How to Prevent Zero-Day Exploits with Proactive Cybersecurity

ThreatLocker®

By Spencer Ford, Marketing Operations Specialist


Introduction
As businesses find ways to defend against specific attacks, adversaries craft new assault techniques that are harder to detect and stop. This cycle repeats, over and over, in a constant struggle to see which side can pull ahead, and unfortunately, the criminals are winning. Today's organizations must switch to using proactive security measures instead of only relying on reactive measures.

What is Proactive Cybersecurity?
A proactive cybersecurity strategy seeks to stop attacks before they happen. It is an offensive approach that focuses on finding and defending vulnerabilities before an attacker can attempt to exploit them.

Reactive vs Proactive Security
Reactive security tools are defensive. Once a threat is detected, reactive tools defend your organization against the present danger. Security tools like EDR and antivirus operate on a reactive basis, monitoring the environment. A threat must enter the system and be detected before a reactive security tool takes action.

Proactive security measures are offensive. They secure the organization so that a threat cannot enter it, putting up resistance before a threat occurs. Strategies such as providing security training to employees, engaging in ethical hacking, and application allowlisting are considered proactive, as they seek to reduce risk, preventing the possibility of an attack before it can happen.

Why is Proactive Cybersecurity Important?
A proactive cybersecurity toolset is beneficial to preventing zero-day exploits. Zero-day exploits are attacks that have never been seen before, so they can slip by tools that react to known bad behavior or files. Because cybercriminals are constantly creating new vulnerability exploits, implementing a proactive security strategy can protect your organization better than using reactive security alone.

How ThreatLocker Can Help You Implement a Proactive Zero Trust Approach
The ThreatLocker Endpoint Protection Platform contains proactive cybersecurity tools that can help keep your organization ahead of attackers. ThreatLocker Allowlisting is based on a default deny philosophy. No unapproved software can run in an environment protected by ThreatLocker. Allowlisting prevents fileless malware and ransomware before it has a chance to execute.

To take this a step further, ThreatLocker Ringfencing™ creates boundaries that limit what applications can access once permitted by Allowlisting. Prevent needed business apps from being weaponized by blocking their access to other applications, the registry, your files, or the internet. Ringfencing™ provides proactive protection against application abuse.

ThreatLocker Network Control is a centrally managed endpoint firewall. Configure Network Control to block all inbound network traffic from the LAN or WAN and then permit access to permitted devices only. Additionally, with the ability to use dynamic ACLs, it won't matter where the authorized device is connecting from, the specified port will open for that device. Any unpermitted devices will be unable to see the open port and will be unable to connect. Prevent bad actors from connecting to your assets, stopping threats before they can enter your network.

Add proactive security tools to existing reactive strategies to combat unknown threats and malware. Learn more about what the ThreatLocker Endpoint Protect Platform can do for your organization at www.threatlocker.com

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