Given the vital role the browser plays in the modern enterprise environment, security practitioners have realized that they need to reassess how they are managed and secured. Not so long ago, web-borne risks were still addressed by a patchwork of endpoint, network, and cloud solutions, but it’s clear that the partial protection these solutions provide is no longer enough. As such, more and more security teams are turning to dedicated new categories. browser security platform As an answer to browser security challenges.
However, because this security solutions category is still relatively new, there is not yet an established set of browser security best practices or common metrics. His LayerX, a user-first browser security platform, meets the needs of security teams with down-possibility. Browser security checklist, It guides the reader through the essentials of choosing the best solution and provides a practical checklist to use in the evaluation process.
The browser is the most important work interface and the most targeted attack surface
The browser has become the core workspace of the modern enterprise. In addition to being the gateway to her sanctioned SaaS apps and other non-enterprise web destinations, the browser is the crossroads between cloud/web environments and physical or virtual endpoints. This not only makes the browser a target for multiple types of attacks, but also a potential source of unintentional data leaks.
Some of these attacks have been around for over a decade, such as exploiting browser vulnerabilities and drive-by downloads of malicious files. With the rapid rise in SaaS adoption, some have recently gained momentum, such as social engineering users with phishing web pages. Others take advantage of advances in web page technology to initiate sophisticated and hard-to-detect modifications and abuse of browser features to obtain and steal sensitive data.
Browser Security 101 – What Should You Protect?
Browser security can be divided into two groups: preventing unintentional data leaks and protecting against various types of malicious activity.
From a data protection point of viewsuch platforms enforce policies that prevent sensitive corporate data from being insecurely shared or downloaded from approved apps or uploaded from managed devices to non-corporate web destinations. increase.
From a threat protection perspectivesuch platforms detect and prevent three types of attacks:
- Attacks that target the browser itself with the intent to compromise data (cookies, passwords, etc.) that resides on the host device or the browser application itself.
- Attacks that leverage browsers via compromised credentials to access corporate data residing in both sanctioned and unsanctioned SaaS applications.
- Attacks that target user passwords through various phishing techniques and malicious modification of browser functionality, using modern web pages as an attack vector.
How to choose the right solution
What should you focus on when choosing the right browser security solution for your environment? What do the differences between the various offerings mean in practice? How should the methodology, solution architecture, or user privacy be weighed? How should threats and risks be prioritized?
As mentioned earlier, unlike other security solutions, you cannot ping one of your peers and ask them what they are doing. Browser security is new and popular wisdom has yet to form. In fact, it is very likely that your colleagues are struggling with the exact same questions as you.
The Definitive Browser Security Platform Checklist – What it is and how to use it
Checklist (Download here) breaks down high-level “browser security” headlines into small, digestible chunks of specific needs that need to be addressed. These are brought to the reader in five pillars. Deployment, User Experience, Security Features When User privacyEach pillar has a short description of the browser context and a more detailed description of its functionality.
The most important pillar in terms of scope is, of course, security features, divided into five subsections. In most cases, these pillars are the first driving force behind pursuing a browser security platform, so it’s worth discussing them in detail.
Learn more about browser security
The need for a browser security platform usually stems from one of the following:
— Attack surface management: Actively reduces the browser’s exposure to various types of threats, eliminating the ability of attackers to carry them out.
— Zero trust access: Strengthen authentication requirements to ensure that usernames and passwords are actually provided by legitimate users and have not been compromised.
— SaaS monitoring and protection: Protect corporate data from compromise or loss with 360-degree visibility into all user activity and data usage within sanctioned and unsanctioned apps and other non-enterprise web destinations.
— Protection against malicious web pages: Real-time detection and prevention of all malicious attackers embedded in modern web pages, including credential phishing, malicious file downloads, and data theft.
— Secure third-party access and BYOD: Allows secure access to corporate web resources from internal employees as well as external contractors and service provider unmanaged devices.
This list makes it easy for anyone to identify what they are looking for in a browser security platform and find the features they need to achieve it.
Checklist – Easy Assessment Shortcuts
The most important actionable part of this guide is the final checklist. For the first time, it provides a concise summary of all the key features a browser security platform should offer. This checklist makes the evaluation process easier than ever. Now all that’s left is to test the shortlisted solutions and see which ones score the best. Once you have them all in place, you can make informed decisions based on the needs of your environment.
Download checklist here.
