WHITEPAPER
Paradigm Shift: Agentless Security
How to protect your company’s data and
your hybrid workforce at scale.
The Changing Nature of Work
of North American office workers worked from home more than one day per week
had not worked remotely prior to COVID-19
of workers prefer a hybrid work environment
lower absenteeism
fewer quality defect
higher profitability
lower absenteeism
fewer quality defect
higher profitability
Technical Requirements
Secure Infrastructures
Flexible work environments require access to on-premises systems and data, and therefore most enterprises rely on employees using a VPN. However, organizations can’t trust that workers will always use these secure channels. If an employee is using a mobile phone, he or she might forget to use the VPN and employ an unsecured wireless network instead, exposing corporate systems and data to risk.
During the pandemic, threat actors realized that insecure home networks and a lack of security controls typically found on corporate networks could work to their benefit. The World Economic Forum estimates cyber attacks jumped 238% globally between February and April 2020.
Technical Requirements
Secure Infrastructures
Flexible work environments require access to on-premises systems and data, and therefore most enterprises rely on employees using a VPN. However, organizations can’t trust that workers will always use these secure channels. If an employee is using a mobile phone, he or she might forget to use the VPN and employ an unsecured wireless network instead, exposing corporate systems and data to risk.
During the pandemic, threat actors realized that insecure home networks and a lack of security controls typically found on corporate networks could work to their benefit. The World Economic Forum estimates cyber attacks jumped 238% globally between February and April 2020.
NEW ROLE OF THE CISO
Over 80% of security professionals believe social media, mobile messaging, or collaboration apps present medium to high risks to their organization.
SafeGuardCyber Survey April, 2019
Secure Infrastructures
Flexible work environments require access to on-premises systems and data, and therefore most enterprises rely on employees using a VPN. However, organizations can’t trust that workers will always use these secure channels. If an employee is using a mobile phone, he or she might forget to use the VPN and employ an unsecured wireless network instead, exposing corporate systems and data to risk.
During the pandemic, threat actors realized that insecure home networks and a lack of security controls typically found on corporate networks could work to their benefit. The World Economic Forum estimates cyber attacks jumped 238% globally between February and April 2020.
Text
Secure Infrastructures
Flexible work environments require access to on-premises systems and data, and therefore most enterprises rely on employees using a VPN. However, organizations can’t trust that workers will always use these secure channels. If an employee is using a mobile phone, he or she might forget to use the VPN and employ an unsecured wireless network instead, exposing corporate systems and data to risk.
Collaboration and Communications Applications
Organizations also increasingly rely on cloud-based collaboration platforms and personal communications technologies to connect teams across regions and time zones.
Now, more than a year later, not only are organizations continuing to use these technologies, but they’re doubling down. Yet, they still have no way to keep these systems secure from third-party risks. For example, a recent attack against EA Games involved infiltrating the company’s Slack instance and launching a fileless social engineering scheme to gain access to the network, resulting in the theft and exfiltration of highly-valuable intellectual property.
Secure InfrastructuresFlexible work environments require access to on-premises systems and data, and therefore most enterprises rely on employees using a VPN. However, organizations can’t trust that workers will always use these secure channels. If an employee is using a mobile phone, he or she might forget to use the VPN and employ an unsecured wireless network instead, exposing corporate systems and data to risk.
During the pandemic, threat actors realized that insecure home networks and a lack of security controls typically found on corporate networks could work to their benefit. The World Economic Forum estimates cyber attacks jumped 238% globally between February and April 2020.
Collaboration and Communications ApplicationsOrganizations also increasingly rely on cloud-based collaboration platforms and personal communications technologies to connect teams across regions and time zones.
With the sudden onset of the pandemic, many organizations abruptly switched to remote work and found themselves having to allow technologies like MS Teams, Slack, Zoom and Webex on a scale they were uncomfortable permitting earlier. At the time, many IT leaders believed these solutions would be temporary and they’d quickly go back to "normal."
Now, more than a year later, not only are organizations continuing to use these technologies, but they’re doubling down. Yet, they still have no way to keep these systems secure from third-party risks. For example, a recent attack against EA Games involved infiltrating the company’s Slack instance and launching a fileless social engineering scheme to gain access to the network, resulting in the theft and exfiltration of highly-valuable intellectual property.
Communications SolutionsSimilarly, IT once viewed communications solutions like WhatsApp and WeChat as personal apps. Because corporate teams had zero visibility into them, they would not allow employees to do business on them. But in some critical emerging markets, only a small percentage of people use email. Most use mobile chat applications like WhatsApp. It has become a business imperative to use the local technology.
New Security Challenges
These collaboration and communications tools present significant data governance and security challenges for large organizations. In a survey by SafeGuard Cyber:
- 78% of cybersecurity leaders express an inability to protect all communication channels and digital assets6
- 46% say collaboration tools represent the biggest security challenge
- 1 in 3 say their biggest challenge is mobile chat apps, WhatsApp, WeChat, Telegram
- 1 in 5 say their biggest challenge is Video meetings (Zoom, Webex, etc. )
Hybrid work environments will only increase the challenges. As employee devices and laptops move onto the corporate network and then back home where they can be exposed to hackers and more easily infected with malware and ransomware, it will be difficult for security teams to protect employees from threats, detect and respond to insider threats, or stop malware and ransomware.
Only 20% of security professionals feel confident they are effectively mitigating the digital risks from social media, messaging and collaboration apps.
SafeGuardCyber Survey April, 2019
New Security Challenges
These collaboration and communications tools present significant data governance and security challenges for large organizations. In a survey conducted by SafeGuard Cyber:
- 78% of cybersecurity leaders express an inability to protect all communication channels and digital assets
- 46% say collaboration tools represent the biggest security challenge
- 1 in 3 say their biggest challenge is mobile chat apps, WhatsApp, Telegram.
- 1 in 5 say their biggest challenge is Video meetings (Zoom, Webex, etc. )
Hybrid work environments will only increase the challenges. As employee devices and laptops move onto the corporate network and then back home where they can be exposed to hackers and more easily infected with malware and ransomware, it will be difficult for security teams to protect employees from threats, detect and respond to insider threats, or stop malware and ransomware.
Agent-Based Security Solutions Are Ineffective for the Hybrid Workforce
Companies need to deliver secure communications for both BYOD and enterprise devices on a continual and consistent basis. Unfortunately, as organizations move to hybrid remote/on-premises working arrangements, old ways of securing systems and devices no longer suffice.
Traditional agent-based solutions presented two challenges:
- When installed on machines across a network, these solutions drag down overall network performance.
- Managing these solutions adds unnecessary complexity to security team’s daily workloads. Security teams must manage dozens of configurations for thousands of devices, with no visibility on BYOD machines.
Changes in the infrastructure to accommodate hybrid work environments make it even more onerous and less effective to deploy agent-based software.
SafeGuardCyber Survey April, 2019
The SafeGuard Cyber Solution
SafeGuard Cyber delivers a human-centric security solution purpose-built on an agentless architecture in the cloud. The solution authenticates directly into cloud communication and collaboration platforms. No agent configuration. Authorization at the administrator level ensures a portable security layer is extended to any instance, with visibility to detect and respond to internal and external threats at the message level.
Consolidation and SimplificationThe unique benefits of SafeGuard Cyber’s agentless architecture include immediate time-to-value, reduced cost and complexity, and better protection for business-critical cloud communication environments. With streamlined deployment, SafeGuard Cyber delivers a portable security layer that is device and network agnostic. Employees are free to access the cloud applications they need to work effectively, on mobile or desktop apps or even via browsers, and the security controls remain intact. Stop attacks in the cloud before they reach physical endpoints.
SafeGuardCyber Survey April, 2019
Holistic SecurityToday’s attackers don’t come in through a single door. They might groom a target on social media, send a DM or email, or even attack without even using a file. Agentless security provides holistic security across the entire system. Because SafeGuard Cyber can apply controls at the message level, teams have one platform to detect and respond to data loss, insider threats, and malicious content. Organizations no longer need separate DLP, malware detection, and so on.
SafeGuardCyber Survey April, 2019
With SafeGuard Cyber’s agentless architecture, organizations benefit from:
Faster MTTD/R
Gain unprecedented visibility to respond to internal and external threats in hard-to-see places like direct messages and group channels.
Rapid Time to Value
Be up and running in hours not days. Organizations no longer have to configure agents.
Integrated Defense
Connect our agentless security platform into your existing cyber defense systems, feeding event data and telemetry into your EDR and SIEM solutions.
Benefits
With SafeGuard Cyber’s agentless architecture, organizations benefit from:
Faster MTTD/RGain unprecedented visibility to respond to internal and external threats in hard-to-see places like direct messages and group channels. Reduce detection and response times in the cloud infrastructure where work gets done.
Rapid Time to ValueBe up and running in hours not days. Organizations no longer have to configure agents.
Integrated DefenseConnect our agentless security platform into your existing cyber defense systems, feeding event data and telemetry into your EDR and SIEM solutions.
Conclusion
With SafeGuard Cyber, organizations can now rest assured that no matter where their employees are working—whether at the office, on the road, or at home—communication and collaboration apps running on any device or network will be protected. Moreover, they can deploy this protection rapidly.
