Protection against what??? I thought Altiris was a management suite, not a security product.
You are absolutely correct in your statement. Altiris indeed is a product capable to manage endpoints, regardless of their hard-and software state.
Ever heard of the sentence: a well-managed endpoint is a well-protected endpoint?
When I state “well-managed” in this blog, I mean patch management.
The Symantec Client and Server Management Suites include the awesome Patch Management Solution
This patch engine does not only includes the possibility to patch Windows, MacOS and Linux/Unix, but is also capable to connect to more than 50 different software vendor repositories to get the newest patches/version upgrades without any hassle.
All this is done without third-party solutions or any other tricks that we “forgot to mention” ;-). It’s natively Symantec!
Now then, let’s relate Patch Management with protection against zero-day attacks.
In “the good old days” a virus attack meant that a company was hit by a virus.
The virus attack was usually hard, quick and really visible to everyone and everything the virus touched on its “path to destruction”.
These days however, such a virus attack is only responsible for circa 20% of the threat landscape.
Various different types of malware have found their way into our community – personal and company based.
We now have malware, spyware, ransom ware and – sadly enough – much more.
An attack by – for example – a spyware, is not devastating to the company’s assets, but is created to work “in ninja mode” and extract as much data as possible out of the company.
If an attacker wants to get into your organization and plant a malware, this too has to be done in stealth mode to prevent getting detected
One of the favourite ways to infiltrate organisations, is through so-called “security holes” in software like Adobe’s Flash.
Adobe – like many other software vendors – constantly searches for these holes in its software applications and closes these gaps through new versions or updates.
In other words: If you are not able to constantly patch your third-party applications asap, the chances are you will be attacked in the near future, or worse, it’s already happening!
So, now we know that the Patch Management solution is vital a part of your security solutions.
The last challenge now arises:
We don’t want to spend any time (or at least as little as possible) in patching software and keeping our managed environment up-to-date.
Did you know that, when you bought the Altiris Client and/or Server Management Suite, you are entitled to use the Symantec Workflow Solution without any extra costs?
This Symantec product is actually a UWL (drawing product), but one that does not only shows graphic, but actually does the things you have drawn into it.
Combine the Patch Management Solution with the Symantec Workflow Solution and you are capable
automating the software/OS patching to your company needs and policies!
Conclusion: Where the Symantec Patch Management Solution is a cross-platform versatile product, combined with the Symantec Workflow Solution, you company is best protected against zero-day threats