Absolute (TSX: ABT), the new standard for endpoint visibility and control, shared new details from a recent Ponemon cost-benchmarking study on managing insecure endpoints. The research into the practices of more than 550 enterprise security and IT professionals revealed traditional manual endpoint security approaches are ineffective and resource-intensive, leading to neglect of basic maintenance such as patches and updates. In the independent “Cost of Insecure Endpoints,” benchmark study, respondents pointed to automation as the answer to saving more than $3.4 million per year, strengthening their endpoint security posture and improving mean time to remediate incidents.
Endpoint security automation was found to be the key to maintaining visibility and control of endpoints in the face of sharp increases in dark endpoints — devices that are off the network, lost, stolen, rogue or operating without effective security in place. According to the survey, automation can better prepare organizations to establish and, more importantly, maintain a desired state of layered endpoint defenses, ensure continued endpoint application integrity and expedite remediation. Automation was also found to be the primary tool needed to combat the rise in fruitless investigation efforts, which are wasting an average of 425 man-hours each week, as teams chase both false negatives and false positives.
“With the looming threat of ransomware attacks and embarrassing data breaches, there is a growing need to automate the security, care and maintenance of the endpoint,” said Christopher Bolin, chief strategy officer at Absolute. “This study underscores the new reality that automation and improved approaches to endpoint security can fill the widening visibility and control gaps across an enterprise’s endpoint population, as well as safeguard an endpoint throughout its life cycle, resulting in a stronger security posture and optimal business performance.”
The survey also found that 61 percent of respondents want automation in their endpoint security arsenal to improve their endpoint security posture and to address:
“At the Ponemon Institute, we’ve followed the endpoint security industry closely for more than a decade. It’s clear that security and IT teams struggle to protect the data on corporate endpoints, ensure compliance and keep up with threats,” said Dr. Larry Ponemon, chairman and founder of the Ponemon Institute. “Organizations need to utilize automated tools to provide visibility into endpoint security health and to better understand risk exposure, ensure compliance and improve visibility.”
The study takes into account the security practices and budgets of more than 550 IT and security practitioners. While the results were staggering, the research did not take into account the liability associated with the increased risk of data breaches that are becoming all too commonplace as workers place data at risk on laptops, mobile phones and tablets.
About Absolute
Absolute is the new standard for endpoint visibility and control, delivering self-healing endpoint security and always-connected IT asset management to protect devices, data, applications and users — on and off the network. Bridging the gap between security and IT operations, only Absolute gives enterprises the visibility they can act on to see and control every endpoint, remediate incidents, protect at-risk data, and ensure compliance in the face of insider and external threats. Absolute’s patented Persistence technology is already embedded in the firmware of more than 1 billion PC and mobile devices and trusted by over 15,000 customers worldwide. For the latest information, visit www.absolute.com and follow us at @absolutecorp.
©2017 Absolute Software Corporation. All rights reserved. Absolute and Persistence are registered trademarks of Absolute Software Corporation. For patent information, visit www.absolute.com/patents. The Toronto Stock Exchange has neither approved nor disapproved of the information contained in this news release.
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