Seventy-eight percent of businesses, including healthcare organizations, have implemented anti-malware technology while 11 percent plan to implement the technology by year’s end 2016, according to Forrester Research.
In the report, “The 2016 State Of Endpoint Security Adoption,” analyst Chris Sherman explained that 73 percent have implemented personal firewall technology while 11 percent plan to implement this technology by the end of 2016. What’s more, 68 percent have implemented patch management technology with 14 percent planning to deploy the tech by the end of 2016, the study said.
The study, published earlier this year, analyzed data from the Forrester Research Global Business Technographics Security Survey, which surveyed 3,543 business and technology decision-makers in various industries, including healthcare.
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“With the explosion of end-points in your network, you should be looking for ways to maximize your current and planned investments,” Sherman wrote in the study. “Simply adding more preventive technologies might increase the friction for hackers, but as we all know, determined hackers will still get past even the most advanced forms of prevention. Find the right balance of detection tools for protecting your organization without creating unnecessary friction for your organization.”
When planning end-point security spending, this means three things, Sherman wrote.
“Remember that not all forms of detection are created equal, so choose wisely,” Sherman wrote. “Detection products range from forensics tools requiring considerable expertise to automated blocking and remediation tools that need almost no staff involvement. For most organizations, EVC solutions offer the best of both worlds: advanced detection capabilities and remediation without the need for expensive forensics experts. Many EVC tools even leverage machine learning and other advanced forms of trainable pattern recognition and threat feeds beyond their own network of sensors.”
Sherman’s second point is that organizations must pay attention to the user experience impact with any new end-point security solution.
“Avoid point products that lack integration with enterprise identity management and end-point management products,” Sherman wrote. “When choosing any security technology for an employee device, don’t underestimate the importance of preserving end-point performance and user experience. Employees are continually installing new software and have little tolerance for security products that stand in the way of their productivity.”
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And finally, the study advised that executives keep an eye on future end-point security delivery methods.
“As end-points become increasingly mobile and the infrastructure needed to protect them more complex, end-point security SaaS will become more attractive to SMBs and enterprises alike,” Sherman wrote. “Move more of your core end-point security controls into the cloud as opportunity and technical maturity allow.”
Following are the security technologies, the percent of businesses that have implemented the technologies, and the percent of businesses that plan to implement the technologies by the end of this year, according to the Forrester:
1. URL filtering on the client, 64 percent, 17 percent.
2. Full-disk encryption (software-based), 64 percent, 14 percent.
3. Device/port control, 62 percent, 19 percent.
4. File-level encryption, 62 percent, 17 percent.
5. Host-based intrusion prevention systems (HIPS), 62 percent, 15 percent.
6. Application privilege management, 61 percent, 14 percent.
7. End-point visibility and control, 59 percent, 16 percent.
8. Application whitelisting, 59 percent, 14 percent.
9. Full-disk encryption (hardware-based), 58 percent, 18 percent.
10. Data loss prevention (DLP), 57 percent, 19 percent.
11. Device kill, 57 percent, 16 percent.
12. Application sandboxing, 53 percent, 19 percent.
Twitter: @SiwickiHealthIT
Email the writer: bill.siwicki@himssmedia.com
