Security firm Sophos' new tool will protect servers from malware attacks

British security software company Sophos has launched a new security measure for servers called Intercept X, which is equipped with predictive deep learning technology that provides constantly evolving security against cyber threats, a company statement said.

The solution is designed to tackle unknown malware attacks. The company’s deep learning neural networks, which powers the solution, are trained on millions of samples to identify malicious code, the statement added.

According to research conducted by SophosLabs, 75% of malware found in an organisation is not previously known and a Sophos survey showed that two-thirds of IT managers worldwide don’t understand anti-exploit technology.

“Servers are the bullseye for cybercriminals because they store valuable information and have a broader, system-wide organizational purpose than individual endpoints. An entire company could get potentially wiped out if cybercriminals infiltrate its servers with ransomware or malicious code, or exploit vulnerabilities to gain access,” said Dan Schiappa, senior vice president and general manager of products at Sophos.

Organisations of all kinds need server protection but smaller businesses are more vulnerable to attacks, the statement said.

“The small- and mid-sized markets (SMBs) face challenges for server protection as they need the same level of protection as their enterprise counterparts, yet protection must be in an extremely easy to use offering. Additionally, sadly, SMBs are too often tempted to use underpowered, inappropriate PC endpoint offerings to protect servers as a way to save cost, forcing SMB server security vendors to provide compelling, affordable offerings that are also appropriate for a smaller or understaffed IT department,” Frank Dickson, research vice president of security products at IDC, said.

According to the World Economic Forum, the global cost of cybersecurity is expected to reach $6 trillion by 2021 . A survey, titled Global Information Security Survey 2017-18, by consulting firm EY found that 87% of firms need to increase their cybersecurity budgets by 50% or more and majority of the survey respondents felt that such increases would only be made in the advent of a major security breach.

Besides budgets, organisations are increasingly fearful of careless or unaware employees who fail to abide by cybersecurity guidelines, the report stated.