EMA Releases Annual Research on Next-Generation Endpoint Security
Boulder, Colo. (PRWEB) February 16, 2017 -- Enterprise Management Associates (EMA), a leading IT and data management research and consulting firm, has released a new research report titled "Next-Generation Security Buyer Perceptions, Priorities, and Issues: A Guide for Endpoint Security Consumers and Vendors," based on criteria defined by David Monahan, research director of security and risk management at EMA.
Next-generation endpoint security (NGES) is a class of technology made for protecting endpoints from compromise and/or notifying system managers of a compromise. An endpoint is anywhere data is stored or processed. This creates a large field for solutions, since it can include not only user stations like PCs and laptops, but also smartphones and tablets as well as servers, credit card processing terminals and other special function devices.
The endpoint security market is an extremely vendor-dense and highly competitive area. Vendors in the space are generally divided into two camps: those promoting prevention and those promoting detection. Prevention vendors alert on attacks they identified and stopped while the detection vendors alert on what happened to the system that looked like an attack.
While the vendors in this space agree that a (strictly) signature-based approach is not the way to go for ongoing success due to inability to scale and false positive/negative alerts, they disagree on which general approach is better. The most common argument between supporters of these approaches goes something like this: detection supporters say that prevention cannot stop everything and thus is not reliable. Prevention supporters say that once the endpoint is compromised, it cannot be trusted and therefore must be cleaned/remediated, taking valuable time from the personnel affected by the clean-up.
The two camps are further joined by the "Big 5" traditional antivirus vendors who dominated the antivirus market for more than a dozen years but in recent years began losing revenue to the startups. Though these companies are currently not much more than a revenue nuisance, as they continue to grow, that impact will increase. It is ultimately the failing of these companies to adapt their technologies and defense strategies to accommodate the advancing attacks that gave way for the creation of the NGES startups.
This research quantifies these perceptions. The approach was to identify as many vendors in the endpoint protection space as possible, letting the research participants identify whether or not they heard of or used each and whether or not they thought they met the provided definition of an NGES solution. Once the baselines were established, qualified respondents were asked about their perceptions of the vendors and what drove the perceptions. The outcome reveals market penetration of the vendors and how well they are perceived in the marketplace, and the data can be used by marketing teams to redirect their efforts in the most useful manner to bolster positive perception and address negative perception.
“This new report surveys IT and security personnel who are both direct users of solutions and those that have not used them to understand the differences in perception and sentiment of solutions providers,” said Monahan. “It answers questions like, ‘Are the Big 5 (Symantec, McAfee, Trend Micro, Sophos and Kaspersky) really providing next-generation solutions for endpoint defense?’ ‘Who are the players in the endpoint protection space?’ and ‘What is the difference between perceived capability and actual capabilities of these vendors?’ The dichotomies are significant between users that have heard about vendors and those that have actually used the solutions. There are some real surprises!"
About EMA
Founded in 1996, EMA is a leading industry analyst firm that provides deep insight across the full spectrum of IT and data management technologies. EMA analysts leverage a unique combination of practical experience, insight into industry best practices, and in-depth knowledge of current and planned vendor solutions to help its clients achieve their goals. Learn more about EMA research, analysis, and consulting services for enterprise line of business users, IT professionals and IT vendors at http://www.enterprisemanagement.com or blogs.enterprisemanagement.com.
Raleigh Gould, Enterprise Management Associates, http://www.enterprisemanagement.com, +1 303-543-9500 Ext: 105, [email protected]
Share this article