McAfee: Changing Business Models Create Endpoint Security Gaps

Endpoint security now is more critical than ever as enterprises’ models shift and bring your own device (BYOD) is spreading across organizations globally.

According to a recent Conference Board global survey, U.S. CEOs ranked cybersecurity as their No. 1 external concern for 2019, ahead of a potential economic recession. The survey polled more than 800 CEOs and more than 600 other C-suite executives, primarily from the United States, Asia and Europe.

In order to increase productivity, organizations are shifting more toward allowing employees’ personal devices such as tablet, laptops and smartphones for carrying out office work, according to Global Info Research. The market for BYOD and its security solutions is increasing among emerging countries considering its massive potential to increase productivity, it said.

We spoke with Nathan Jenniges, McAfee‘s senior director of corporate device security, about why endpoint is one of the key threats enterprise businesses need to keep in mind when building their cybersecurity strategy.

Channel Futures: Are many enterprise businesses unprepared when it comes to endpoint threats?

McAfee’s Nate Jenniges

Nathan Jenniges: A large percentage of enterprises certainly are prepared. They have products that support identifying, detecting and protecting against the vast array of threats. The ongoing challenge for a lot of organizations is how to keep all of that up to date with the latest threat landscape. It’s continuously evolving, and the attacks and techniques are always evolving. And the ability to make sure that you’re keeping up to date on the latest operating systems, patches and security technologies from all of your security vendors that you use on those endpoints, including McAfee, is probably one of their bigger operational challenges to ensure that they have that threat landscape appropriately covered.           

CF: What are some of the common vulnerabilities?

NJ: Vulnerabilities continue to challenge across the entire software ecosystem, whether it’s the operating systems or the applications that are on top of those. We see a continued identification of those vulnerability gaps … and trying to drive a lot faster updates of those systems and helping the enterprise customers keep those updated so that any vulnerabilities that can be identified can be closed because the real challenge with those is closing that gap between when that vulnerability is identified, and when everyone is updated and protected against it.

CF: Why is endpoint one of the key threats enterprise businesses need to keep in mind when building their cybersecurity strategy?

NJ: Endpoints, whether it’s a PC or a mobile device, remain the most vulnerable point for attack because that’s where the actual end user is. A lot of attacks these days, the targeted attacks, try to take advantage of human vulnerabilities and the human is at the endpoint. So endpoint security…