Trend Micro adds machine learning to its endpoint solutions

Trend Micro says it has enhanced protection of small business endpoints by leveraging its newest capabilities of XGen security, including machine learning, inside Trend Micro Worry-Free Services.

XGen security infuses high-fidelity machine learning into a blend of threat protection techniques to better protect against known and unknown threats across any user activity and endpoint. It constantly learns, adapts and automatically shares threat intelligence across customer platforms and applications, the company says.

Trend Micro’s XGen security approach for small businesses uses proven methods to quickly identify benign data and known threats, freeing its more advanced techniques, such as application control, exploit prevention, behavioural analysis, sandboxing and machine learning, to more quickly and accurately identify unknown threats. Trend Micro is the first to infuse ‘high-fidelity’ machine learning into its approach –analysing files both before execution and at runtime, using ‘noise cancellation’ features like census checking and whitelisting to reduce false positives. All of these capabilities are fuelled by its cloud-based global threat intelligence of the Trend Micro Smart Protection Network, which supplies rapid response updates when a new threat is detected, enabling faster time to protection.

Partha Panda, vice president, corporate and business development for Trend Micro noted that small businesses are not immune to the 500,000 new, unique threats created every day. In fact, Trend Micro saw a 752 percent increase in new ransomware families that ultimately resulted in $1 billion in losses for organizations worldwide in 2016, he added.

“These threats and attacks can disrupt operations and require costly fixes and manpower to correct. Advanced security protection is critical to ensure small businesses vigorously defend against today’s cyber-attacks and those to come in the future,” Panda warned.

Apek Computer Technologies was part of the beta test for Worry-Free Services. Felix Lo, its software development engineer says his IT team were impressed with the machine learning capabilities of the solution. “With the volume of new threats out there, it was imperative for us to have features that weed out known threats easily and focus advanced techniques on discovering and responding to the unknown threats we face daily. Trend Micro does this without compromising performance on our test machines.”

Trend Micro Worry-Free Services is an endpoint security solution designed to provide immediate protection against the latest cybersecurity threats, as well as anti-malware, anti-spam, ransomware protection and data security. It also delivers centralised control in a single management console across PCs, Macs, servers and mobile devices.