In the security track at VMware Explore, our team had the pleasure of engaging with some of the best in the industry, who shared ideas, insights, and what keeps them up at night. In the panel sessions and one-on-one chats, we discussed top-of-mind critical security issues affecting organizations’ daily business and employee experiences.
Here are my top five EUC security takeaways from Explore.
1. Endpoint detection response alone isn’t enough.
Not too long ago, malware scanning solutions were the keys to stopping endpoint attacks. Over time threats have evolved, and security teams must now look for behavioral detections and then collect all the telemetry available to investigate malicious behavior within an environment. Panelists in this session, “Tear Down the Wall with Unified Endpoint Security [USB2249US],” all agreed risks have evolved so much that teams can no longer just scan for malware or unusual behavior. IT and security teams must now look for everything, not just from EDR (endpoint detection response) but to XDR (everything detection response), across all device, network, and mobile telemetry.
2. Digital fingerprinting is an anti-fraud technique.
The “VMware Secure Access: Building Zero Trust Network Access with VMware Workspace ONE [CEIB1860US]” session reviewed concepts of identity to achieve conditional access with VMware Workspace ONE. Experts talked about leveraging Workspace ONE Intelligence to help calculate risks and create digital fingerprints for users to establish trust in their identity.
Digital fingerprinting includes:
- Device health checks: Is the device trusted, managed? What type of software is it running? Does it have the most recent patch version?
- Identity: What are you entitled to access? What are you assigned? How are you authenticating? Where are you logging in from?
- Behavior: When and where are you accessing applications from?
3. Traditional VPNs are costly and not that secure.
While many organizations had to expand network access when employees began to work from home, one of our customers reduced costs and shrank VPN usage. You can hear how our customer moved their users off VPN in “Conditional Access – First Step to Zero Trust Security [EUSB2251US].” By knowing the user and behavior insights of the endpoint device, they were able to provide a passwordless experience, while improving their security.
It takes time to design, implement, deploy, and migrate to a passwordless state. Learn tips on where to begin your passwordless Zero Trust journey in this session, “Legacy VPNs – Friend or Foe?”
4. Username and password will no longer be the primary source of authentication.
Security is top of mind when it comes to identity. For organizations, identities are not limited to employees. They include partners, suppliers, and customers — and knowing who’s in and who’s out is a daily challenge. This session, “Modern Identity Solutions [EUSB2261US],” covers how VMware has embedded next-gen identity services such as single sign-on (SSO), passwordless authentication to help customers mitigate risks and reduce attack surface areas.
5. Patching can be done without a lot of heavy lifting.
One retail customer manages more than 250 thousand desktops, laptops, mobile devices, and virtual applications across Windows, Mac, iPhone, and Android operating systems. These include 100 thousand rugged Android devices, single-user devices, and other shared devices, such as point-of-sale. Our customers’ update goal is N-1 (next to most recent and generally available release of the software) patching. Prior to modern management, Patch Tuesdays was a weekly event with a lot of heavy lifting for deployments. Listen to this session, “All Patched Up: Manage Patching at Scale with Workspace ONE [EUSB1860US],” to learn how they reached their N-1 goal and shortened their patch cycle from 30 days to 15.
Throughout the insightful EUC Security breakout discussions, our customers, partners, and industry leaders all acknowledged there will continue to be disruptions. Yet, when they come, we will be there to not only weather the storm, but also come out of it stronger — together.
If you were not in person at VMware Explore, let me invite you to watch or listen to on-demand recordings for free! I’ve been listening to many on-demand sessions as there was so much good information. Log in to your VMware Events account with your existing credentials or create one to access more than 70 Hybrid Workforce track sessions.
For more VMware Explore news, see all the articles in our VMware Explore 2022 category.
