Unknown Threats Continuously Undetected for State Government

The Challenge

The malware threats of today are being designed to hack into any size infrastructure and cause chaos — stealing personal information, financial and corporate records, or planting infections to simply cause IT destruction. All of these new threats start out as an unknown file. But with the onslaught of cybercrime, the traditional antivirus blacklisting of files cannot keep up – and the lag time between malware being made public and then appearing on a blacklist is devastating to companies. Additionally, traditional antivirus solutions have focused on detection – not prevention.

But what if a file is unknown and doesn’t appear on the blacklist? Then traditional antivirus technology allows it to enter an IT environment and potentially infect a system. Technology that can recognize and contain an unknown file is paramount to the prevention of cyberattacks and malware penetration. For small business and non-profit organizations, IT needs are the same as large corporations. A safe IT environment that allows for the storage, collaboration and exchanging of information for the better of the company. But for those small business and non-profit organizations, large IT staffs and budgets are not a standard practice, meaning they could possibly be the most susceptible to attacks. This non-profit organization is one such organization that wanted to ensure its IT environment was safe.

The Approach

The streamlined IT administration team at the non-profit organization consists of just 2 employees who are managing more than 350 computers and endpoints, 30 servers along with a variety of network equipment, across 14 locations. Without the budget of the average corporate entity, the non-profit organization needed to find a method of reducing the amount of time consumed by endpoint antivirus management - while ensuring that its data was secure and contained from any threat of malware. The non-profit organization’s technology infrastructure houses county financial information and budgets, as well as individual’s social security numbers, finances, and home addresses – very personal information to its clients. “We always have a number of concerns for our IT needs – keeping our very sensitive data secure, maintaining a IT system that is virus free, and managing multiple endpoints on a very streamlined budget,” said the IT Coordinator.

The Solution

As the non-profit organization’s current contract with Symantec was nearing expiration, the IT department looked at all competitive solutions on antivirus and anti-spam to evaluate the best cost versus the best performance, to make its next IT infrastructure decision. Through its own research and previous experiences, the organization pulled in all the major vendors including McAfee, Symantec, and Xcitium among others.

“We ran multiple tests and benchmarks of putting Xcitium, Symantec and other antivirus technologies against one other to simply pick out who would perform best,” said the IT Coordinator. “When we tested the Xcitium endpoint security product, it detected viruses and malware that none of the other competing products detected. It was right then and there that we knew Xcitium’s technology had to be the new solution for us to protect our critical data.”

The Xcitium Endpoint Security Management software suite brings five layers of defense (antivirus, firewall, host intrusion prevention, ZeroDwell Containment technology and file reputation) right to the point of impact. Xcitium’s real-time ZeroDwell Containment technology, which is part of Xcitium ESM, eliminates malware outbreaks and operating system contamination by automatically running untrusted processes in an isolated environment. “We strive to protect our clients’ information across all programs within our agency and Xcitium’s antispam protection provides us with a tool that fulfills this need efficiently,” said the IT Director.

“The Xcitium Advanced solution enables us to perform a host of functions directly from the console, eliminating the need to physically connect to each machine. This allows us to complete our work without interrupting the user’s workflow. We also like the remote access feature of this product.”

“The Xcitium technology works very well for our needs for our IT department. Xcitium’s ZeroDwell Containment technology keeps us worry-free because it automatically contains any threat that might be made against our infrastructure,” said the IT Director. For IT administrators, as well as CIOs and CISOs who need to prevent data breaches, Xcitium endpoint security is the only solution that offers on-device, real-time containment technology. Unlike legacy approaches such as blacklisting and ZeroDwell Containment, Xcitium endpoint security uses smart filtering to automatically contain and execute unknown files, without negatively impacting the system performance and the user’s productivity.

ABOUT XCITIUM

Xcitium, formerly known as Comodo Security Solutions, is used by more than 3,000 organizational customers & partners around the globe. Founded with one simple goal – to put an end to cyber breaches. Xcitium’s patented ‘ZeroDwell Containment’ technology uses Kernel API Virtualization to isolate and remove threats like zero-day malware & ransomware before they cause any damage. ZeroDwell Containment is the cornerstone of Xcitium’s endpoint suite which includes Xcitium Essentials, Xcitium Advanced, endpoint detection & response (EDR), Xcitium Managed MDR and Xcitium Complete M(X)DR. Since inception, Xcitium has a zero breach track record when fully configured.