Best Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) Solutions

Typical security tools, like antivirus software and firewalls, rely on matching the signatures of known malware and blacklisting known threat sources. But these measures are not completely effective in stopping advanced persistent threats. These days, attackers use a variety of attack vectors and methods that can bypass traditional protection.

The cyber threat landscape has changed drastically in recent years. Most companies were faced with a sudden need to move to the cloud and manage remote workforces. This moved the perimeter to protect to the endpoints, which became the first line of defense for cybersecurity programs. It means endpoints require advanced security solutions to protect them.

ATP solutions provide this level of protection. They combine several next-generation security technologies to identify attacks early in their life cycles, which can actually break the attack chain and prevent further similar threats.

Advanced threat protection can be delivered in the form of software solutions or services. As attacks continue to be more complex and stealthy, ATP solutions offer a proactive approach to security. They allow the detection, identification, and elimination of advanced threats before an attack can cause damage.

Some of the benefits of advanced threat protection tools include:

• Quick detection and response: Provides proactive analysis, which enables the detection and stopping of attacks as soon as possible. Most ATP solutions have automated response features, which give security teams time to investigate while the system responds to the alert.
• Centralized event information: The best ATP solutions will provide a centralized dashboard. This provides security analysts with the visibility they need over suspicious events. It usually also includes data aggregation and analysis, which helps provide context to events and reduce false positives.
• Prioritization and planning: ATP solutions can provide recommendations about how to respond to specific threats. This gives insights to security teams and helps them decide the most effective response.
• Proactive protection with behavior analysis: A key part of ATP tools is the machine learning behavioral analysis feature. This enables them to differentiate suspicious from normal system behaviors.

Advanced threat protection solutions are focused on providing real-time response. These solutions cover the entire lifecycle of an attack, expanding the opportunities for detection. A faster response to alerts enables the minimization of any damage caused by the attacker.

ATP services add to these benefits by involving a community of security professionals that can monitor, track, and share information about known and unknown threats. ATP service vendors usually have access to threat intelligence networks, which enhances the capabilities of the ATP tools.

When applying an ATD tool, there are best practices that can ensure you make me most of your software:

• Set the solution so it creates a baseline of what is benign software behavior for your organization. You can achieve this by creating a solid behavioral database.
• Create and use a broad repository. The system compares a potential threat against the normal baseline.
• Include data both from threats and from benign activity.
• Implement continuous data collection and analysis. Since ATP tools are based on machine learning techniques, the more data you collect, the more effective your solution is.

Among the goals of an advanced threat protection tool is to detect potential threats early and with the most effective response. ATP solutions are designed to identify and detect attacks like zero-day exploits and malware from sophisticated threat actors. There are several offerings of ATPs, each with different combinations of functionalities. However, there are key features common to the best vendors:

File analytics: Malware is still prevalent, threatening organizations’ endpoints, like remote and mobile devices. Endpoint security requires analyzing all incoming files and deciding if they contain malicious packages before they can be executed on the endpoint.

Prevention and detection: Since no solution is 100% perfect, some attacks may slip past protection barriers. To prevent this from happening, ATP solutions include rapid threat detection and response.

Rich threat intelligence: Cyber threats are constantly evolving, and accessing the right information could mean opening the door for attackers to exploit. Robust cyber threat intelligence gives analysts information on the latest cyberattack campaigns.

Attack surface management: Modern distributed organizations have expanded their attack surface, providing attackers with a lot of opportunities to carry attacks on endpoints. ATP solutions combine an array of techniques to protect an organization, including sandboxing, file analysis, application control, and more.