Spectacular cyber-attacks in which thousands of data records are stolen or destroyed are making headlines, again and again. Those attacks are by no means the result of a stroke of genius from highly talented hackers. In fact, they are increasingly brought about by criminals who have managed to get through without expensive equipment and professional programming knowledge. They use exploits available free of charge online for many thousands of vulnerabilities that are potentially present on every Windows client and server in a company. A successful attack can be led through each of these gaps. Firewalls and virus scanners do not offer effective protection against these kinds of attacks. It can also be dangerous when a device is not securely configured – a password that has been reused over many services makes attacks on your activities needlessly easy.
Braving gaps is not a virtue for IT administrators against this backdrop. Instead they bear responsibility for the security of data and disruption-free operation of infrastructure. Customer data, business figures, development documents – the consequences of a successful cyber-attack can paralyze operation and disclose confidential company information. In addition to financial losses and damage to the company's image, in the worst-case scenario there is even the risk of investigations by state prosecutors, for example if an infringement of data protection laws is suspected, or if company computers seized have been connected to a botnet and controlled remotely to carry out cyber-attacks. In this case, the trail of IP addresses will lead back to the company.
The high and constantly increasing number of security gaps means it is just not possible for an IT administrator to maintain an overview and reliably ensure the greatest possible degree of security on all end devices without automated resources. The same goes for the configuration of many devices in a business. This white paper describes what dangers are out there and how to design automatic vulnerability management using an endpoint management software, in order to reliably detect dangerous gaps and quickly close them.
