Everyone knows that traditional antivirus isn’t enough to stop today’s advanced threats, so endpoint security vendors are hoping you’ll consider their “next-gen” solutions. But what exactly does “next-gen” mean, and what capabilities should you expect?

At Sophos, we believe next-gen endpoint protection means an integrated system of technologies that protect against all stages of an attack:

1. Prevention: Stopping malware before it can execute
2. Detection: Identifying quickly when malware is deployed.
3. Response: Taking action instantly when malware is detected.

Let’s take a quick look at the capabilities your endpoint protection needs to counter threats at each stage.

1. Prevention: The defensive front line

Prevention focuses on stopping malware from ever reaching the device in the first place. Prevention capabilities can be broken down into exposure prevention and pre-execution defense.

Exposure prevention:
– Web protection – can you block malicious webpages?
– Device control – which devices (e.g., USB drives) are allowed to access the endpoint?
– Download reputation – where does the file come from, do other machines in the organization use it?

Pre-execution defense:
– File analytics/HIPS – does a file contain code trying to modify the registry?
– Emulator – can you execute the file in a safe environment to test it?

2. Detection: Catching malware in the act

Detection uses a variety of methods to identify malware that has reached a device. A next-gen endpoint solution should have these run-time detection capabilities.

– Malicious traffic detection – are processes communicating with known threat locations (phoning home)?
– Memory scanning – is a file exhibiting behavior of known malware?
– Exploit detection – is the suspect process cataloging the memory of another process?

3. Response: Clean-up and analysis

Response capabilities should eliminate the malware and perform analysis to identify the entry point of the malware.

– Malware removal – can your endpoint solution remove the executable and other malware components?
– Root cause analysis – can it identify the malware’s origin to understand what was compromised?

Choosing a truly “next-gen” endpoint solution

Sophos experts have written a simple guide to explain why organizations like yours need next-gen endpoint protection. It also explains in straightforward terms the features that a next-gen endpoint solution should have, and how they keep your users and systems secure.

Download the free whitepaper, or sign up for a free 30-day trial of Sophos Next-Gen Endpoint Protection.

Article originally appeared on the Sophos blog