57% of companies fail to control applications used by employees

15 May 2013

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Restricting the launch of third-party applications enhances the security of corporate work stations and increases employee efficiency. Yet, a survey by cyber security firm Kaspersky Lab in collaboration with B2B International in November, 2012, revealrd 57 per cent of companies do not use any specific tools for application control.

Cybercriminals have plenty of tricks up their sleeves for infecting a system such as passing malware off as a popular application, for example, that compromises the entire infrastructure when an employee tries to run the application.

To prevent such incidents, companies need to develop and enforce security policies specifically addressing the installation and launch of applications; but not all are doing so.

According to the survey, the majority of companies have no means of controlling applications and 17 per cent of companies have no interest in using new application control technologies or aren't even aware of them.

It's a similar story when it comes to connecting external devices and data carriers - only 44 per cent of companies pay enough attention to this issue and deploy device control tools, while 17 per cent of companies aren't aware of device control tools or have no interest in using them.

Meanwhile, malware distributed through USB carriers represents a continuous threat: in 2012 alone, Kaspersky Lab security solutions prevented more than 3 billion local infection attempts. Moreover, giving employees total freedom to connect any external device to the corporate network increases the probability of data leakage.

The use of endpoint controls can be highly beneficial to any business. Application control provides additional protection from malware and restricts the use of leisure applications such as games or torrent clients. Control over portable external devices prohibits unauthorised connections, lowers the probability of data leakage and helps prevent workstation infection through inappropriate devices.

Finally, web control allows either a total ban on or time limitations on visiting certain websites. This may stop employees wasting time on sites which are not work related and can also add extra protection against malware and fraudulent websites.

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