Bit9 Inc. releases updated 6.0 Whitelisting solution against advanced threats

Bit9, Inc., of Waltham, MA, announced in May the launch of Bit9 Parity Suite 6.0, the next version of its award-winning Application Whitelisting solution that provides protection against advanced threats attacks.

Attacks are now more organized and sophisticated and therefore they require a new approach to security. That’s why Bit9 Parity Suite 6.0 has been updated.

“Customers are looking for a broader set of solutions to defend against multiple endpoint attack vectors,” said Tom Murphy, chief strategy officer at Bit9. “By adding greater controls to our expanded application defenses within the Parity Suite, Bit9 is able to meet customer’s needs in stopping advanced threats and targeted attacks.”

Whitelisting is a secure solution to manage the security of numerous computers in a quick and efficient way. Administrators can decide which applications to approve or not and thus prevent malware downloads on computers. The new solution protects and controls system resources such as an up writing system, memory, application registry system, and others.

“If attackers try to inject something in the system’s memory or introduce a botnet for instance, we provide resources to protect it,” explained Murphy during an exclusive interview with GSN: Government Security News magazine.

The Bit9 Parity Suite 6.0 not only protects targeted resources, it is also a cloud-based service that provides software reputation. “The global software registry assigns a reputation of trust factor. It’s like running a background check on an employee, it’s the same concept for a software,” explains Murphy.

“If one has only either a protection for targeted resources or a global software registry, it will be difficult to have good protection,” Murphy added. “The combination of control of endpoints and reputation makes a good protection.”

According to the recent Bit9 Unauthorized Software Threat Report, 68 percent of enterprises have software restrictions in place, but 45 percent have found unauthorized software running on more than half of their computers in the past year. And while 99 percent of the companies polled have Antivirus solutions running on their endpoints, 46 percent found malicious software had evaded its existing security measures.

Government agencies need to stop millions of threats on a daily basis including Aurora, Zeus, Mariposa, KHOBE and Conficker, just to name a few. In 2009 Symantec identified 2.9 million threats - each requiring a unique signature before blacklisting could block the program.

Gartner, a top analyst company whose role is to assess what is going on in the industry, stressed the evolution of malware attacks: “The traditional blacklist Antivirus capability is insufficient protection from today's more professional malware threat,” Analyst Neil MacDonald said. In January 2010, when talking about the IE Zero-Day attacks on Google, Mac Donald added: “Whitelisting at the endpoints would have stopped these [Google] attacks. … Whitelisting should be foundational in our strategy to protect endpoints.”

The Bit9 Parity Suite 6.0 is a better alternative to chasing bad software, as these latter grow exponentially, explained both Murphy and Kate Munro, Bit9 Director of Marketing.

“Lots of Department of Defense (DoD) and other government agencies adopt this technology,” added Munro.

Bit9 provides solutions with visibility and control over all software on endpoints, eliminating the risk caused by malicious, illegal and unauthorized software. Bit9 is specialized in advanced threat protection. The company also leverages the Bit9 Global Software Registry -a large database of software intelligence – to identify and classify software, delivering the highest levels of endpoint security, compliance, and manageability.