Heuristic & behavior analysis

This new version of DeepGuard combines some of our most advanced security technologies, including artificial intelligence and machine learning. It's the final and most critical layer of defense against new threats—even those that target previously unknown vulnerabilities.

DeepGuard observes application behavior and proactively intercepts any potentially harmful action on the fly before it causes damage. By switching the focus from signature characteristics to malicious behavior patterns, DeepGuard can identify and block malware even before a sample has been acquired and examined.

When an unknown or suspicious program is first launched, DeepGuard temporarily delays its execution to perform a file reputation and prevalence rate check, runs it in a sandbox environment, then finally executes it for behavioral analysis and exploit interception.

For more information about the functions and benefits of DeepGuard, consult our technical whitepaper.

Protect data against ransomeware

WithSecure™ DataGuard (formerly known as F-Secure) subjects selected high-risk and value-critical folders to advanced monitoring and additional detection logic. It makes them significantly more fortified against ransomware, and prevents malicious and unknown applications from destroying or tampering with the data that they contain. The high-risk and value-critical folders include, for example, the Downloads folder (web downloads), document folders, temp files (email attachments), and data repositories.

The feature's complementary detection logic significantly increases detection accuracy and aggressiveness against ransomware and their encryption processes. The Data Access module ensures that the data in these folders is not destroyed, tampered with, or encrypted by malicious or unknown applications, such as ransomware. Among other benefits, the Data Access module enables the recovery of data in the event of a successful ransomware attack, as it cannot encrypt the data located in those folders.

WithSecure™ DataGuard is available in WithSecure™ Elements EPP for Servers Premium for Windows servers.

Access for approved hardware only

Device Control prevents threats from entering your system via hardware devices such as USB sticks, CD-ROM drives, and web cameras. This also prevents data leakage, by allowing read-only access, for example.

When a prohibited device is plugged in, Device Control turns it off to prevent user access. You can block access to devices by setting predefined rules, and set rules to allow specific devices while all other devices of the same class are blocked. You can for example:

• Disallow running programs from USB/CD/other drives: disable auto run, accidental execution or loading modules from removable drives.
• Block device classes completely.
• Define read-only access to USB/CD/other drives.
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• Block device classes with exception of specified devices.

Device Control is available in WithSecure™ Elements EPP for Servers for Windows servers.

Prevent applications from executing

Application Control prevents threats from executing and running scripts, even if they bypass other security layers to get onto your device. This mitigates the risks posed by malicious, illegal, and unauthorized software in the corporate environment.

With Application Control you can:

• Identify and control which applications are allowed to run in your environment
• Identify trusted, authorized software automatically
• Prevent all other applications, whether malicious, untrusted, or simply unwanted from running 
• Eliminate unknown and unwanted applications in your environment to reduce complexity and risk
• Monitor all applications running within the endpoint environment

Finally, you can use it to block applications from running scripts, for example:

• Prevent all Microsoft Office applications from running PowerShell scripts
• Prevent all Microsoft Office applications from running Batch scripts

Application control works based on rules created by our penetration testers that cover attack vectors used to breach into corporate environments. Alternatively, the administrator can define the rules based on various criteria, such as the application name or version.

Application Control is available in WithSecure™ Elements EPP for Servers Premium for Windows servers.

Real-time threat intelligence

WithSecure™ Security Cloud is our own cloud-based threat analysis system. It utilizes big data and machine learning, among other input, to continuously add to our knowledge base of digital threats. Security Cloud is constantly in touch with client systems, identifying new threats as they emerge and providing protection within minutes.

A cloud-based threat analysis service affords many benefits over traditional approaches. We gather threat intelligence from a vast number of client nodes, building a real-time picture of the global threat situation. Within minutes, we use that knowledge to protect our customers.

For example, if DeepGuard's heuristic and behavior analysis identifies a zero-day attack, the information is shared with all protected devices via WithSecure™ Security Cloud - rendering the advanced attack harmless mere minutes after initial detection.

For more details on the functions and benefits of WithSecure™ Security Cloud, consult our technical whitepaper.

Superior malware protection

Our computer security component utilizes our multi-engine security platform to detect and prevent malware. It offers superior protection to traditional signature-based technologies:

• Detects a broader range of malicious features, patterns, and trends, enabling more reliable and accurate detections, even for previously unseen malware variants.
• By using real-time look-ups from WithSecure™ Security Cloud, it can react faster to new and emerging threats in addition to ensuring a small footprint
• Emulation enables detection of malware that utilizes obfuscation techniques, and offers another layer of security before a file is run.

Proactive web security

Browsing Protection is a key security layer that proactively prevents terminal users from visiting malicious sites. This is particularly effective, as early intervention greatly reduces overall exposure to malicious content, and thus to attacks.

For example, Browsing Protection will prevent terminal users from being tricked into accessing seemingly legitimate phishing sites, accessing malicious sites through an email link, or getting infected through malicious third-party advertisements on otherwise legitimate sites.

The feature works by fetching the latest reputation check of the websites and their files from WithSecure's Security Cloud, based on various data points such as IP addresses, URL keywords and site behavior.

Browsing Protection is fully browser agnostic, as it works on the network level. This ensures that it still provides protection even if the end-user is not using company sanctioned browsers.

Sharing files on local file servers is exposing organizations to the risk of ransomware attacks, especially whenever devices that are out of the organization’s full control, access the server shares. This can result in the encryption of large amount of important files, making them unusable.

You can safely continue using file shares by having Server Share Protection as an additional ransomware protection designed to immediately identify and rollback any encryption, or other unintentional destruction of files, and safeguard your organization from the spread of the ransomware.

Server share protection prevents encryption of file shares by remote computers infected by ransomware, including ‘bring-your-own devices’ that are not managed by the organization.

• Files are immediately restored in case ransomware or other malware is starting to encrypt the files. 
• Devices trying to encrypt files are temporarily blocked from accessing the file share again.
• Detected malicious behavior and performed rollback are reported to the administrator with details about originating user and device.

• Server Share Protection is available in WithSecure™ Elements EPP for Servers for Windows servers.   

Additional protection for Citrix environments

On top of the same core security capabilities as for Windows servers, the Citrix component provides additional protection for Citrix environments by extending the integrated patch management capabilities for published applications. The client is Citrix Ready-certified, ensuring that it works flawlessly in Citrix environments.

Core security for Linux clients

Linux Security provides core security capabilities for Linux clients: multi-engine anti-malware and built-in firewall management, in addition to vital integrity checking. It is designed to detect and prevent both Windows and Linux-based attacks, making it particularly useful in mixed environments, where an unprotected Linux machine could be used as an easy attack vector.