The continuing increase in cyberattacks is fueling the push for federal agencies to create zero-trust environments. According to Verizon’s 2022 Data Breach Investigations Report, the public sector reported nearly 3,000 cyber incidents in 2021, with more than 75 percent of them committed by external threat actors.
Zero trust is mandated for federal agencies today, although it is not a simple solution to implement and cannot be delivered as a single product. The concept builds on the idea that every device, user and network flow must be authenticated and authorized before it’s permitted on the network.
This makes endpoint protection a critical component in the long road to zero trust, because it can authenticate users, actions, credentials and endpoint hardware. It won’t provide zero trust on its own, but it’s a necessary component.
The WatchGuard EDR endpoint detection and response tool is designed to integrate with any network regardless of complexity. Once in place, it automates many security processes and checks, reporting and acting on its findings by itself or as part of a growing zero-trust infrastructure.
How These Cybersecurity Tools Can Prevent Attacks
WatchGuard EDR installs on top of any existing anti-virus solution and adds a full stack of capabilities, including a zero-trust application service and a threat hunting service. The tool’s key functions are automated to ensure that it does not contribute to network complexity or sprawl.
Key features include protection against zero-day attacks, which WatchGuard EDR achieves by watching for suspicious user or application behavior.
It also supports threat hunting by providing a detailed log of all endpoint, user and application actions so that IT staff can look for anomalies or threats that may slip past the automatic protection.
WatchGuard EDR supports efforts to stop attacks without a malware component by providing visibility and monitoring of behaviors — critical when stopping attacks that are using valid credentials.
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How Your Agency Can Bolster Existing Cybersecurity Tools
WatchGuard offers protection beyond the standard scanning and known-threat protection embedded inside most EDR platforms. In fact, WatchGuard EDR’s advanced capabilities seamlessly add zero-trust elements to endpoint protection.
Even if a user’s or app’s credentials are valid, WatchGuard EDR will block entry to the network if the user or app is not behaving normally.
WatchGuard EDR’s very modern user interface makes it easy to use, simple and quick to deploy, and even easier to manage. In testing the software, I was able to use that interface to centralize IT security management for all endpoints, physical and virtual.
Getting to zero trust won’t be a quick fix for any agency, but WatchGuard EDR can be a big step in that journey. It adds continuous monitoring capabilities to a network’s sometimes-overlooked endpoints while integrating easily with all existing and future protections.
SPECIFICATIONS
APP TYPE: Endpoint protection platform
OS COMPATIBILITY: Android, Linux, macOS, Windows
LICENSE TYPE: Subscription
LICENSE QUANTITY: 1 endpoint device
LICENSE PERIOD: 3 years
INSTALLATION: Local
