5 Reasons to Look Beyond ‘Math-based’ Next-Gen Antivirus

Introduction

In this SlideShare we will discuss why the industry’s most hyped math-based prevention product, developed with ‘predictive mathematics’, ‘machine learning’ and ‘artificial intelligence’ is an approach that will not come close to solving your overall endpoint protection challenges.

Here are 5 reasons why:

Against today’s threats, prevention is only part of the battle.Prevention-only products may solve the problem… if organizations only had to defend against Portable Executable and DLL-based malware.

1

PE and DLL-based attacks ONLY represent 50% to 60% of new malware observed each week

No single security technology is 100% effective, so even the malware that these should be able to handle, will occasionally slip by

Prevention-only products will be completely ineffective towards threats that use multiple vectors, especially when they don’t even use files, such as:

• Memory-based malware

• Exploits

• Script-based attacks from the inside

Some things simply can’t be predictedThe premise that ‘math-based’ static prevention is that the true nature of a file (benign or malicious) can be predicted through statistical analysis of predefined attributes is FAULTY

2

This is an application of the same kind of mathematics used across the financial world to predict stock market performance. How well does that actually work?

Much like the stock markets, malware is driven by human behavior which makes it nearly impossible to predict what new tactics and techniques attackers will develop next.

Attackers will still win when protection is a numbers gameWith statistics, perspective is critical. That’s why a 99.9% prevention rate just isn’t going to cut it.

3

It’s time to change your perspective. If you are being threatened by 100 variants of malware then 99.9% prevention sounds pretty good, but what if there are literally millions?

One new zero-day attack is discovered almost every week, and there are almost 1 million new malware variants released EACH week.

Just ONE of these attacks could cause tremendous financial and reputational damage to an organization.

Still feeling great about that 99.9%? Didn’t think so.

YOU have to teach the A.I. (and that takes time)‘Math-based’ next-gen AV products fall short, requiring more time, money and resources to get the A.I. and Machine Learning ramped up.

4

On initial deployment, there’s substantial overhead where security and IT teams need to spend time telling the system what’s safe (versus what’s not), as the product doesn’t use definition files.

It’s up to the admin to investigate files based on MD5 hashes and threat intelligence reports, too.

Depending on the environment and the number of IT resources dedicated to the security project, this process could be extremely time-consuming

Where time and resources are spent on any project, ROI and amount of money invested should always be a consideration

Cloud-based management is the only deployment optionIf your organization adheres to stringent data privacy policies that require it to own its own data, then the industry’s most hyped math-based next-generation AV isn’t an option for you.

It is strictly cloud-based, with no option to deploy as an on-premise management server

5

What Next?Don’t buy into the hype. Today’s threat landscape is far too diverse and sophisticated to rely solely on preventing file-based malware - or on security solutions driven only by predictive analysis.

The best approach to Next-Generation Endpoint Protection addresses all phases of the threat lifecycle. It combines advanced prevention, behavior-based detection and automated response capabilities that can be executed autonomously - on the endpoint itself - for best-in-class protection across all major vectors of attack.

Thank You!To learn more, check out our On-Demand webinar, Beyond Files: The Full Spectrum of Attacks.