Companies fail to control third-party apps

Restricting the launch of third-party applications enhances the security of corporate workstations and increases employee efficiency, but 57% of companies do not use any specific tools for application control, according to a survey by Kaspersky Lab.

Cybercriminals have plenty of tricks up their sleeves for infecting a system. Passing malware off as a popular application, for example so that when an employee tries to run the application, the whole infrastructure is compromised. To prevent such incidents, companies need to develop and enforce security policies specifically addressing the installation and launch of applications: but not all are doing so. According to the survey, the majority of companies have no means of controlling applications and 17% of companies have no interest in using new application control technologies or even aren’t aware of them.

It’s a similar story when it comes to connecting external devices and data carriers: only 44% of companies pay enough attention to this issue and deploy device control tools, while 17% of companies aren’t aware of device control tools or have no interest in using them. Meanwhile, malware distributed through USB carriers represents a continuous threat: in 2012 alone, Kaspersky Lab security solutions prevented more than 3 billion local infection attempts. Moreover, giving employees total freedom to connect any external device to the corporate network increases the probability of data leakage.

Kaspersky Lab endpoint controls:

The use of endpoint controls can be highly beneficial to any business. Application control provides additional protection from malware and restricts the use of leisure applications such as games or torrent clients. Control over portable external devices prohibits unauthorised connections, lowers the probability of data leakage and helps prevent workstation infection through inappropriate devices. Finally, web control allows either a total ban on, or time limitations on visiting, certain websites. This may stop employees wasting time on sites which are not work related, and can also add extra protection against malware and fraudulent websites.

The Kaspersky Endpoint Security for Business platform incorporates all three control technologies into the Endpoint Controls feature. This enables businesses to tackle all the issues described above, offering many important benefits. The controls are easy to configure and are centrally managed, allowing administrators to create and apply flexible security policies simultaneously across any number of corporate endpoints.

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