Sophos has announced that Gartner once again positioned Sophos as a ‘leader’ in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Endpoint Protection Platforms (EPP).
With the recently launched next-generation anti-exploit product Sophos Intercept X and the continued enhancement of the cloud-based management platform Sophos Central, Sophos offers a portfolio of endpoint security products that are aimed at effectively fending off today’s sophisticated threats.
According to the report, the next wave of cyber-threats will be fileless. “Advanced attackers have been exploiting script-based attacks for years. Common Windows utilities, such as the command line interface, PowerShell, Perl, Visual Basic, Nmap and Windows Credential Editor, can be exploited to compromise machines without dropping any executable files, evading all traditional forms of malicious file detection.” In response to this, Gartner recommends that “EPP buyers should look for vendors that focus on memory exploit protection, script analysis and behavior indicators of compromise. Ultimately, we [Gartner] believe that vendors that focus on detecting behavior indicative of attacker tradecraft (that is, tools, tactics and techniques) will be the most effective.”
“For the last several years Sophos has built products that integrate exploit prevention, behavior analytics and pre-execution heuristics. The launch of Intercept X added signatureless anti-exploit and anti-ransomware capabilities with root cause analysis to run along-side and complement existing endpoint protection products,” said Dan Schiappa, senior vice president and general manager of the endpoint and network security groups at Sophos. “We believe that our continued placement as a Leader in this highly competitive market reflects our ability to continually innovate and deliver quality products in response to the changing threat landscape. Not only have our products been proven in customer deployments worldwide but they are also assessed by independent third party testing to demonstrate their effectiveness against the threats that Gartner cautions are on the rise.”
He further underlined that Sophos believes that the only way to successfully protect against the growth of sophisticated threats is to use an ensemble of products that work together and share threat and security status for faster detection and more immediate response. “This is the core tenant of our synchronised security strategy. It is only by taking a new ‘best of breed system’ approach to close the gaps that exist in the traditional multi-vendor single product deployments that companies will more effectively protect their critical data assets. Today we include network security, endpoint security and encryption products in this synchronized security strategy and we will continue to expand its capabilities,” said Schiappa.
