Carbon Black is far from the only player in the space. Tanium, Crowdstrike, Trusteer, Cylance, Cisco AMP, etc.
The way these "next-gen" endpoint systems work is by doing a deep analysis of every file, and like you said, uploading the hash to a central server for faster processing later. Your use case is atypical for CB customers but I fully believe you're having these issues. There's a drawback to every kind of endpoint protection. It does seem that the more general population is worse off with traditional malware protection than CB, but your use case seems non-traditional.
I should note that I am not affiliated with any endpoint product and AFAIK the absolutely massive company I work for doesn't even have an endpoint product that competes in the next-gen space. I'm just a security consultant who sees a lot of Fortune 500 companies and notices the trends they set/follow. It's trending away from Symantec and towards Carbon Black/Tanium/Cylance/etc.
Do you feel it’s technically superior or just people following the fancy new tech dragon (or something else like because it also lets you spy on employees, if it does, I don’t know)?
(Not that it’s really fancy new tech - checksum AV have been around even since DOS. I’d have thought the best thing would be a combination of the two).
I do think it's technically superior when used right. Namely, application whitelisting is technically superior. Most employees only have a small number of applications they need to run, and making sure everything else fails to start is the right choice.
Obviously it's not perfect for everyone and technical staff will often need to run esoteric and constantly-changing applications, so whitelisting isn't always possible. In that case, using a checksum and having the central server is a better way of handling it. Better yet is something like FireEye which can intercept your file downloads and scan them before it hits your machine. I can't speak for which next-gen endpoint solution works best since that's not my area of expertise, but I can say it's better than traditional AV (which is basically useless). In that case, blacklisting is the better choice, for software no one should have installed.
"Spying on employees" is an interesting take on what I consider to be basic security. I'm heavily involved in technology that, if the end user saw what we could see, they'd be horrified. Basically, if you're in the US and using your employer's laptop on your employer's network, you have zero privacy and everything you do and every site you visit is being logged into a central log repository and can be made available to the security and audit teams at a moment's notice. Most of the time no one is watching it, no one except an AI looking for anomalies and reporting on outliers, but it's possible. If you're doing DNS lookups to your company's DNS server, they know every site you've visited. If you're using telnet or ftp or POP3, they know your passwords too, because they're likely sniffing internal network traffic as well and storing packet captures. And they may even be breaking SSL at the proxy or gateway level, so that doesn't help you.
Basically, if you're worried that Carbon Black sending a list of your installed applications is your employer "spying" on you, they're already collecting far more data than you think. Installed applications is the least of your concern. But again... that's not your laptop and it's not your network. It's all owned by your company, and governed by their acceptable use policy in the employee handbook.
Freehunter, grateful for your thoughts on the below in response to your comment about technical staff running esoteric and constantly changing apps and therefore whitelisting isn't always possible.
Can apply prevention for
PowerShell, bat, java, javascript(node.js), perl, python, php scripts
Any other specified interpreter can be added using an Enhanced Scripts feature
REGSVR32.EXE (2016) without disabling its use
“Trusted Script” technology allows IT to continue using REGSVR32.EXE while blocking any untrusted scripts loaded
Dynamically generated scripts (Trusted Children) e.g. Apps that spit out constantly changing .BAT scripts
HP Warranty Checker
Dell’s KACE
Continuum RMM
And any application can be trusted by one click and that trust propagated across the enterprise similar to Active Directory’s inheritance mode.
Sorry, I honestly have no idea. I don't work with endpoint that closely, I'm more on the security architecture side. I have wonderful technical engineers on my projects who are paid to get that in-depth, but that's not me.
I call it the office bathroom camera problem & the creepy sysadmin problem. If employers were forced to be upfront about what they were doing, the equivalent of putting cameras inside each bathroom stall and having no real access control over what admins are doing with that data, people would be creeped out very quick.
They might move to employers who aren't that creepy.
I think it's a sexual harassment scandal waiting to happen, and hope things like the laws in Austria is what the rest of the world will adopt eventually:
You should read your employee handbook. It's not a ToS and it's not a legalese, they're generally pretty straightforward. Don't use your work machine for anything non work related. Pretend your screen can be seen by everyone at the company (because it probably can).
I will note that most regulations in the US (PCI, SOX, etc) require centralized log management. Unless you're at the smallest of small companies, your employer is doing this. It's a basic requirement.
Comments
Carbon Black is far from the only player in the space. Tanium, Crowdstrike, Trusteer, Cylance, Cisco AMP, etc.
The way these "next-gen" endpoint systems work is by doing a deep analysis of every file, and like you said, uploading the hash to a central server for faster processing later. Your use case is atypical for CB customers but I fully believe you're having these issues. There's a drawback to every kind of endpoint protection. It does seem that the more general population is worse off with traditional malware protection than CB, but your use case seems non-traditional.
I should note that I am not affiliated with any endpoint product and AFAIK the absolutely massive company I work for doesn't even have an endpoint product that competes in the next-gen space. I'm just a security consultant who sees a lot of Fortune 500 companies and notices the trends they set/follow. It's trending away from Symantec and towards Carbon Black/Tanium/Cylance/etc.
Do you feel it’s technically superior or just people following the fancy new tech dragon (or something else like because it also lets you spy on employees, if it does, I don’t know)?
(Not that it’s really fancy new tech - checksum AV have been around even since DOS. I’d have thought the best thing would be a combination of the two).
I do think it's technically superior when used right. Namely, application whitelisting is technically superior. Most employees only have a small number of applications they need to run, and making sure everything else fails to start is the right choice.
Obviously it's not perfect for everyone and technical staff will often need to run esoteric and constantly-changing applications, so whitelisting isn't always possible. In that case, using a checksum and having the central server is a better way of handling it. Better yet is something like FireEye which can intercept your file downloads and scan them before it hits your machine. I can't speak for which next-gen endpoint solution works best since that's not my area of expertise, but I can say it's better than traditional AV (which is basically useless). In that case, blacklisting is the better choice, for software no one should have installed.
"Spying on employees" is an interesting take on what I consider to be basic security. I'm heavily involved in technology that, if the end user saw what we could see, they'd be horrified. Basically, if you're in the US and using your employer's laptop on your employer's network, you have zero privacy and everything you do and every site you visit is being logged into a central log repository and can be made available to the security and audit teams at a moment's notice. Most of the time no one is watching it, no one except an AI looking for anomalies and reporting on outliers, but it's possible. If you're doing DNS lookups to your company's DNS server, they know every site you've visited. If you're using telnet or ftp or POP3, they know your passwords too, because they're likely sniffing internal network traffic as well and storing packet captures. And they may even be breaking SSL at the proxy or gateway level, so that doesn't help you.
Basically, if you're worried that Carbon Black sending a list of your installed applications is your employer "spying" on you, they're already collecting far more data than you think. Installed applications is the least of your concern. But again... that's not your laptop and it's not your network. It's all owned by your company, and governed by their acceptable use policy in the employee handbook.
Freehunter, grateful for your thoughts on the below in response to your comment about technical staff running esoteric and constantly changing apps and therefore whitelisting isn't always possible.
Can apply prevention for
PowerShell, bat, java, javascript(node.js), perl, python, php scripts
Default “Trusted Scripts” applies to msi, msu, bat, cmd, ps1, psc1, psm1, vbs, wsf, vbe, ocx, cab, py, pyo, pyw, pl, pm, pls, rb, rbw, js, php files
Any other specified interpreter can be added using an Enhanced Scripts feature
REGSVR32.EXE (2016) without disabling its use “Trusted Script” technology allows IT to continue using REGSVR32.EXE while blocking any untrusted scripts loaded
Dynamically generated scripts (Trusted Children) e.g. Apps that spit out constantly changing .BAT scripts HP Warranty Checker Dell’s KACE Continuum RMM
And any application can be trusted by one click and that trust propagated across the enterprise similar to Active Directory’s inheritance mode.
Sorry, I honestly have no idea. I don't work with endpoint that closely, I'm more on the security architecture side. I have wonderful technical engineers on my projects who are paid to get that in-depth, but that's not me.
I call it the office bathroom camera problem & the creepy sysadmin problem. If employers were forced to be upfront about what they were doing, the equivalent of putting cameras inside each bathroom stall and having no real access control over what admins are doing with that data, people would be creeped out very quick.
They might move to employers who aren't that creepy.
I think it's a sexual harassment scandal waiting to happen, and hope things like the laws in Austria is what the rest of the world will adopt eventually:
https://www.taylorwessing.com/globaldatahub/article_austria_...
You should read your employee handbook. It's not a ToS and it's not a legalese, they're generally pretty straightforward. Don't use your work machine for anything non work related. Pretend your screen can be seen by everyone at the company (because it probably can).
I will note that most regulations in the US (PCI, SOX, etc) require centralized log management. Unless you're at the smallest of small companies, your employer is doing this. It's a basic requirement.