for excessive permissions using the OAuth protocol. The unwanted apps policy allows admins to set the conditions for which an app is determined as risky/unwanted. Admins can select OAuth misuse and other vulnerabilities from a list of app behavior conditions.
Apps that meet the condition of “requesting excessive Google service permissions using OAuth” are classified as unwanted and their installation can automatically be prevented, or they can be removed from the device if they are already installed, according to the organization’s policy. For example, SEP Mobile detected an app (below) in our customer install base that requested excessive Google scopes using the OAuth protocol. The app was marked as “unwanted” with a classification of “OAuth misuse”, and the admin was alerted to the incident. The app was prevented from being installed according to the organization’s policy.
The OAuth misuse condition is included in SEP Mobile’s recommended unwanted app rules and it is, by default, a part of every new SEP Mobile environment.
Additional resources:
Adding OAuth2 to Mobile Android and iOS Clients Using the AppAuth SDK
Google Developers Authorization Scopes
OAuth Demo Symantec Mobile Threat Defense
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Symantec Mobile Threat Defense: Prevent Mobile Phishing with Advanced URL Reputation
SEP Mobile uses web intelligence and URL reputation from Symantec’s WebPulse to protect organizations from mobile security threats
Update: August 28, 2019
This blog has been updated to reflect SEP Mobile’s availability on Android of a feature that that allows mobile users to share a URL with WebPulse directly through SEP Mobile and get reputation information in real-time.
The evolving use of the Internet over the last few decades has brought with it immense opportunity to improve the way organizations communicate, work and access information. But with opportunity also comes risk: malicious actors are increasingly transmitting sophisticated malware, fraudulent content, and other security hazards across web-based links and apps, with user data and privacy hanging in the balance.
The risk to enterprise is compounded by the upsurge in mobile usage. Employees are increasingly demanding the ability to work from anywhere and on their preferred devices, with corporate resources being accessed more and more outside of the corporate firewall. This opens organizations up to additional attack vectors over which they may have little visibility or control, such as risky or malicious content accessed by employees on their mobile devices. As Verizon’s 2019 Mobile Security Index points out, employees are more likely to click on a phishing link on their mobile device than on a traditional endpoint. They readily grant apps excessive permissions that can be exploited, or they install apps from pirate app stores which can contain malicious code. They even access inappropriate, and sometimes unsafe, content such as adult, illegal, or gambling sites on their mobile devices.
With the sheer number of websites and apps available today, how can organizations and their mobile users navigate the murky waters of what is safe and what is not? Solutions exist that apply standard web security and URL filtering to mobile to protect against risky content threats, but these solutions are fraught with inaccuracies and false positives. The answer to addressing these risks lies in web intelligence – the deepest and most robust web threat intelligence in the world. In fact, any organization that cares about protection from mobile phishing and malicious apps must ask itself: do we have the best intelligence to combat these threats?
Powerful URL reputation for mobile
For the most effective protection against mobile threats, enterprises need intelligence based on the wisdom of the crowd and powerful web security technology. Symantec’s Modern OS Security team offers this by integrating Symantec Endpoint Protection Mobile (SEP Mobile), our enterprise mobile security solution, with Symantec’s WebPulse infrastructure, which provides unparalleled web threat intelligence.
Containing over a decade of data – longer than any other cloud security solution – WebPulse draws on the experience of real users who, together, access tens of millions of websites daily. Crowd-sourced intelligence comes directly from WebPulse’s integration with security products across Symantec’s entire portfolio, including its endpoint, email, web and mobile security solutions. These products generate 8 billion web requests every day, enabling WebPulse’s systems to more accurately identify traffic patterns and rate URLs.
The WebPulse framework also leverages inputs from the Symantec Global Intelligence Network (GIN) – the world’s largest civilian threat intelligence database – to deliver the fastest and most accurate website categorization and risk assessment in the market. The GIN is fed by threat information from more than 175 million Symantec Endpoint Protection users and 3000 threat researchers and engineers.
SEP Mobile extends the power of WebPulse’s URL reputation to modern endpoints, ensuring they receive the same level of protection as traditional endpoints.
WebPulse’s analysis of URL requests is performed in real-time and users receive feedback in milliseconds. URL category information is used to allow or block a request and can be utilized by organizations to create granular polices for web access.
SEP Mobile extends the power of WebPulse’s URL reputation to modern endpoints, ensuring they receive the same level of protection as traditional endpoints. Employees can safely access the web and apps on their mobile devices, without having to worry about false positives and productivity or latency issues, and organizations reduce the risk that devices will bring malware into the corporate network.
Use Cases
Organizations can leverage SEP Mobile’s integration with WebPulse to protect against various mobile threats, such as:
SMS phishing: SEP Mobile analyzes URLs in incoming SMS messages and uses WebPulse to receive a classification and risk score in real-time. If a link is determined to be malicious, the message is automatically placed in the “SMS junk” tab on iOS devices, so SMS phishing messages are blocked even before an end-user engages with them. On Android, users will be alerted to the risk, enabling them to delete the message from their device.
In addition to using WebPulse to determine the reputation of URLs sent in SMS messages, SEP Mobile can provide another layer of protection through text analysis. Using machine learning, we built a model that can quickly identify suspicious words and patterns in messages, helping us better understand the context and intent of the sender. By looking at both URL reputation and the contextual information of the message, we increase the accuracy of identifying SMS phishing, thereby reducing false positives and negatives.
SMS message detected by SEP Mobile as phishing.
Risky or unwanted web content: SEP Mobile uses client-side or server-side web filtering to block malicious or unwanted content on mobile devices. When server-side VPN tunneling is enabled, once a mobile user taps on a link, SEP Mobile tunnels the device traffic through Symantec’s Web Security Service which inspects the traffic, detects any malicious code, and governs web access according to the organization’s security policy. The gateway compares a URL request against WebPulse’s URL reputation engine and warns end users in real time if the link is risky before they can proceed.
Alternatively, organizations can use SEP Mobile’s on-device inspection to filter URLs, domains, and IPs end users are attempting to access. This approach does not require a VPN tunnel. Content classified by an organization’s policy as malicious, phishing, illegal, extreme, scam or any other unapproved categories is blocked.
Risky or unwanted apps: SEP Mobile’s app analysis engine performs various types of analysis, including static, dynamic, and crowd-wisdom, to expose malicious or undesired behavior in apps. All the URLs that an app communicates with are sent to WebPulse which inspects them and provides insight about their reputation, for example if they are associated with malicious sites, botnet servers, and specific countries. SEP Mobile leverages this information to determine URL classification and risk rating. An organization can define an unwanted app policy based on these insights.
The below shows SEP Mobile’s analysis of a Pokemon Go repackaged app found to be communicating with malicious URLs. The details include the risk rating of the URLs, the countries they are associated with, and whether the communication is encrypted.
SEP Mobile customers benefit from the above protection actions immediately and seamlessly, and protections are constantly evolving. On Android, customers can also share a URL with WebPulse directly through the SEP Mobile app and get reputation information in real-time. Any text, from any source (email, SMS, browser, etc.) can be shared, and if it contains a URL, the SEP Mobile app will find it and analyze it using WebPulse. End users will receive the result in real-time so they know whether to go into the link or not. This feature will soon be available for iOS as well.
Staying one step ahead of mobile threats
SEP Mobile with WebPulse delivers advanced protection against mobile phishing and other risks across the mobile threat landscape. Leveraging WebPulse, we provide organizations built-in web threat intelligence based on vast telemetry amassed from millions of traditional and modern endpoints protected by Symantec web security products. It’s like going after a global criminal by relying on the local police force vs. a multi-national law enforcement body with massive robust intelligence. Which one would you choose?
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Symantec Mobile Threat Defense: SEP Mobile Announces SOC 2 Type 2 Compliance
Entrusting your data to third-party vendors can be risky. Symantec Endpoint Protection Mobile customers can be confident their data is protected according to the highest industry standards
In a digital world where privacy and user data can easily be compromised, cyber security is the name of the game. This is especially critical in enterprise, where so much valuable data is at stake. At Symantec’s Modern OS Security team, we focus on securing mobile platforms and the data accessed through them via our mobile threat defense solution, Symantec Endpoint Protection Mobile (SEP Mobile). We recognize that businesses rely on us to protect their sensitive data against mobile cyber-attacks, but no less important is how we protect customers’ data within our own internal systems. To this end, we’re happy to announce that SEP Mobile is now officially SOC 2 Type 2 compliant. With this certification, our customers can be confident that SEP Mobile has the controls and auditing in place to maintain the security and integrity of their data.
What is SOC 2 Type 2 Compliance?
SOC 2 Type 2 is an attestation standard established by the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants (AICPA) to ensure that technology systems maintain the “security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality, and privacy” (Trust Services Criteria) of customer data. It applies to technology-based organizations that store or process customer data in the cloud. If an organization has SOC 2 Type 2 certification, this means an independent accounting and auditing firm has reviewed and tested the organization’s information security practices, policies and controls and has deemed them to be operating effectively to achieve the Trust Services Criteria.
SOC 2 Type 2 reports require an audit of practices and policies over a specified time period, generally spanning six months to a year. This contrasts with Type 1 reports which cover procedures at a specific point in time. Businesses evaluating service providers will therefore find it more useful to rely on a Type 2 report which looks at a given service provider’s operations over a longer timeframe.
Why is SOC 2 Type 2 Compliance Important?
In today’s global economy, more and more companies are relying on third-party technology vendors for core services or functions, including cyber security. In their work together, companies often grant vendors access to their sensitive and confidential data, opening themselves up to a certain level of risk, especially if a given vendor lacks adequate internal security controls and practices. Organizations need to be sure their data is protected at the highest levels to prevent any risk of compromise. SOC 2 Type 2 compliance provides this assurance to organizations, indicating that a given vendor/service provider has implemented industry-standard security controls defined by AICPA. Vendors who do not have SOC 2 certification cannot offer their customers the same degree of assurance over how their data and privacy are being protected.
What Does This Mean for SEP Mobile Customers?
Symantec is committed to providing the most secure environment for our customers’ sensitive data. SEP Mobile customers can be assured that their data and privacy are effectively and continuously being protected in accordance with AICPA’s Trust Services Criteria.
Our team is constantly building and improving our security controls while working to deliver top-notch mobile security solutions for our customers. Achieving SOC 2 Type 2 compliance is one more way SEP Mobile continues to be a leader not only in mobile threat defense innovation, but also in securing our own products.
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Symantec Mobile Threat Defense: Smarter Incident Classification
One small step in content manipulation classification can be one giant leap for threat accuracy and enterprise mobile security efficacy
Behind the scenes of every modern enterprise is a security team responsible for keeping the organization and its employees safe from cyber threats. With the threat landscape constantly growing and becoming more complex, the security tools introduced to protect organizations are also expanding and growing more complex, especially from a management perspective. The amount of data, alerts, vulnerabilities, attacks and actions that need to be tracked and managed is immense, if not overwhelming, for most security teams, which are understaffed as it is.
Amid the flood of information, how can CISOs and their teams differentiate between the high-severity and lower-risk threats, so they know which ones to tackle first? Even with the best tools at their disposal, security professionals can’t do their jobs effectively if they don’t know where to focus their efforts.
The Grey Zone of Content Manipulation
We believe security tools should come with already-built-in mechanisms to help admins zero in on significant threats. A Forbes article from last year pointed out that, “In order to perform their jobs well, practitioners need a more curated selection of high-priority threats and the appropriate contextual information to mitigate them.”
One particular attack vector where something like threat curation or more effective filtering can go a long way, is mobile “content manipulation” attacks. Content manipulation occurs when attackers modify the response from a server that a device attempts to access, which can result in the defacement of a website, change in an app’s behavior, or even exploitation of a vulnerability on a victim’s device. Website owners and app developers have little control over content manipulation attacks on their centralized website server; attacks can occur autonomously at any location.
Once attackers have control over the network, they can use content manipulation as a vehicle to deliver a malicious payload via a browser or change a request that an app makes, enabling them to completely take over a device.
But content manipulation is not black or white in terms of malicious intent. For example, “web acceleration” software can be beneficial to Internet users because it improves website load time by injecting scripts that access cached versions of the site. Since it presents cached, rather than original, site resources it is considered a form of content manipulation, even if it is not malicious.
Some mobile threat defense (MTD) solutions – a category of enterprise security products used to detect and protect against threats affecting mobile devices – can detect content manipulation activities on the network. The problem is that they often don’t distinguish between the low-risk and high-risk threats. Admins and end-users are alerted whenever an anomaly is detected, even if it’s a case of web acceleration or other activities that may not pose serious risk to an organization. The alerts can pile up, with admins often unable to respond to real threats in a timely manner because they are distracted by lower-risk incidents.
Finding the Needle in a Haystack
At Symantec, we realized we were providing only part of the security picture when we alerted admins on content manipulation incidents. If we wanted to help them focus on the incidents that posed real risks, we needed to go deeper.
The team at Symantec Endpoint Protect Mobile (SEP Mobile), Symantec’s own mobile threat defense solution, initiated advanced, ongoing research in which we’re carefully analyzing millions of content manipulation incidents across our user base. Based on a granular inspection of common characteristics and variations in manipulated content, we’ve already classified 90% of all incidents according to patterns such as: web acceleration, content filtering, ad blocking, ad injection, and others. These classification patterns enable a more accurate determination of an incident’s risk. Content manipulation incidents that we can classify receive an accurate risk score. If the manipulated content includes other resources being loaded (such as scripts, files, pictures, etc.), we inspect those as well and continue to do so recursively so that the pattern matching is accurate and effective.
Content manipulation incidents with pattern classifications receive a low risk score (blue-bordered icon) because we are familiar with their characteristics. Incidents without a pattern classification receive a higher risk score (orange-bordered icon)
In addition to providing admins visibility over content manipulation incidents, SEP Mobile’s smart classification system is leveraged to indicate the specific type of content manipulation and its severity, allowing admins to go to the greatest risks first. Smart classification also enables optimal utilization of SEP Mobile’s automatic on-device protection actions, ensuring that organizations are always protected from these threats, whether severe or not.
Better Mobile Security Insights
As mentioned earlier, the amount of data and tools enterprise security professionals need to manage today is constantly growing, resulting in greater cyber security complexity. SEP Mobile’s smart content manipulation classification is a prime example of how we’re using innovative research, big data and proprietary technology to give security professionals threat accuracy and focus – so they can do their jobs easier and better. Such features help reduce the burden on overworked and understaffed security teams, while enabling more effective threat detection and response. In future articles, we’ll explore other incident classifications we’re developing to enable organizations to have a more precise picture of their threat landscape.
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Symantec Mobile Threat Defense: Speak the Language of Business with Your Security Policy
A mobile security policy based on compliance and risk tolerance can lower cyber fatigue, align mobile device risk with business goals
Cyber security professionals have it tough (to say the least).
To begin with, they work in an industry where the solution is often part of the problem. With every new threat and vulnerability come new security products. With every new security product come more tools to maintain and more telemetry to analyze. More data, more protections, more complexity…more worry. Symantec’s Senior VP for EMEA, Stuart Henderson, put it best when he wrote, “There’s a cruel irony to the fact that tools and systems designed to help protect the enterprise are increasing stress.”
At the same time, the purpose of a security leader’s role within an organization is also evolving. Today, security practitioners are expected to go beyond data protection and threat prevention and wear the hat of business enabler. Aligning with business goals is becoming an increasingly critical requirement of enterprise security teams; according to Gartner, by 2020 100% of large enterprises will be asked to report to their Board of Directors on cyber security risk at least annually (an increase from 40% in 2016). The problem is that security practitioners often get so caught up with catching up on every threat and how to respond, that they lose sight of the bigger business goals.
At Symantec, we believe one way to reduce cyber fatigue, while also helping security leaders be better business enablers, is to rethink how security policies are defined in enterprise security solutions.
At Symantec, we believe one way to reduce cyber fatigue, while also helping security leaders be better business enablers, is to rethink how security policies are defined in enterprise security solutions. Specifically, in mobile threat defense (MTD), we advocate for mobile security policies that focus on compliance and risk control, an approach that is more scalable and sustainable compared to focusing on specific threats.
The concept of a “mobile security compliance policy,” unique to our MTD solution, Symantec Endpoint Protection Mobile (SEP Mobile), simplifies how security administrators manage security threats and compliance across all mobile endpoints. The policy allows security leaders to set a mobile security risk tolerance that is in line with business objectives – without having to know what a “suspicious dylib” is or what “SafetyNet API” stands for.
Common Mobile Security Policy Approaches
MTD solutions allow organizations to set a policy to ensure both the security of employee mobile devices and the IT resources accessed through them. The policy generally includes procedures and rules governing threat protection actions, end-user communications, privacy controls, risk tolerance and other factors. Like IT security policies in general, a mobile security policy is unique to each organization, changing according to the information the enterprise values and how much risk it is willing to tolerate. We focus on the latter – risk tolerance – in this article.
In most MTD solutions, mobile security policies are threat-based. This means admins must set either a severity level or response action for each specific, known mobile threat. Think of it like an “if-then” scenario: if an app is found to be leaking sensitive data from a device (threat), then the MTD agent should terminate the app’s processes (action). This definition process continues until every threat in the system is covered. To give an idea of the scale of this task, in SEP Mobile today there are dozens of threat detections, each with multiple severity levels, and more detections are continuously added.
While the threat-based approach appears to allow a high level of granularity and control over how to respond to each specific threat, it has drawbacks that can make the work of security practitioners more burdensome:
Difficulty in seeing the bigger picture: The need to focus on every single threat makes it more challenging to zoom out and look at the overall state of mobile security and how it aligns with the company’s risk tolerance.
Level of expertise required: Similarly, admins are expected to be experts on every existing and new mobile threat. Not all threats are created equal in terms of the risk they pose to an organization. In order to assign a risk level or choose an effective response, security practitioners must dive deep into a threat. To give an example, in a previous article we explored what goes into the risk classification of content manipulation threats: deep analysis, granular pattern matching and recursive inspection that SEP Mobile’s research team conducts on an ongoing basis to effectively classify the severity of each threat. It is not practical to expect every organization’s security team to match this level of analysis.
Continuous maintenance: Admins must define a risk level and/or action for every new mobile threat that emerges. This requires constant maintenance and updates to the security policy.
Insufficient policy controls: When looking only at threats, admins may miss other risk factors which can also violate a company’s security policy, i.e. unapproved device hardware.
One Compliance Policy to Rule Them All
Rather than requiring admins to define their security policy threat by threat, SEP Mobile allows organizations to define a single mobile security compliance policy that encompasses all mobile device risk. In this policy, an organization can decide what level of risk it is willing to accept to meet its business goals. Then, SEP Mobile does the legwork, providing the severity of threats to mitigate risk according to the organization’s defined risk tolerance. We bake machine learning and artificial intelligence into this process, allowing for faster and more accurate risk classifications.
From the moment the compliance policy is set, admins do not have to update it as new threats surface. For example, we recently introduced a new high-risk indicator of compromise (IoC) in SEP Mobile, known as “open remote access.” This detection allows SEP Mobile to identify whether iOS devices can be remotely accessed via an open service port, which can be exploited by malicious actors. If an organization defines in its compliance policy that any devices with “high-risk indicators of compromise” should be considered non-compliant, then any device on which SEP Mobile detects a high-risk IoC – including the open remote access IoC, and any other existing or future IoCs – will fall into this category.
Alternatively, an organization might decide that it doesn’t want the open-remote access IoC to affect its device compliance. In this case, the organization can leave that specific IoC out of the compliance policy and select only the IoCs that it cares about. The added benefit of this is that even if certain risk factors or threats are excluded from the compliance policy, security teams don’t lose the proprietary risk insights and threat forensics provided by SEP Mobile – they continue to have full visibility over the risk landscape. If an organization decides later on to factor the threat into compliance, it can always modify the policy and use our built-in simulation tool to see how the rule will impact the install base before applying.
One of the biggest advantages of the compliance policy is that it covers risks beyond those stemming from device, network connection, network content and app-based threats. These include device hardware, OS version, MTD installation health, and other risk factors that do not necessarily fit into the major threat categories but can still impact the business. For example, outdated OS versions are not inherently harmful but can be exploited by malicious actors to compromise devices. Security teams can define a rule in the compliance policy that says any device running “X” versions behind the most recent one will be considered non-compliant.
Ultimately, organizations can rely on default recommended settings for their compliance policy, which are based on industry best practices, or they can edit the policy according to their specific needs.
The SEP Mobile default compliance policy includes three rules, the first of which defines all devices with a high-risk score as non-compliant. SEP Mobile’s research team looks at several factors to determine the device risk score.
The policy includes both broad and granular conditions that organizations can customize to meet their mobile risk tolerance goals. Among our customer install base, we see that large enterprises modify the default compliance policy more often than smaller companies do. This aligns with the level of control and granularity large companies generally look for in a security solution, versus smaller teams that may prefer to use recommended policies.
Effective Policy Enforcement
SEP Mobile customers can also use built-in, on-device actions to enforce the compliance policy. Non-compliant devices can be blocked from accessing sensitive corporate resources, with users receiving an alert to remediate the violation in order to restore access. When additional layers of enforcement are needed – i.e. when a device has been compromised – SEP Mobile provides integration with Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) systems which allow more aggressive actions in order to achieve compliance (such as device remote wipe).
Speaking the Language of Business
Beyond making security practitioners’ lives easier on a tactical level, the compliance policy enables admins to better reflect to decision-makers if mobile security risk is aligned with business needs. Rather than talk about the technical aspect of threats, which often come across as abstract to business leaders, security teams can use the compliance policy to show if the organization is on course with its risk tolerance target. SEP Mobile provides risk metrics, including compliance levels and key risk factors, that security teams can rely on to help decision-makers understand how much mobile security risk the organization can tolerate to support business goals.
Real examples from SEP Mobile. These metrics convey the overall mobile security risk to decision-makers more effectively than sharing, for example, the number of malicious apps detected in the last month.
Consider it this way: If the response to threats is managed at the tactical/operational level of an organization’s security program, and business risk is managed at the strategic level, then the compliance policy sits in between them, i.e. translating threats into business risks. By aligning mobile security risk with business objectives, security practitioners can better convey the value of their programs in a language decision-makers can understand.
Dan Woods, a technology analyst and writer, describes the evolving role of CISOs today, stating, “CISOs … need a way to explain risk, and, more importantly, make everyone else in the business comfortable with it. Cyber security can never reach a state of 100% protection. There will always be tradeoffs. Therefore, CISOs need to help individuals in their companies understand this reality so that informed decisions can be made to guide the business forward.”
Tasked with this responsibility, security leaders need solutions (read: not more solutions, but better solutions) that can give them the bottom-line data to understand how mobile security threats contribute to an organization’s risk posture. Instead of focusing on whether a threat is a risky hosts file, malware, an untrusted root certificate or something else, with SEP Mobile’s compliance policy, leaders can focus on the bigger picture of mobile security in the organization. This approach can reduce cyber burnout and help security professionals become trusted risk advisors for their company.
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Symantec Mobile Threat Defense: Spotlight on Mobile Endpoint Detection and Response
Organizations need mobile EDR to combat a growing trend in mobile security: advanced and persistent attacks that exploit mobile OS vulnerabilities
In a recent blog post, I discussed the importance of vulnerability management for mitigating mobile security risks. Vulnerability management essentially helps enterprise security teams take the guesswork out of identifying, prioritizing and responding to mobile operating system (OS) vulnerabilities. Ultimately, no operating system is immune to security vulnerabilities, and just as admins use vulnerability management to reduce the risk of exploits on traditional endpoints, it only makes sense they use it for modern endpoints as well.
And yet, even when risks are mitigated, some inevitably remain. At any given time, an organization has mobile devices whose OSs are not up to date and contain known vulnerabilities that can be exploited, leading to device compromise. And those are just the vulnerabilities we know about – what about the ones we don’t? Even when all devices are up to date, mobile OSs, like any other operating system, are still at risk of zero-day attacks that exploit unknown vulnerabilities. In addition to using vulnerability management to mitigate known mobile security risks, organizations need advanced mobile endpoint detection and response (mobile EDR) to mitigate the risk from unknown and persistent mobile threats.
This blog post will focus on mobile EDR as a necessary tool for combatting a growing trend in mobile security: advanced attacks that exploit mobile OS vulnerabilities to compromise device data and integrity. I discuss how visibility over attack kill chains and deep forensic analysis help security teams understand the flow and nature of attacks and determine the best course of remediation.
Mobile EDR
EDR technology provides continuous monitoring and response to malicious activities on endpoints after a breach has occurred. This technology complements traditional endpoint security paradigms, by focusing on the attacker’s behavior during and after the target assets are compromised. Cyber criminals are constantly finding creative and sophisticated ways to infiltrate devices, and they’re determined to adapt, alter, or hide their tactics to circumvent security mechanisms. This is especially the case in mobile, where users’ inattentive behavior and admins’ lack of control, or even visibility, over mobile risks are ripe for exploitation by hackers.
Proactive threat detection, response and incident investigation on mobile endpoints is critical for any organization that wants to improve its mobile (and overall) security posture. However, the way modern OSs were built (i.e. application sandboxing) and privacy regulations limit what data can be collected to provide contextual information on suspicious behaviors. Due to these limitations, the common perception is that while proactive detection and protection from threats is possible and is valuable for enterprises, identifying advanced exploitation (especially zero-day attacks) is unfeasible in mobile. Indeed, most mobile security solutions provide basic jailbreak or rooting detection, but in practice they usually identify intentional attempts by end-users to jailbreak or root their device, rather than advanced exploits by hackers who can easily bypass such detections. When enterprise data and resources are at stake, the ability to not only be alerted when a device is compromised, but also to have deep forensics on indicators of compromise, is critical to understanding what hackers did or plan to do, and respond accordingly.
Zooming in on the mobile attack kill chain
To build a solution that can catch advanced attacks against iOS & Android devices, we’ve developed technology that focuses on the kill chain of attacks. Our mobile threat defense (MTD) solution, Symantec Endpoint Protection Mobile (SEP Mobile), looks for indicators of exploitation or compromise across the different stages of the attack kill chain, rather than focusing on just one magical detection that could fail to catch attackers if they succeed in bypassing it.
Generally, we’ve seen the following group of activities when a device has been compromised:
A malicious actor begins by exploiting a vulnerability in one of several attack vectors – physical, network, app, or OS - which leads to arbitrary malicious code execution on the victim’s device.
For example, Pegasus, the notorious mobile spyware that exploited zero-day vulnerabilities to jailbreak iOS devices, was disseminated to victims via SMS spear-phishing messages. Once victims clicked on the malicious links in the messages, the device was infected with malware which installed additional surveillance software.
Another more recent example, reported by Google in February, is an Android vulnerability that could allow a remote attacker using a malicious PNG file to execute arbitrary code on mobile devices. Once opened, the PNG could start running malicious code at a privileged-level on a user’s device.
In many cases, the malicious code is initially executed with low permissions, which limits the impact of the attack. Therefore, attackers will try to gain kernel privileges via exploitation of other vulnerabilities on the device, to be able to take certain actions or access resources that are normally restricted.
Attackers will also use elevated privileges to try to hide their tracks. They may install additional code that protects them from being found by standard jailbreaking or rooting detection, allowing them to maintain a persistent presence on the device.
Once their presence is hidden, they will seek to manipulate device sensors (e.g., camera, mic, GPS), intercept user traffic (plaintext and encrypted) or access apps – such as business apps, banking, instant messaging, SMS messages, email, and others – to steal a victim’s data.
Steps 3 and 4 are often achieved by manipulating operating system settings and injecting malicious code into affected processes for the purpose of hiding, manipulating and stealing data managed by these applications. SEP Mobile detects indicators of compromise along the kill chain activities discussed above, enabling security admins to clearly see that a device has been infiltrated. Our advanced sensors help admins catch the bad guys at different levels of an attack; if hackers pass one detection layer, our sensors can catch them in another.
Zooming out on the bigger picture
Most MTD solutions detect and provide alerts on security incidents in isolation. This process neglects links that may be present between certain incidents, and security admins who don’t see the associated telemetry may be missing the bigger picture. By providing full visibility across the attack kill chain, SEP Mobile enables admins to connect the dots between various data points, and understand: when the attack took place, what the device security level was before the attack (e.g., known vulnerabilities it was susceptible to), what the possible entry point to the device was (a MITM attack? A malicious app? etc.), and even what code attackers injected into the device as part of their attack.
Equipped with extensive threat telemetry and incident forensics, security teams have more confidence when assessing the risk of an attack and determining the best response. For example, some remediation actions, like wiping a device completely, could have ramifications for employee privacy and productivity. Before deciding to take this strong measure, admins want to have as clear a picture as possible of what happened or is happening on the device. SEP Mobile provides this clear picture, so that admins see important signs on one hand, and avoid being bogged down by false positives on the other.
Let’s look at an example kill chain of an attack against an iOS device. The below shows kill chain incidents identified by SEP Mobile that are automatically bundled together, allowing the admin to connect the dots and better understand the attack flow:
Based on these incidents, we can see the following:
The presence of suspicious enterprise developer certificates on the device indicates that it had sideloaded apps – most likely downloaded from a rogue third party app store. The user trusted the suspicious certificates that allowed the apps to run, under the assumption that they were safe.
Malware was detected on the device. It’s likely that one or more of the sideloaded apps discovered in the previous detection were the source for the malicious code.
When the end-user activated the malicious app, it exploited known OS vulnerabilities, which we saw existed on the device (see “OS With Known Vulnerabilities” alert) – to jailbreak the device and get escalated privileges.
Post-infiltration, several indicators of compromise (IoCs) detected by SEP Mobile revealed additional malicious activities such as code injection and modification:
The attackers altered file system security attributes (remounting the system partition as read-write) to be able to manipulate it.
Then, the Suspicious Operating System Module alert indicates that attackers injected dylibs into running processes to override specific functions or add their own functionality.
As a last step, attackers inserted function hooks in the iOS runtime environment to hide the fact that the device was jailbroken. Essentially, attackers faked the output of API calls that would normally show their presence on the device.
Taking all of these IoCs into consideration, we concluded that the device was compromised.
It’s important to note that SEP Mobile provides a range of on-device protection mechanisms against network and app threats. These include stopping the aforementioned attack in its different stages, such as preventing the installation of apps from rogue third-party stores or blocking the app’s communications with its malicious command and control server. To show the extent of our layered detection mechanism these protection actions were disabled in the example above.
For each IoC detection above, and in general, SEP Mobile provides detailed forensics that can serve as technical proof behind the detection. This can be leveraged to prevent false positives and shed any doubt about the accuracy of the findings, enabling admins to respond to incidents with confidence.
For example, within the forensics provided for the Suspicious Operating System Module alert, admins can see the specific dylibs that were added by the attacker:
Additionally, unlike most standard jailbreak detections that look for evidence like Cydia on devices, SEP Mobile recognizes that more sophisticated attackers will try to hide their footprints. We look for these very behaviors – altering or inserting code to remove evidence – to determine that the device has been infiltrated by a malicious actor. In the forensics for the “iOS Runtime Environment Altered” alert below, we see that the API of NSFileManager, which is responsible for file system logic, was modified, most likely to hide the existence of files on the device that are indicative of an attack and/or are needed by the attacker to achieve persistence.
Automated, real-time mitigation
Organizations can set a security compliance policy in SEP Mobile according to which devices are deemed non-compliant if they meet certain conditions, such as “device compromised” or “having indicators of compromise.” Security teams can leverage SEP Mobile standalone protection actions to mitigate the risk from non-compliant devices in real-time, for example by automatically blocking devices from accessing sensitive corporate resources. Moreover, admins can use SEP Mobile’s integration with Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) solutions as a layered mechanism to limit data exposure or exploitation. For instance, they can use their EMM to automatically remove business apps from the device before deciding at a later point to manually or remotely wipe it. In cases where admins must make a business case for wiping the device, they have all the necessary forensics to justify the measure, as discussed above.
The early bird catches the [bad guys]
The ability to detect and respond to mobile device exploitation in its early stages vs. after attackers have been able to cause significant damage is critical. By identifying indicators of compromise as an advanced attack unfolds, SEP Mobile reduces response time from a potentially infinite amount of time – in cases where the attack goes undetected, an attacker can monitor, intercept and manipulate device activity for years without anyone knowing about it – to a matter of minutes. Additionally, our granular visibility and deep forensic analysis on an attack kill chain allow security professionals to make more informed decisions on the appropriate response. Like vulnerability management for mobile, SEP Mobile has taken a traditional security practice and extended it to modern endpoints. Our innovative Mobile EDR technology helps enterprises mitigate the risk from zero-day attacks and advanced persistent threats on their employee’s mobile devices - a capability that is becoming more and more important as mobile plays an increasingly vital role in business and attacks grow more complex.
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Symantec Mobile Threat Defense: Spotlight on Modern Endpoint Vulnerability Management
The age-old practice of vulnerability management to mitigate security risks can (and should) extend to modern endpoints
Just because you can’t see something doesn’t mean it’s not there. This popular refrain is perhaps nowhere more evident and telling than in mobile security. One of the consistent challenges facing enterprise security teams today is lack of visibility over their mobile threat landscape, which includes malware, network threats, app risks and operating system (OS) vulnerabilities. This article will deep-dive into the latter, a growing pain point for enterprises.
The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposure (CVE) program identifies hundreds of mobile OS vulnerabilities each year, some of them critical. Apple and Google release security updates/patch levels on a monthly basis, but mobile users aren’t always aware of the updates; even when they are, they don’t always install them, and even if they want to install them, updates are not always available for their device. In many cases, vulnerabilities remain open for exploitation because security teams are not aware of them early on enough or don’t have the tools to respond. What can organizations do to stay on top of these risks and mitigate them?
Borrowing a Page from Traditional Endpoint Security
In network and traditional endpoint security programs, admins have used the longstanding practice of vulnerability management to identify, prioritize, and remediate software vulnerabilities. Among other benefits, vulnerability management provides the core ability to see all the known vulnerabilities, and their severity, that an organization is exposed to. Once there is a clearer picture of the vulnerability landscape, admins can prioritize and respond to the risk in a variety of ways, such as installing a security patch (remediation) or removing the vulnerable system from the network (mitigation).
Just as vulnerability management has become a core component of endpoint security programs, so too should it be used in mobile security. After all, a mobile endpoint is an endpoint, making mobile security an integral part of endpoint security. Enterprise security programs that do not extend vulnerability management to mobile basically assume that mobile devices are not susceptible to the OS vulnerabilities that threaten traditional endpoints. We know that’s not the case.
Ultimately, every operating system is vulnerable to risk. On mobile, the risk is even expanded: mobile devices are always on, they are always connected, and users behave less securely on them (connecting to more networks freely, downloading apps that may be risky, heavily using email and instant-messaging apps, etc.) It takes just one exploitation of an OS vulnerability to give an attacker full access to a device’s content, to the networks it connects to, and to the cloud and on-prem business systems it accesses. Furthermore, hackers can get access to a device’s sensors, allowing them to spy on victims 24/7 without them knowing. The premise is clear: if admins use vulnerability management to reduce the risk of software exploits in Windows or Mac endpoints, they should unquestioningly be using it to reduce the risk of exploits on Android and iOS devices.
Vulnerability Management for Mobile
The problem is that vulnerability management programs do not have the same oversight and control over the wild west of mobile, as they do over traditional endpoints. In mobile, it is the end-users (and often the mobile carrier or manufacturer they are using) – not IT – who decide which firmware to use and whether/when to install security updates. IT admins can’t conduct active vulnerability assessments on mobile devices and they can’t force security updates/patches.
Symantec bridges this gap by providing mobile vulnerability management as part of our enterprise mobile threat defense solution, Symantec Endpoint Protection Mobile (SEP Mobile). SEP Mobile’s vulnerability management detects known OS vulnerabilities on both managed and unmanaged mobile devices in an organization. Together with its mobile endpoint detection and response (EDR) technology, it allows admins to identify and collect forensics on vulnerability exploitation (a topic we’ll delve into in an upcoming blog post).
As in traditional vulnerability management programs, SEP Mobile’s data on CVEs and their risk comes in large part from MITRE, the entity responsible for maintaining the CVE database, and the National Vulnerability Database (NVD), which gives CVEs their Common Vulnerability Scoring System (CVSS). However, in light of MITRE’s limited ability in recent years to keep up with new CVE's and their risk assessment, SEP Mobile also monitors ongoing security updates published by Apple and Google on iOS and Android CVEs, respectively, and assigns them a risk level. All of this data is used to properly assess vulnerabilities and prioritize response.
SEP Mobile’s management console provides complete visibility on known vulnerabilities and their risk level.
Essentially, SEP Mobile turns the light on an otherwise dark mobile CVE landscape, enabling admins to know which devices are exposed to risk, what the risks are, how severe they are, and how they can be remediated.
Visibility is Crucial but it’s Not Enough
Our discussion at the beginning of the article raised the question of how organizations can protect themselves against mobile vulnerabilities if they don’t know about them. Vulnerability management can provide much-needed visibility over the mobile CVE landscape but seeing is not enough. Visibility without risk assessment and actionability only does part of the job for admins, leaving them to do the guesswork about which vulnerabilities to respond to and how. Worse, solutions that only detect vulnerabilities without offering further action may impact productivity by creating information overload and cyber fatigue.
Effective mobile endpoint vulnerability management delivers continuous risk reduction by detecting vulnerabilities, assessing their severity, and providing insights and tools that can help admins remediate risks.
Beyond monitoring for known mobile vulnerabilities and giving context about their potential harm, SEP Mobile’s vulnerability management system provides insights and severity ratings for each new vulnerability, as well as the ability to ensure employees are upgrading their OSs in accordance with the organization’s mobile security policy.
The importance of each of these benefits is discussed below.
CVE Risk Rating
Mobile has become a more attractive attack vector for hackers in recent years, as evidenced by the growing number of mobile-related CVEs. In fact, Android and iOS are reported to be among the top five most vulnerable operating systems (excluding applications) in the market. To make matters worse, MITRE has struggled over the last few years to keep up with the number of CVEs. Consequently, the NVD, which gives CVEs their CVSS score, has not been able to provide timely CVE risk assessments, with researchers sometimes having to wait for several months to get a risk score. This has resulted in a black hole for organizations relying on this information to determine their mobile risk.
SEP Mobile fills this vacuum by assigning every new vulnerability a risk severity rating. Using machine learning, the SEP Mobile research team trained a model to classify the severity of new vulnerabilities. In the absence of a CVSS score, the severity rating is provided to help admins understand the risk of vulnerabilities in their environment, without having to wait for the NVD’s assessment.
SEP Mobile’s insights and severity rating can be leveraged by admins to make better decisions on vulnerability prioritization and response. Additionally, as different organizations weigh vulnerabilities differently, SEP Mobile provides built-in functionality that enables admins to define the environmental metrics that impact the CVSS score in accordance with an organization’s IT environment. This allows CVSS scores to accurately reflect the risk posed to a specific environment.
Actionability: Mitigating Your Risk Levels
SEP Mobile allows organizations to decide exactly how tolerant they want to be to outdated OS versions or security patch levels, by defining certain rules in their mobile security compliance policy.
Admins can choose how tolerant they want to be to outdated OS versions/patch levels by selecting from a list of OS upgrade definitions that adjust as new updates are released.
Security teams can mitigate the risk of CVE exploitation by setting a policy on how many patch levels or versions back the organization allows its mobile devices to run before they are considered non-compliant. This security compliance policy enables admins to enforce OS version or patch level upgrades on both managed and unmanaged non-compliant endpoints. Devices that are not compliant are blocked from accessing sensitive corporate resources until the end-user upgrades to a current OS version or patch level that corrects the risk and adheres to the corporate policy. Before creating a rule and blocking resource access, admins can use built-in policy simulation tools to see how much of their user base will be impacted. In cases where a high number of devices would be affected, the organization can decide to take measures urging users to upgrade (i.e. education, communication, etc.)
No less important, SEP Mobile allows security teams to take proactive action to ensure devices are running the latest OS, by:
Leveraging unprecedented upgradeability information.
Notifying users as soon as a new version/patch level is available.
In the management console, admins can see the latest OS versions available for iOS and Android devices, as well as the latest Android security patch level. On Android in particular, different mobile phone vendors and carriers implement upgradeability differently, based on parameters such as the manufacturer, device model, OS & patch level, as well as different carrier procedures. Taking this complex upgradeability landscape into account, SEP Mobile uses a unique combination of proprietary algorithms and crowd wisdom to tell admins exactly which devices should upgrade to which patch levels and when.
On top of this, admins can use SEP Mobile to automate push notifications and emails alerting end-users about a new version/patch level when it is available. In most cases, SEP Mobile notifies users about the availability of an upgrade even before the OS vendor itself sends a push notification to the device. SEP Mobile’s communication options also enable admins to notify end users when their device is non-compliant due to outdated OS versions. In cases where organizations understand the risks but prefer that their mobile users don’t upgrade, admins can choose not to send alerts.
Get on the Mobile Vulnerability Management Bandwagon
Security professionals can no longer convince themselves that unseen vulnerabilities are not there. The risk from mobile threats is growing and, just as organizations use vulnerability management to protect their traditional endpoints from software exploits, they would do well to use it for their modern endpoints. Mobile vulnerability management tools can provide visibility on known vulnerabilities affecting iOS and Android devices, but tools that also provide risk assessment and actionable insights will be most effective in ensuring continuous risk reduction. With SEP Mobile’s vulnerability management, admins don’t need to break a sweat trying to figure out which vulnerabilities pose the highest risk and how to respond to them – SEP Mobile does this work, providing organizations all the tools they need to reduce mobile risk.
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Symantec Mobile Threat Defense: Stop Relying on Delayed and Invasive Protection Actions
When it comes to mobile security, it’s time to move beyond visibility and basic protections. SEP Mobile’s real-time and targeted protection actions provide the most effective defense against mobile threats
It’s 10 am on a Monday morning – do you know if your corporate resources are safe from sophisticated mobile threats?
This organization can answer with a firm yes:
Screenshot showing the number and category of threats that SEP Mobile protected against, from the dashboard of a SEP Mobile customer with 20,000 mobile devices.
This organization’s mobile devices, both managed and BYOD, are effectively being protected by proactive, smart protection actions, against the broadest spectrum of mobile threats.
Can you say the same for your organization?
Let’s say your sales director is traveling abroad to meet with a client. Ahead of the meeting, she tries to access Salesforce on her mobile phone. She quickly switches over to the Wi-Fi network at her hotel after realizing her mobile cellular network is slow to load. In a rush to access her information, she connects to what appears to be the official hotel guest network – but it’s actually a malicious spoofed hotspot. The sales director is unaware that the network she’s connected to is controlled by a hacker who can see all her device traffic, including her Salesforce credentials.
The situation can play out in three ways:
If the sales director’s device is not protected by a Mobile Threat Defense (MTD) solution – by “protected” we mean going beyond visibility to actively prevent attacks and secure corporate resources – the corporate data she’s trying to access could end up falling into the hacker’s hands.
If the device is protected by an MTD solution, and the solution’s recommended protection action when detecting a network threat is to disconnect the device from Wi-Fi, the corporate resources remain secure. However, the sales director has no Internet access; she can’t access Salesforce, she can’t access her email, she can’t even access her non-work-related apps. She’s stuck.
If the MTD solution protecting the device has advanced protection actions, such as automatic VPN tunneling when a network threat is detected, the sales director’s traffic is protected from malicious actors and she can continue accessing her corporate apps without interruption.
Which one would you choose?
Standard Protection Actions Don’t Cut it Anymore
Most enterprises today understand the value of mobile security solutions for protecting corporate data. But not all solutions are created equal, especially when it comes to protection. In MTD, protection actions have often been limited in the face of growing, sophisticated mobile threats. This is in large part due to application sandboxing and other components of mobile operating systems that have constrained what actions can be taken on mobile devices.
MTD vendors have often relied on actions from Mobile Device Managers (MDMs) to protect corporate resources on mobile. These are simply not enough. Remember, MDMs are just that – managers, whose main functionality is not to protect against mobile security threats. Whatever protection actions MDMs do have – such as remotely wiping a device if it is compromised or removing managed corporate apps from non-compliant devices – are often delayed and aggressive, failing to stop various levels of risk in real time while also interfering with employee productivity. These drawbacks make MDM protections less effective for enterprises.
Some MTD vendors offer more proactive actions, such as automatic disconnection from Wi-Fi networks or always-on VPN tunneling which constantly decrypts traffic. Like MDM actions, these can also be intrusive for end users. Disconnecting from Wi-Fi can interfere with device usage and productivity (see scenario #2 in our example above). VPN tunnels can face latency issues, can drain device battery, and need an Internet connection to work If the tunnel can’t be established, the device remains vulnerable to threats.
Advanced Protection Actions: A Cut Above
In our scenario with the sales director, the most effective option for protecting corporate resources, while allowing the director to continue doing her job, is the third one – using an on-demand VPN tunnel when mobile threats are detected. As mentioned before however, VPN tunnels are not flawless. In the third option we presented, if the VPN tunnel failed to connect for whatever reason, the director’s device would have remained vulnerable to threats. Wouldn’t it be great if there was another protection action that could kick in to ensure corporate resources stay safe in the absence of a VPN tunnel or Internet connection?
Advanced MTD protection actions are designed to do just that: provide layered protection against mobile threats, so that if one protection action can’t be used (for whatever reason – activation failures company policy, etc.), another is automatically activated. For example, in Symantec’s MTD solution - Symantec Endpoint Protection Mobile (SEP Mobile) – our customers can choose to block access to predefined sensitive corporate resources when a secure VPN tunnel cannot be established. This “Selective Resource Protection” acts as a safety net, keeping sensitive data from leaving the device in the presence of a mobile threat.
On-demand VPN tunneling, blocking access to corporate resources, quarantining risky apps, and several other advanced protection actions are the subject of a new Symantec white paper that highlights what protections organizations can leverage to get the most value from their MTD solution. The paper argues that the most effective form of MTD today includes advanced actions that are:
On-device: This allows them to be faster and provides constant protection, even when devices are disconnected from the Internet.
Real-time: They can proactively thwart attacks, immediately and automatically when a threat is detected.
Smart: They target the exact threat without impacting other resources or processes on a device; and they are activated on-demand (and turned off when not necessary).
As in a castle-and-jail security approach, many advanced protection actions can be used to either isolate (jail) threats on a device so they don’t persist and harm other resources, or to protect (castle) sensitive corporate resources from breaches or leakage. This approach helps organizations achieve a balance between security and productivity needs, something that has been challenging in a mobile security ecosystem that, as mentioned, has been largely confined by mobile OS structures.
Compared to the limited, reactive, and invasive actions utilized by most MTD solutions, advanced protection actions proactively and instantly defend against a broad range of mobile threats, from malicious apps and mobile phishing, to risky networks and MiTM attacks. They can protect corporate data without sacrificing user productivity and privacy, and without requiring an Internet connection. As shown in our example, advanced protection actions can also be layered, enabling organizations to effectively adapt their MTD to their security and privacy policies.
SEP Mobile Protection Actions
Our focus as we’ve developed SEP Mobile has been on creating MTD that is truly effective for enterprise – MTD that provides 1) the highest level of security on iOS and Android, managed and BYO devices, 2) against a broad range of sophisticated threats, 3) without compromising on device usage and user experience. The latter is something that can help organizations increase MTD adoption among employees, so everyone wins. SEP Mobile offers advanced protection actions across all the major threat vectors: risky apps, network connection, network content, and OS. We provide recommended actions for each category, but also enable organizations to configure their protection settings to meet their business needs. We take a look at some of our recommended actions below.
Protection Against Risky Apps
We define risky apps as any apps that impose a risk to the organization – not just malware, but unwanted and vulnerable apps as well.
On Android devices, SEP Mobile can provide multi-layered protection against risky apps. The actions are designed to prevent an app from proceeding at different points of its lifecycle:
Upon download, SEP Mobile can automatically analyze an app’s installation files and immediately quarantine them on the device (recall “jailing” threats).
Upon installation, if SEP Mobile is set as a device’s default installer, it can analyze apps downloaded from 3rdparty app stores and prevent them from proceeding with installation.
After installation, SEP Mobile can automatically terminate the app’s processes, or block communication from that app.
On iOS devices, admins can take a layered approach to protect against risky apps: 1. SEP Mobile can block an app’s communication with malicious command-and-control (C&C) servers so that it can’t execute malicious commands or steal sensitive information from a device. 2. SEP Mobile can block access to predefined sensitive corporate resources on a device (Selective Resource Protection). Following the caste-and-jail approach, we can think of the first layer as putting risky app communications in “jail” (i.e. quarantining them), and the second layer as “castling” corporate resources (i.e. protecting them from exposure to threats).
Below is an example showing how SEP Mobile protects against risky apps. Earlier this year, security researchers identified several iPhone apps linked to Golduck, a traditionally Android-focused malware campaign. Shortly after the iOS-Golduck link was discovered, SEP Mobile detected communication with Golduck’s C&C server from devices in one of our customer environments. Our on-device protection action automatically and immediately blocked the app’s communication with the malicious C&C server, protecting both managed and unmanaged devices in real-time.
Protection Against Network Threats
To protect against network threats such as malicious hotspots, SSL stripping, content manipulation, and others, SEP Mobile can be set to automatically launch a VPN tunnel when a threat is detected. Recalling our example of the sales director, tunneling traffic through a VPN allows the end user to continue using the device and accessing corporate resources, even when there is suspicious activity on the network.
As an additional layer of protection against network threats, just as in our protection against risky apps, organizations can block access to sensitive corporate resources. This is useful, for example, when corporate policies don’t allow VPN tunneling, something that may be a privacy concern, especially on BYO devices. Or, it could be useful when connecting to a network that decrypts traffic, and there is no actual Internet connection so a VPN tunnel cannot be established. This on-device action would then be the most effective and targeted form of protecting sensitive corporate resources.
Below, SEP Mobile detected a device that was connected to a hotspot trying to decrypt secure traffic, thereby putting the end user’s communications at risk. SEP Mobile’s network protection actions were activated to protect the device and sensitive corporate resources in real time.
The above are a sample of network protection actions, with additional protections available in SEP Mobile. Actions are ever-evolving and more are continuously being added to cover a range of threats.
Protection Against Content Threats
SEP Mobile utilizes web filtering capabilities to block malicious or unwanted content on mobile devices. The protection actions in this category rely on Symantec’s real-time URL reputation engine to analyze content. The engine uses inputs from the Symantec Global Intelligence Network (GIN), the world’s largest civilian threat intelligence database, to deliver fast and highly-accurate website categorization and risk assessment. Protection actions in this category include:
Blocking SMS phishing messages: We use URL reputation and machine learning to analyze incoming SMS messages and block them if they are found to contain malicious links.
An example of an SMS phishing campaign that we detected and blocked is the fake Interac tax refund scam. In 2017, reports emerged that malicious actors were using SMS phishing messages to direct Canadian victims to fake tax refund forms, in an attempt to trick them into entering their personal credentials. Victims who clicked on the link arrived at webpages that mimicked the real Interac user interface, but were in fact scam pages controlled by the fraudsters. SEP Mobile detected Interac phishing messages and effectively blocked them on end user devices.
Blocking access to unwanted content: SEP Mobile can block malicious or unwanted content – phishing, illegal, gambling, etc. – directly on a mobile device by using a clientside network content blocker. The blocker leverages a URL reputation engine that inspects links users are attempting to access. If the content violates company policy, SEP Mobile will block it.
Redirecting all traffic through a secure web gateway (SWG): This action leverages a cloudbased SWG to analyze malicious links as soon as end users click on them. Traffic passes through an VPN tunnel to the SWG which inspects it and then grants or denies access based on the corporate policy. When traffic is tunneled, SEP Mobile also uses additional security modules such as cloud access security brokers (CASBs) and data loss prevention (DLP) solutions to secure cloud apps and services from data leakage.
Managing Protection Health
To make sure SEP Mobile protection actions are working, our solution provides indicators on the setup of the VPN profile and permissions per device. If an end user does not accept permissions allowing VPN connections, SEP Mobile protection actions relying on a VPN will not be able to function. Admins have visibility on the protection status and can send notifications to end users to remediate the issue, either on-demand or through the automatic end-user email alert rules. Protection status visibility is in place to allow customers to achieve the most effective MTD protection across thousands of devices in their organization.
Protections are Progressing
Security teams no longer need to settle for rudimentary MTD protections. Technological developments in mobile security have enabled advanced actions that can protect against a range of threats, in real-time, and without interfering with employee productivity and privacy. SEP Mobile provides a diverse set of these advanced protection actions to help organizations get the most value from their MTD. Our protection actions isolate specific threats, while protecting sensitive resources, for layered protection that effectively adapts to enterprise security and privacy policies. Among some of our additional protections are: disconnecting from fake corporate Wi-Fis, automatically disabling malicious VPNs, and blocking communication of installed apps until their analysis is complete. This list is dynamic with new protections being added all the time.
Equipped with advanced protection actions, our customers have been able to successfully protect their data across a broad spectrum of mobile threats including risky apps, suspicious networks, unwanted content and phishing, and OS-based threats and vulnerabilities.
Innovation in protection actions won’t come from any one single source. It is a continuous journey that involves mobile OS vendors, MTD vendors, customers, end users, and even hackers – as threats become more sophisticated, so too will the techniques used to protect against them.
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Symantec Mobile Threat Defense: Threat Hunting? Here’s Your Flak Jacket in the Minefield
Security analysts can safely investigate web-borne threats such as phishing and unwanted network content with SEP Mobile’s Web Isolation integration
Browsing the web today can be like walking through a minefield: unsuspecting users, vulnerable to social engineering attacks, may stumble into malicious websites designed to compromise their devices, steal their information, and distribute malware. Web-borne threats are a risk to all endpoints, but especially to modern ones.
More than half of Internet users are accessing the web solely through their mobile devices, making mobile an appealing attack vector. For enterprise employees, mobile is fast becoming a preferred work platform where an exchange of corporate data occurs on a frequent (if not daily) basis. One wrong click into a malicious website via a vulnerable mobile browser, and harmful code can infect employees’ devices, spreading to other endpoints and putting sensitive corporate data at risk.
Symantec Endpoint Protection Mobile (SEP Mobile) integrates with Symantec Web Isolation to enable SOC teams to investigate, in a completely harm-free way, risky websites accessed through mobile endpoints. Web Isolation executes web sessions remotely, sending only safe rendering information to analysts’ browsers, therefore preventing malicious traffic from reaching their machines. SEP Mobile is the only security vendor to offer this technology as part of our mobile endpoint detection and response (EDR) arsenal of tools, allowing admins to navigate malicious or unwanted network content, without exposing themselves to threats.
Symantec Endpoint Protection Mobile (SEP Mobile) integrates with Symantec Web Isolation to enable SOC teams to investigate, in a completely harm-free way, risky websites accessed through mobile endpoints.
We’ve previously discussed in detail the use of mobile EDR for combating advanced and persistent threats that exploit mobile OS vulnerabilities. SEP Mobile’s EDR provides visibility over indicators of compromise across the different stages of the attack kill chain, as well as deep forensic analysis to help security teams see links between certain incidents and understand attack flows. Connecting the dots between pieces of threat telemetry gives admins more confidence when determining the risk of an attack and deciding on the best response.
Our built-in web isolation is a critical part of these mobile EDR capabilities, enabling admins to dig even deeper into the attack context for more accurate threat hunting. Imagine being able to navigate the web “minefield” while wearing an invincible flak jacket – web isolation provides this type of protection to security analysts.
Let’s say you're monitoring security incident feeds in the SEP Mobile Management Console or in your organization’s SIEM. You see that a mobile end user communicated with a malicious site, triggering a high-risk threat alert. The malicious site in question could also pose a risk when opened on a traditional endpoint, so you can’t conduct further investigation into the site because you’re wary of opening it on your computer. From the SEP Mobile console, you can access any risky or policy-violating website in web isolation mode and see what threats mobile users are being exposed to, while remaining completely safe from malware.
Admins can open any risky websites in “web isolation” mode directly from the SEP Mobile Management Console.
Web Isolation works by creating a secure execution environment between end users and the web, so no malicious code can be downloaded or executed on analysts’ machines. Security teams can enter this secure environment and essentially “replay” the attack their users were vulnerable to.
Example of phishing website opened in web isolation.
Data gathered from the “minefield” can be leveraged for deep breach or security incident analysis. In phishing attacks, for example, analysts can see what their victims saw, and answer questions such as: What website did attackers try to impersonate? How were users tricked into getting to the website? What details did attackers try to steal? What information was at risk? Was the attack targeted or broad? Did it hurt the company’s brand?
A security incident associated with risky or unwanted content will open in the SEP Mobile Management Console when end-user access to a suspicious website is blocked. For example, if an end user clicks on a malicious link received through a social media app, SEP Mobile will automatically block the site, ensuring devices remain protected from threats. Then, analysts can use web isolation to better understand what an attacker tried to do, enabling security teams to implement additional actions in other security solutions as well as educate users.
SEP Mobile’s integration of Symantec’s Web Isolation technology is one more way we’re using assets across Symantec’s security portfolio to generate value no other vendors can offer. While other players may provide only web filtering and CASB capabilities, SEP Mobile offers strong mobile agents and web isolation for robust EDR. Granular forensics and visibility on the attack kill chain are powerful mobile EDR tools that provide more context on attacks – but there is nothing more effective for threat hunting than combining these tools with the ability to experience what the end user experienced during an attack. Security analysts can do this by putting on the Web Isolation “flak jacket” and safely navigating the attack minefield.
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Symantec Mobile Threat Defense: Using Mobile to Stay One Step Ahead of PC Attacks
SEP Mobile detects harmful PC files on Android devices, stopping attackers from reaching their traditional endpoint targets
If daily headlines about cyber breaches teach us anything, it’s that hackers will try any way to infiltrate an organization and get their hands on sensitive data.
In recent years, mobile has served as a particularly attractive attack vector. With more and more people relying on their mobile devices for work, and with security teams having less visibility or control over BYO devices, mobile has offered attackers a less-scrutinized way to penetrate corporate assets (networks, devices, apps, etc.). While mobile devices themselves are vulnerable to threats such as malicious apps, SMS phishing, risky Wi-Fi networks, and others, mobile can also take part in attacks that target traditional endpoints in your organization.
Harmful PC Files on Mobile
Employees access corporate data on their mobile devices, anywhere and at any time. Consider that one of the first things someone does in the morning is check their email/messages on their phone. Then they may access apps, chat with colleagues or friends, or continue reading emails on their morning commute. As employees move from one place to another, their mobile devices automatically connect to various networks which they then use to access corporate resources. Think about how much data may be accessed even before an employee opens their laptop or desktop at work. This access continues throughout the day, making mobile an attractive target for cyber-attacks.
Here’s where it gets more complicated. While employees are increasingly conducting business transactions on mobile devices, through corporate apps such as Salesforce or Outlook, sometimes mobile devices may be accessing data from apps that are not monitored by IT, such as encrypted instant messaging apps, wireless sharing, and personal email. Malicious actors can use these unmanaged apps to send harmful files to victims. In most cases, if an organization’s mobile devices are protected by a mobile threat defense (MTD) solution, then malicious files on mobile will be detected. But if these files are harmful only when executed on a PC, chances are they’ll evade standard MTD detection.
As mobile usage increases, the chance of files sent from mobile devices being opened or shared on traditional endpoints increases as well.
Consequently, an employee might open one of these files on their traditional endpoint (laptop or desktop) giving attackers access to corporate resources without security teams having any visibility over it. For example, an employee may get via their WhatsApp (or another unmonitored messaging app) what appears to be an innocent file – but is actually a malicious PDF – from the infected device of a colleague or friend. The sender may be unaware that their device is infected, and the receiver, trusting the sender, will try to open the file. As the PDF might not appear or open properly on the receiver's mobile device, the victim may try to open it on their laptop. Alternatively, if the file seems fine, the employee may pass it on to another colleague via Slack, and from there the colleague may open it on their PC.
If proper security controls are not in place in the organization, opening the file on a traditional endpoint can have hazardous consequences. Attackers can leverage this attack vector to cause greater damage throughout the organization, moving laterally through the network and searching for key data to steal.
Since various types of PC malware such as spyware, viruses, worms, trojans, and others generally do not impact mobile devices as they do PCs, these threats avoid raising any red flags in terms of mobile security. The real risk occurs when these files reach traditional endpoints. As mobile usage increases, the chance of files sent from mobile devices being opened or shared on traditional endpoints increases as well.
An Extra Layer of Visibility
Symantec, one of the only vendors that provides a solution for both modern and traditional endpoints (laptops and desktops, as well as iOS and Android devices) and is a market leader in both, protects against exploitation from all malicious files no matter what endpoint or platform your employees are using. We utilize our endpoint detection engines and technology everywhere your employees access corporate data – mobile, desktop, email, and network, and give both security teams and end users an additional layer of visibility over their threat landscape.
Our mobile threat defense (MTD) solution, Symantec Endpoint Protection Mobile (SEP Mobile), uses deep intelligence on file reputation to detect harmful PC files on Android devices. Reputation insight comes from Symantec’s Global Intelligence Network (GIN), the largest civilian threat intelligence database in the world, covering telemetry from more than 175 million endpoints.
Detection of malicious PC files is a standard component of any anti-virus solution for traditional endpoints, but SEP Mobile uniquely brings this capability to mobile. Beyond protecting organizations from malware that directly affects their mobile endpoints, we protect organizations from malware that uses mobile as a gateway into an organization’s other machines and assets. SEP Mobile catches the threat on the modern endpoint, which is not at risk, to minimize the chance that the threat gets to the traditional endpoint that is at risk.
Visibility over PC malware on Android enables security teams to reduce the attack surface: they can proactively stop the threat in the early stages of the attack, as opposed to responding to it only after malicious actors have penetrated the organization and spread to other assets. Customers benefit from added visibility, which they didn’t have before, over a platform where their end users are very much engaged. On top of that, improved visibility contributes to prevention because end users are alerted to the threat and therefore know not to download or open malicious files on their traditional endpoints.
Forensics for Threat Hunting
In every harmful PC file incident detected by SEP Mobile, we provide granular forensics on the malware family and its path on the device. The SEP Mobile management console includes a brand new “Files” threat family, which contains the harmful PC file detection and other file-based threats.
In the example below, SEP Mobile detected PC malware on an Android device in one of our customer environments. We can see in the forensics that the malicious file is a Trojan, it was sent to the end user via the popular messaging app Telegram, and the user first saw or opened this file on their mobile device. The forensics also reference further information from Symantec’s security research center on the virus and its consequences when executed on a PC.
Forensic details from SEP Mobile’s detection of a harmful PC file on an Android device. Names have been changed to protect our customers’ privacy.
These incident forensics allow threat hunting on other endpoints, for example, in cases where the same file received on mobile was copied or opened on a traditional endpoint. Admins can see how the malware spread and what other users and devices it was sent to, therefore helping them make smarter decisions on the best course of remediation.
Protection Across All Endpoints
SEP Mobile’s harmful PC files detection supports our vision of providing holistic protection across all endpoints in an organization. Rather than perpetuating silos that have existed between different endpoints, as has been generally done in mobile threat defense, Symantec combines preventative and automated detection and response that delivers protection across all your company’s endpoints. Our detection of PC malware on mobile joins a host of other powerful detections that use telemetry from Symantec’s GIN to catch threats that others can’t. We provide visibility on threats before end users open them on traditional endpoints, enabling organizations to always stay one step ahead of attackers.
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Symantec Mobile Threat Defense: Why Deployment Can Make or Break Your Mobile Security ROI
An MTD solution should have the most advanced security engines and protections – but also an effective way to deploy to thousands of mobile devices
With the sheer number of enterprise security solutions available today, organizations often go through a careful evaluation process to determine which products are best for them. In mobile threat defense (MTD), like in other product categories, security and mobility teams naturally put the most weight on a solution’s hard-core security capabilities. They evaluate detection technology, anti-malware efficacy, protection actions, threat intel, and other features designed to mitigate security risk. Then they may look at features related to operational overhead – deployment, maintenance and support load. We argue that the latter are critical for maintaining an MTD solution’s long-term effectiveness and value.
Beyond security features, deployment and adoption enablers are a critical factor when gauging MTD products. What value can the best security features provide if end users don’t widely adopt or properly run an MTD solution? Along those lines, how can security teams expect high adoption rates if end-users perceive the solution to interfere with their privacy and productivity? Lastly, how can organizations ensure strong adoption across both managed and BYO devices, with the latter posing a greater challenge as mobility and security teams often have little visibility over unmanaged devices?
What value can the best security features provide if end users don’t widely adopt or properly run an MTD solution?
Over the years, we’ve introduced multiple components in Symantec Endpoint Protection Mobile (SEP Mobile), our MTD solution, to help make our customers’ deployments successful and sustainable over time. These components, as well as deployment best practices, were born out of close collaboration with our customers – actual security practitioners and mobility operations teams across companies of all sizes, industries, and geos – to balance enterprise mobile security and productivity needs. We share some of these key enablers below and look at how they help our customers achieve an optimal return on their MTD investment.
High-level overviews for better actionability
Dashboard summary
Recommended Actions
Tools for efficient troubleshooting
Installation Health tab
Device audit log
Customizable settings to fit each company’s policies
Deployment options
App configurations
End-user communication
Localization
High-level overviews for better actionability
1. Dashboard “Installation Health” summary
Every device with SEP Mobile has a “health status” that indicates whether the MTD solution is installed and running properly. The SEP Mobile dashboard features a section on Installation Health, summarizing the status of MTD installation across devices in an organization. Admins can easily see how many devices are enrolled in SEP Mobile, including how many were activated per day, the health status of SEP Mobile on enrolled devices, top health issues affecting the environment, and other metrics. This information helps mobility teams understand where users are getting stuck so they can take action to mitigate any obstacles.
Admins can also drill down per device into health status and Mobile Device Management (MDM) status, just as they are able to see risk and compliance status per device. They can see exactly which health issues are affecting a device, enabling more informed actions for remediation.
Examples from two separate devices showing different health statuses.
2. Recommended Actions
Admins can rely on SEP Mobile Recommended Actions to maximize the value of the MTD solution. The Recommended Actions list effectively prioritizes actions in SEP Mobile, so admins don’t necessarily need to be MTD experts to extract the best ROI from the solution.
The list includes recommendations for improving protection, reducing risk, and increasing deployment health. Under the latter, admins can see specific actions associated with the health status of SEP Mobile across their organization. Clicking on an action redirects admins to the appropriate place in the Management Console where they can remediate the issue.
Tools for efficient troubleshooting
1. Installation Health tab
Beyond the health status summary provided in the SEP Mobile dashboard, the Installation Health tab in the Management Console provides full visibility and on-demand remediation of devices with open health issues. This information allows security teams to focus on the specific devices that need to improve their status.
Admins can see SEP Mobile installation status across an organization, as well as the status of enrolled devices based on their MDM and activation status. The latter is broken down by pre-activation and post-activation. Each of these groups show devices that have the related open health issues on them. For example, devices that do not have SEP Mobile installed on them or have not launched the SEP Mobile app yet, will appear in the pre-activation group. Devices that do not have protection set up properly or have a deprecated version of the SEP Mobile app will appear in the post-activation group.
Admins have the ability to remediate most open issues directly from the details pane for each issue. They can choose to send a push notification or email to all end users who have devices impacted by a specific health warning. For example, users who began installation but abandoned it can be notified to resume installation. Each health warning has a risk rating allowing admins to prioritize remediation by high-risk issues. These actions enable organizations to improve installation health across mobile devices, ensuring the proper functioning of SEP Mobile over time.
2. Device log for troubleshooting
Within the aforementioned device details pane, admins can also see an audit log showing activities occurring on a device. This includes activation events, security events, health status changes and more, enabling troubleshooting and investigation of open issues.
Customizable settings to fit each company’s policies
1. Deployment options
SEP Mobile offers multiple options for the mass rollout of its mobile apps, on both managed and BYO devices.
If deployment is done via an integration with an MDM, an organization can sync specific user/device groups to push the app out to end-users gradually, or all at once. The MDM updates SEP Mobile on new devices that require the app, or retired devices that should automatically be removed.
For BYO/unmanaged devices, organizations can rely directly on SEP Mobile for deployment:
An email can be sent to end users with simple instructions for installing and activating the SEP Mobile app.
Admins can configure self-enroll domains in the Management Console. All end users installing the SEP Mobile app directly from the public app stores, and logging into the app using an email address from one of the configured domains, will automatically be added to the organization’s environment.
Additionally, a “hybrid” mode exists to support both managed and BYO devices in the same environment.
The various deployment options offered by SEP Mobile ensure that “no device gets left behind,” for optimal MTD coverage across the organization.
Whichever deployment options an organization chooses, we recommend rolling out SEP mobile in waves. Security teams should begin with a few teams in the organization and then extend deployment exponentially. We also recommend the use of SEP Mobile enforcement actions to achieve a high level of adoption, with minimum friction. Admins can inform employees ahead of time that from a specific date they will not have access to corporate resources if they do not activate SEP Mobile and comply with the mobile security policy. When using an MDM integration, SEP Mobile can report non-compliance and the MDM can automatically block employees from accessing their corporate email.
2. App configurations
The SEP Mobile app can be configured to have a varying impact on end users’ privacy and productivity, if the organization chooses.
From the Management Console, admins can control most permissions to match the organization’s privacy guidelines. Organizations can choose whether to make specific permissions mandatory or optional, although SEP Mobile recommends requiring all permissions to provide optimal protection against threats. Based on the defined permissions policy, SEP Mobile provides a health warning for devices that don’t have all mandatory permissions granted.
Customers can also decide to have the SEP Mobile app run in “non-interactive” mode on end-user devices. When this option is enabled, all security features will operate as usual and security incidents and forensics will be available in the Management Console, but end users will not have any visible alerts inside the SEP Mobile app. Instead, if end users voluntarily go into the app, they will see a fully-customizable screen with a message that their device is protected. This is valuable in cases where organizations want to mitigate any friction from end users regarding the SEP Mobile app. While most customers value security education and transparency, for some, it may be more important to remove any concerns or anxiety their employees may have when they receive security alerts on their device.
Additionally, organizations can choose to communicate certain messages to employees via a custom information page displayed in the SEP Mobile app. The page provides another opportunity for security teams to be transparent about their intended use of SEP Mobile and assure end-users that their privacy and productivity are not being infringed upon.
SEP Mobile also provides different ways to verify end users who are manually logging into the app. For example, verification can be done by email, by text message, or by using a single verification code.
3. End-user communications
One of the most important enablers for MTD adoption is communication. SEP Mobile provides customizable notifications and emails that organizations can use to facilitate trust among employees in the onboarding process and provide clear instructions for smooth deployment. Admins can customize email templates, including branding, sender and reply-to details. Once they are set up, communications can be automated for streamlined management and actionability. For example, a SEP Mobile installation email containing an “Install SEP Mobile” button can be sent to end users. Clicking the button will automatically trigger the MDM APIs to push the SEP Mobile app to devices. Communications also include clear recommendations to end users so they can self-troubleshoot as much as possible and overcome any obstacles in the deployment process.
Among our customers, we’ve seen that sending an initial awareness message about SEP Mobile deployment helps to ensure that the solution will be properly deployed, while building trust within the organization and mitigating end-user concerns. Here is an example of an awareness message that is sent before deployment begins:
Admins can also set up daily/weekly/monthly email notifications that report on all “unhealthy” devices in the organization. Once notifications are set up, admins will get pushed updates on the status of the installation without needing to manually log in and monitor the status.
4. Localization
Lastly, end users can go through deployment in a language most comfortable for them, thereby increasing adoption. SEP Mobile supports 14 languages (English, Czech, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Traditional Chinese, and Turkish) across its iOS and Android apps, end-user notifications, and Management Console.
The language can be set based on the environment or on the device locale. Different languages can be used for different admins and end-users.
Winning hearts and minds for MTD sustainability
Gaining user trust and adoption of MTD is key for sustainable, effective protection against a growing range of mobile threats that affect enterprise today. No matter how powerful an MTD solution’s security capabilities are, incomplete deployment and low adoption rates can still leave organizations vulnerable to attacks. To address MTD adoption challenges, we’ve worked over the years to add deployment enablers to SEP Mobile, and more features are continuously being added as the needs of our customers evolve. The enablers discussed in this article are just a few core examples that have helped our customers achieve sustainable value from SEP Mobile over time. To conclude, mobility teams need robust tools that ensure the successful rollout of an MTD solution across an organization, while also supporting end-user awareness of the value of mobile security.
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Symantec Named a Leader
In 2019 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Secure Web Gateways and the 2019 Magic Quadrant for Cloud Access Security Brokers
Data security is like a military campaign. Strategies and tactics of attack and defense are constantly being tested, evaluated and improved. Gaps that were plugged last year are ancient history; your task is to focus on new attack vectors and to defend against them before damage is done.
We believe, in a context in which change is the only constant, it’s an extraordinary achievement for a vendor to appear consistently in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant. It means that the vendor is adapting, evolving and innovating in response to new threats. A vendor with that kind of track record gives customers an invaluable feeling of confidence. Symantec is that kind of vendor.
This year, Gartner analysts have recognized Symantec’s capabilities by naming two of our products, Secure Web Gateway (SWG) and Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB), in their respective Magic Quadrants. Magic Quadrant status is determined by two x-and-y-axis parameters: completeness of vision (x) and ability to execute (y). High scores in each place a vendor in the upper right – the Leader’s Quadrant.[1]
[1] Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner's research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
SWG
Symantec Secure Web Gateway, which we acquired as ProxySG and Web Security Service (WSS) with Blue Coat Systems in 2016, is in the Magic Quadrant for the 12th time. With this accomplishment, it’s worth reviewing why a secure web gateway for web and cloud security is absolutely necessary to your data security strategy.
It is sometimes thought that a Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW) is all that’s really needed, because it goes further than a traditional firewall to perform deep packet inspection, application-level inspection and intrusion prevention. Not true. For sure, an NGFW fills a vital role, but the rapidly evolving threat landscape calls for the capabilities of a SWG that incorporates a web proxy server.
While a NGFW observes traffic as it passes/streams by, a proxy-based SWG intercepts traffic and terminates it if necessary. It examines all traffic between users at any location and HTTP/HTTPS sites and categorizes all URLs to identify and block malicious sites, pages and downloads, while allowing safe URLS to remain accessible. It’s simply harder to get malware through a web proxy than a NGFW. Further, a dedicated SWG incorporating a proxy architecture provides higher performance for complete inspection and malware scanning of all web traffic – a must with today’s enormous traffic volume.
CASB
For the third consecutive time, Symantec CloudSOC CASB is named as a Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant. As organizations increasingly rely on public cloud-based applications and services, the role played by CASB technology in security and compliance is greater than ever.
CASB software intermediates cloud applications and users, monitoring activity and enforcing security policies across multiple clouds. CASB technology is also important for identifying and protecting personally identifiable information (PII), a critical requirement for compliance with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).
Symantec Enterprise’s CloudSOC CASB provides customers with:
Extensive Shadow IT discovery & cloud app intelligence, API integration with popular cloud apps, and in-line monitoring and control options for virtually any cloud application
Integrated Symantec DLP for visibility and control across the broadest range of data loss channels, including cloud apps via CASB, endpoints, data repositories, emails and web communications.
Adaptive access control and monitoring based on behavior-based user risk levels, risky user activity, data sensitivity, malware and threat detection, device and user anomalies, geolocation, etc.
Integration with a wide suite of Symantec security options, as well as many 3rd party security solutions, from firewalls to SIEMs.
Finally, these achievements come in the wake of the Broadcom acquisition. Sometimes after acquisitions, there can be questions as to changes in commitment and product direction. We believe that the transition will only strengthen our ability to execute and continue to lead.
Enjoy a complimentary copy of the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Secure Web Gateways, Q42019.
Enjoy a complimentary copy of the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Cloud Access Security Brokers
Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner's research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
Gartner Magic Quadrant for Cloud Access Security Brokers, Steve Riley, Craig Lawson, 22 October 2019
Gartner Magic Quadrant for Secure Web Gateways, Lawrence Orans, John Watts, Peter Firstbrook, 11 November 2019
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Symantec Named an Overall Leader for Network Detection and Response
Recommended to organizations needing “high security”
Symantec, a division of Broadcom (NASDAQ: AVGO), has been named as an Overall Leader in KuppingerColes' 2020 Leadership Compass for Network Detection and Response (NDR).
In its latest comparative review of the market, the research firm recognized Symantec’s NDR solution as “top-notch” and recommended it to organizations needing “high security, particularly those requiring packet decryption.”
The award comes at a particularly timely juncture in the security field as the deployment of NDR tools has become increasingly important in the face of new and more sophisticated cyber threats to enterprises.
No Visibility, No Idea
Early in my career I was a security operations practitioner. When my industry was under attack, we’d get together with other firms and share various bits of threat intelligence to help each other tune up our playbooks on how to best detect and block the bad guys.
But one day I asked: How do we know we haven't already been compromised? Nobody had an answer. It was really an unsettling question for a lot of people. But it certainly was on their minds. You read all the time about breach discoveries where the intrusion might have remained undetected for weeks, months, and sometimes, even years.
It was taking too long for defenders to uncover the breach because they were looking at telemetry that told them - incorrectly - that everything was okay. Hackers were getting in and compromising the system while remaining anonymous. They would disable the telemetry that should notify security teams when something was wrong.
But while your system may lie to you, the network traffic coming in and out of your environment always tells the truth.
New Approaches to Network Protection
That defensive crouch wasn’t working very well and so the security conversation then turned to alternatives to traditional prevention like SIEM and IDS (Intrusion Detection Systems). But these alternatives had their own particular limitations. For instance, IDS is very labor-intensive to operate and generates a high number of false positives. SIEMs are famous for their cost and complexity.
More recently Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) has emerged to empower security operations teams to investigate and respond to threats. While this is an essential part of the SOC arsenal, having endpoint visibility alone is not sufficient. For example, some subverted endpoints can provide false data to EDR tools. That’s where NDR becomes critical to provide the network context and correlation. By sharing threat intelligence across NDR and EDR, Symantec solutions are able to provide a holistic and actionable threat view to protect our customers.
But the emergence of NDR offers a new way for SOCs to regain the advantage over threat actors. Now they can use tools that are well suited for discovering lateral movement, the use of compromised privileged credentials, or data exfiltration attempts. NDR is also adept at uncovering more common types of attack such as unwanted bot activities, credential theft, and insider threats.
Symantec
Of course, not all NDR tools are created equal. As KuppingerColes noted, Symantec’s NDR solution, consisting of a Secure Web Gateway, Content Analysis, and a Security Analytics NDR platform, covers “all the basics” while also providing support for advanced use cases requiring full packet decryption and analysis and sandboxing.
Symantec’s array of Machine Learning techniques helps to pinpoint normal baselines and anomalous traffic, rather than static rules or IDS signatures. This functionality is particularly welcome given the volumes of network connection data that must be analyzed.
That technology combination means that SOC analysts who deploy Symantec’s NDR can rapidly uncover evidence of malicious activities that are either in progress or have already occurred on the network or in the cloud.
Symantec’s array of Machine Learning techniques helps to pinpoint normal baselines and anomalous traffic, rather than static rules or IDS signatures
Backed by a formidable threat intelligence network, our NDR solution analyzes data traffic and then retains the historical records. Packets don't lie and so we can review that information to perform rapid investigations.
No one does a better job than us when it comes to inspecting data traffic. Our systems can tell the difference between HTTP traffic and something else that might be using port 80. Similarly, if there’s web traffic on a non-standard port, we can identify that, too. We use rules and Machine Learning algorithms to generate findings on those packets and the depth of analysis that we can perform on network traffic we capture is second to none.
Think of Symantec NDR as a central pillar for your security foundation. And don’t just take our word for it. Take a look at what KuppingerCole has to say about it here.
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