Monday, 23 June 2008

Sophos Posts Results on Global Corporate Endpoint Assessment Test

IT security and control firm Sophos today announced its initial findings from the Sophos Endpoint Assessment Test, a free online scanning service that checks for endpoint security vulnerabilities.

The test looks for missing Microsoft security patches, disabled client firewalls, or missing endpoint security software updates.

According to Sophos, the test ran for 40 days, collected information from over 580 PCs worldwide and revealed that 81 % of the corporate endpoints tested had failed one or more of these basic checks.

From the three tests conducted, results showed that 63 % were missing at least one Microsoft security patch from one of the following: Microsoft Windows operating system, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Microsoft Media Player or Flash Player. Meanwhile, 51 per cent of endpoints tested had disabled client firewalls and 15 per cent had out-of-date or disabled endpoint security software.

“We’re holding up to the light an aspect of endpoint security that has long been evaded by IT departments – the inability to properly assess and control baseline endpoint security requirements such as updated patches, enabled firewalls and current anti-malware signatures updates. Ultimately, machines that fail such a test represent ‘low hanging fruit’ for cybercriminals and a real danger to their corporate networks,” said Jim Dowling, Director of Sales for Asia, Sophos.

Additional statistical information is as follows:

• 39 per cent of the end users were part of an organisation with fewer than 100 users

• 36 per cent were part of an organisation size between 100 and 1000 users

• 25 per cent were from organisations larger than 1000 users

For the Sophos Endpoint Assessment Test, Sophos collected data from 583 corporate endpoints across all geographies. North America represented 39 per cent of the sample base, while the UK made up 36 per cent, and Australia and Germany were 11 percent and 9 percent respectively (5 per cent being other countries).