In this day and age, cyber attacks and data breaches are increasingly common. Following a well-publicized series of data breaches that affected huge companies like Target and Equifax, and their tens of millions of American customers, today’s businesses, large and small, know that being targeted is a distinct possibility.
For the most part, hackers through some arcane process that involves typing furtively in a darkened room. Instead, they use malware, ransomware, and phishing schemes to either steal valuable information or extort their victims for cash. And their preferred method of attack is through email — according to a recent report, 46 percent of ransomware attacks are delivered via phishing email.
What if there was a way to anticipate these attacks, and stop them before they occur? That’s just part of what advanced threat protection can do for your business. In addition to preventing attacks, advanced threat protection can protect users from clicking on malicious links, scan attachments for malware signatures, and help you understand the type and frequency of attacks your organization faces.
Prevent Attacks with Early Detection Monitoring
Once you’ve already been attacked, all you can do is repair the damage. That’s why real-time, continuous monitoring is such an important part of advanced threat protection solutions, like the one available from Trend Micro at https://www.trendmicro.com/en_us/business/products/network/advanced-threat-protection.html. Continuous monitoring detects threats early, before they have a chance to threaten valuable data or reach vulnerable system files.
Most anti-malware solutions use threat definitions to identify malware, which is all well and good until you come across a zero-day threat that no one’s ever seen before. Advanced threat protection solutions use sandboxing to observe how a new app behaves and, if it acts like it might be malicious, advanced threat protection can keep it from accessing the rest of the system.
Give Users an Extra Layer of Protection
Even with the best security training, your employees are still at risk of falling for a phishing scam. These scams are getting more sophisticated, and as they do, more people are going to fall for them.
It’s easy enough for even a normally savvy user to fall for a phishing scam in a moment of distraction or weakness. We’re not always at our best when going through our inboxes, and when someone is groggy, emotional, or distracted, they might click on a suspicious link or download an attachment that might have otherwise given them pause.
Advanced threat protection can offer an additional layer of protection to shield your information from these kinds of mistakes. For example, if a user accidentally clicks on a suspicious link in what might be a phishing email, advanced threat protection would redirect that user to a warning page, or perhaps it would neutralize the malicious link by rewriting it. If a user accidentally downloads a suspicious email attachment, sandboxing can isolate it and scan it before delivery. This way, you’re not depending on the unrealistic expectation that users will implement their email security training with 100 percent accuracy at all times.
Learn How to Better Protect Yourself
You can’t predict every attack your company will face, but the more you know about who’s targeting you and how they’re doing it, the better equipped you’ll be to anticipate potential threats and the more successful you’ll be at warding them off. You’ll learn, for example, which employees are being targeted, how they’re being targeted, and why. That information can help you beef up protections around key employees, including increased email protections and enhanced training for employees who are most likely to be targeted.
Enterprises that implement advanced threat protection are equipped to spot attacks early and more effectively prevent or significantly mitigate the damage they do by interrupting the attack cycle and counteracting any damage that has already occurred. With advanced threat protection, you can detect, address, and manage threats in real time, to protect your organization from the worst effects of cyber crime. Whether you’re a cloud-based enterprise, server-based, or store and manage your data on a hybrid system, there are advanced threat protection options available to fit your needs and help you keep up with evolving cyber threats.