Endpoint security the real worry?

Bromium has published “Black Hat 2015: State of Security,” a survey of more than 100 information security professionals conducted at the Black Hat Conference 2015. The survey reveals issues with Flash and security patch management, with the majority of respondents citing the endpoint as the source of greatest risk. The report also highlights the risk of cyber attacks on critical infrastructure and an initial positive reception to Windows 10.

  • 9 years ago Posted in

“One reason that the endpoint is the source of the greatest security risk is because of how difficult it is to balance security and productivity. For example, 90 percent of organisations would be more secure if they disabled Flash, but 41 percent would become less productive,” said Clinton Karr, senior security strategist, Bromium. “Traditional security solutions have proven ineffective at mitigating this dilemma, putting our critical infrastructure at significant risk.”

Key findings from “Black Hat 2015: State of Security” include:
The Endpoint Is the Source of Greatest Security Risk — The majority of information security professionals cited the endpoint as the source of the greatest security risk (55 percent). The second most common response was insider threats (27 percent). Network (9 percent) and cloud (9 percent) were selected less frequently.
Security Professionals Pan Flash — The overwhelming majority of security professionals believe their organisation would be more secure if it disabled Flash (90 percent); however, 41 percent believe disabling Flash would make their organisation less productive or break critical applications.
Implementing Security Patches Is a Challenge — The majority of organisations implement patches for zero-day vulnerabilities in software, such as Flash and Internet browsers, in the first week (50 percent first week; 10 percent first day); however, 22 percent take more than a month to deploy.
Critical Infrastructure Is at Risk of Cyber Attack — The majority of Black Hat attendees cited financial services (30 percent), energy (17 percent), healthcare (17 percent) and government (12 percent) as the verticals at the most risk of cyber attacks. Interestingly, financial services was also selected as the vertical that has implemented the best security practices (60 percent).
Windows 10 Improves Security, But Not Enough — The majority of information security professionals believe Windows 10 improves security (56 percent), but many (33 percent) believe these improvements are not enough.

New state-of-the-art data centre features Vultr’s first AMD GPU supercompute cluster.
Only a quarter (25%) think their approach to the cloud is carefully considered and successful.
Moving to AWS Cloud will enable The Co-operative Bank to adopt cutting edge IT Infrastructure.
The global airline group will upgrade the value of its data and get its AI & generative AI ready...
Barracuda Networks’s award-winning Email Protection and Cloud Backup security solutions will be...
Leading company in renewables to leverage HPE’s unique turnkey AI infrastructure solution to...
The four-year project extension focuses on cloud transformation and enhanced operational efficiency...
Businesses in the UK are risking slower development as they fail to fully embrace technologies that...