By Edd K. Usman
As enterprises and government organizations continue to be outfoxed by cyber criminals, security firm Symantec has rolled out in the Philippines its latest cyber-security solutions that seeks to plug the holes in ?endpoint? devices.
The roll-out followed news reports that hackers are still earning loads of money from unsuspecting victims who are still getting tricked by hackers and online criminals.
In 2015, Symantec noted the fast emergence of new pieces of malware, which was only 2.3 million in 2009. This grew to over 430 million in 2015, essentially 1.79 million malware created daily.
The security firm said the Philippines ranked 12th globally for malicious codes in 2015, third in Asia Pacific and Japan in social media scams with a total of 46,377 in the same year, seventh in the region for ransomware attacks (6,356), and 14th in Asia Pacific and Japan for spear-phising, targeting wholesale trade.
To help counter and outwit the internet underworld, Symantec senior manager Alan Lee said local firms can deploy the Symantec Endpoint Protection (SEP) 14 and the Symantec Endpoint Protection Cloud (SEPC).
According to Lee, SEPC was tailored for organizations with fewer than 1,000 employees hunting for an effective way to shield corporate and personal devices on the corporate network.
Lee said “endpoint” refers to a mobile device such as a laptop, tablet, or phone.
The Singapore-based executive emphasized that small- and mid-sized organizations must not be lulled into complacency because of their size.
It does not follow that because they are small, they are not in the radar of cybercriminals, he said.
“Attackers no longer aim just for the Fortune 500. Small- and mid-sized business owners must adopt the same vigilance against advanced attacks and deploy the same modern defense capabilities found in enterprise solutions like machine learning to protect their businesses,” he said.
Symantec said there is an urgent need for organizations with limited resources to better protect their network, specially that analyst firm Gartner reported in October 2015 that 95 percent of global enterprises by 2018 will be having both a Choose Your Own Device (CYOD) and a formal Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) plan in place.
The anticipated deluge of new devices for employees will be a source of heightened pressure on businesses with scant IT resources.
Lee said SEPC provides a cloud-based security solution carrying all the features that are necessary to keep customer information secure without heavily burdening their already stretched IT departments.
Also, the SEP 14 is powered by artificial intelligence (AI) both on the endpoint and in the cloud.
Lee said SEP 14 is comprised of multiple layers of protection enabled by AI and “backed by the world’s largest and most powerful threat intelligence force, and powered by the cloud.”
