Security Audit of Corporate Endpoints Reveals Threat Potential

  • May 03, 2007

Promisec Ltd, a technology provider of endpoint security management with the industry's first agentless monitoring and remediation solution that supports layered internal security management, revealed findings from audits performed at 30 large organizations covering 193,000 corporate endpoints. The results from these findings indicate the prevalence of unauthorized software, rogue processes and endpoint security gaps that have the potential for significant security issues at the nation's largest organizations.


Findings of the Promisec summary audit conducted over the last 12 months revealed that 25,090 (13 percent) of corporate PCs surveyed had unauthorized USB devices attached to them, opening the door to data loss and the opportunity for USB-borne viruses and malware to enter the corporate network. A total of 7,720 (4 percent) of corporate PCs had peer-to-peer (P2P) applications installed. More than 2,000 (1.5 percent) of corporate PCs did not have the latest Microsoft service packs and 3,281 (1.7 percent) had anti-virus monitoring and remediation issues. About 2,316 (1.2 percent) of the 193,000 audited endpoints were without required third-party desktop security agents. Finally, 1,582 (0.8 percent) of endpoints had unauthorized remote control software, and a lesser percentage had unauthorized and unprotected shareware.


Promisec Ltd. regularly conducts comprehensive security audits at potential customer sites to identify the prime threats to internal network security, originating at endpoints enterprise-wide. The audit takes less than an hour after implementation of Promisec Spectator Professional, installed on a single enterprise workstation. As revealed in these findings, data loss and illegal software introductions are the two largest threats, driven by the unauthorized connection of USB-attached mass storage devices.


"Organizations are becoming more adept at identifying security threats to their external networks, but internal network security issues represent a substantial problem for businesses challenged with preventing loss of corporate IP and the infiltration of their networks by malware inadvertently introduced by employees and business partners," said Amir Kotler, CEO of Promisec. "The answer to this problem is first understanding the magnitude of it. The loss of internal financial data, customer lists and proprietary product details can be devastating while the introduction of malware can significantly slow down business efficiency -- all of which can be prevented by implementing a strong endpoint security strategy."

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