The rapid adoption of digital technologies has changed the way businesses were conducted, until, about a few years back. Today’s digital businesses driven by IoT, SMAC are focused on creating seamless consumer access and experience across channels. At the same time there can be no compromise, as consumers trust businesses with their preferences, data and financial information. This dichotomy of conflicting objectives has forced CIOs to respond to market forces with agility and speed-up roll out of digital capabilities, which in turn has expanded the radius of the attack surface and exposed new and virulent threat vectors along with complex cyber security challenges.

As per the RSA Cyber Security Poverty Index 2016, 70 percent of organizations had having had a security incident that negatively affected their business operations in the past 12 months. The global scale of the recent ransomware & malware attacks explains the astonishing speed at which these attacks can spread around the world, resulting in data breaches and security compromises. These global threats are a reminder that every business today, whether it is the smallest mom-and-pope store, or an SMB, or even a large MNC, all are equally vulnerable, and need to consider security as an important layer in IT and business foundation, necessary for their survival and growth.

Unhindered rise of Web Browser as the primary attack vector

The rapid rise in the volume of web content is accessed through one application – the “web browser”. As web browser is the only application on your desktop that regularly downloads and executes code from all networks, it has now become the biggest security vulnerability. With over 80 percent malware attacks targeted through the browser, hackers are exploiting the inherent vulnerabilities associated with unrestricted access to endpoints, freedom to execute code as part of the webpage, and vulnerabilities within plug-ins, to launch sophisticated cyber attacks – impacting business continuity and revenues, while eroding consumer trust and loyalty.

The conventional detection-and-response based security approach through policy based firewalls and signature based preventions isn’t capable of containing the vagaries of these modern malware attacks. In fact, this has been verified in a research conducted and published by FireEye in 2015 of more than 1,000 organizations, which highlighted that 96 percent of these had been breached despite having a defense-in-depth security strategy. Therefore,in the wake of the sophisticated web based malware attacks, there is a need for comprehensive containment security approach – isolating browsing sessions from enterprise network and endpoints to guarantee malware-free browsing.

Isolation technology – transition from malware detection to complete malware isolation

Isolation technology is designed to adopt a ‘predict and isolate’ approach versus the traditional ‘detect and respond’ approach, thereby redefining how one secures the enterprise from malware-based threats. Seamless to the end user, the technology helps to keep suspicious documents in a contained ‘isolated’ environment, preventing malware from executing.

With the advent of a mobile workforce and infrastructure in the digital age, businesses need to plan ahead, on securing their information, the fulcrum around which security vectors are likely to revolve in the future

Working in tandem with existing security measures, isolation technology is an effective endpoint security strategy. In fact,Gartner has recognized Isolation Technology as the top technology to protect against cyber threats. In its assessment, it noted that it has helped to significantly reduce the surface area for attack by isolating the browsing function from the rest of the endpoint and corporate network, keeping malware off the end-user's system.

Isolation – complete freedom from web malware

Isolation technology assumes that all web content is ‘Bad’. Hence,it isolates all external web content – regardless of whether it is from trusted or untrusted websites. This air-gap ensures that the web content is rendered outside of the network to prevent any access to endpoint devices, effectively eliminating the web browser as the primary vector for cyber attacks on businesses. Here’s why it works:

• Always Prepared: Existing detection solutions require perfect accuracy to recognize attacks, which may just not be realistic. In the real world, organizations have to accept that endpoints can and will become infected – especially since end users comprise what is by far the largest area of the attack surface; and also the most vulnerable. The beauty of isolation technology is that it expects to be attacked, and therefore, places itself between the users and the web eliminating all malicious or potentially malicious content in a secure containerized environment(VM).

• Maximum Protection:This technology delivers the most secure environment available today and leverages multiple layers of isolation at every step, to ensure that endpoints remain protected. From content and process isolation, session isolation, appliance isolation, to connection isolation and physical isolation, it promises complete enterprise coverage by defeating all web malware.

• Designed for Tolerance: A good enterprise solution needs to have a highly scalable approach; one that allows the largest number of users possible, to browse through the platform and isolation technology is designed for maximum scalability and fault tolerance. Current server processing capabilities coupled with smart load balancing techniques make it capable to support any size organization while minimizing capital and operational costs.

Isolate Malware; Secure Businesses

With the advent of a mobile workforce and infrastructure in the digital age, businesses need to plan ahead, on securing their information, the fulcrum around which security vectors are likely to revolve in the future.

There is a clear need to establish a solid security first approach; with centralized security control, better defined policies, stringent adherence to compliance requirements and regular security awareness program. According to a Gartner report while currently only five percent of enterprises have invested in Malware Isolation technologies, by 2021, this number will rise to be as high as 50 percent. In this set-up Isolation technology can act as a barrier and help organizations be on - constant guard to contain threats emanating from the evolving threat landscape. We are excited to partner industry doyens on paving the way for a malware free enterprise, with our Isolation technology.