64% of IT security professionals believe malware incidents to be a significant reason for the increase in IT operating expenses (2013 State of The Endpoint, Ponemon)
Today’s malware is increasingly sophisticated, taking advantage of normal user behavior to gain a foothold within your organization. Web browsers, media plugins, Java exploits and removable media are amongst the most common vectors of introduction and each of these require an unknowing user at the keyboard to access the ‘trojan’ content.
However, in order to infect your corporate environment and take hold of your critical systems, malware requires access to an administrator account. Implementing least privilege means removing vulnerable admin accounts whilst assigning privileges to individual applications based on user need.
In 2012, IT professionals voted effective Privilege Management as the most valuable tool for reducing IT risk (2013 State of The Endpoint, Ponemon)
90% of Windows security vulnerabilities will be mitigated overnight when you remove admin rights from your organization. Further Gartner studies have concluded that the least risk Windows 7 desktop can be delivered only where traditional methods of endpoint protection are deployed across standard user accounts.
Optimizing security, increasing operational efficiency and simply demonstrating return on investment from your projects can become somewhat of a juggling act for IT professionals. Prioritizing a least privilege implementation project will allow you to ‘tick the box’ for each of these key deliverables.
