Security Software What is Symantec Endpoint Protection?

red dragon

red dragon

Justiceforall
Level I
Just had a heated argument with the IT division of WHO`s IT division @ Geneva. They uninstalled their previous extremely lightweight Webroot and installed this SEP remotely in my laptop ( which is personal, but has Windows LTSC installed by them on my request as I use this as work laptop too) without even asking once. The girl on the other end told me about some security breech in some machines with very sensitive documents ( I also have them but not in this laptop) and we have to use this Symantec thing ( which uses almost 200MB of memory in idle state and jumps to 500MB with 2 processes I could see in task manager). Told her to **** herself, and send me a laptop immediately for work,but can not uninstall this POS from this laptop.
I don`t give a damn about HR`s reaction ( as she already lodged a complaint against me) but kind of worried about data breech.
Once I get work machine and log into it, they will remove SEP from the personal laptop. But as I will continue to do some work from this machine and Windows 10 built in security won`t be enough, can you guys please suggest me a lighter security suite with better protection?
Please don`t suggest Kaspersky, I know it is good and fairly light but bothers a lot with whenever connected to a public wifi (personal experience, but years ago) I don`t know how things are now though.
Partial to ESET, it`s a local company and costs almost nothing here.
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Well, I take my words back... though not as light as Webroot, SEP does not take that much memory, it`s hovering around 90-100MB now and will possibly go even lower. There is no perceptible performance degradation either, boot time is still very fast ( did not measure) will keep an eye for a day or so and apologize to the lady.
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Only 50MB now! According to the lady I spoke to over phone, cyber security specialists in real world do trust Symantec the most. Webroot is also rated very high, but their solutions can not manage so many clients scattered everywhere. She specifically told me not to read reviews of antivirus etc.online as they are mostly useless in reality. Is it true?
I do know there are thousands of renowned websites who regularly post garbage on Corona. Is there any trusted website that deals with cyber security (similar to Medscape in medical world)?
 
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The thing is. SEP is managed solution and they will get report of any potential issue in the laptop. This is standard corporate affair.
Any good AV and some common sense will prevent your machine.
 
Buddy, I am a noob, but do know the very basics of internet security but somewhat worried about data leak. Certain people are indeed targeting our computers and Microsoft's inbuilt protection couldn't protect successfully.
We are old people with safe internet habits. I'm not a teen-ager who will click on random links.
Our IT department is really worried ( no, it's not usual corporate affair, I don't work in a typical corporate company) before Webroot, they never told anybody to install anything.
But due to the covid issue, some of us often get very sensitive documents mailed to us.
I usually store those pdf etc.in a portable drive. But it's not possible all the time.
Anyway, already received a work laptop ( usual Thinkpad T490 with SEP installed in it) and logged out of outlook from my personal laptop.
But I still need recommendation for a dependable lightweight solution. Windows inbuilt security is not safe for now.
 
EPs are basically all in one solutions which do everything.

Most likely, someone up the chain - CIO decided to use Symantec because it had a strong Gartner Quadrant or so rating. Ideally, I would rely on a mix of solutions for max effectiveness.

Windows inbuilt security is now pretty good with ATP, does an ok job. Its the servers which are leaky IMO and the bad guys are chaining exploits to get access.
 
Must be, and it is not so bad. I have kept it on my personal laptop, so far, no performance degradation. This thing is really expensive and the HQ is having OCD about data leak, they have requested 63 people among us (with unrestricted access to everything non financial) to attend some online tutorial coming weekend. Something serious must have happened, hoping it was not my computer.
 
This is indeed very light, less than 50MB of RAM on idle, goes to around 150-200MB on active scan. We were taught about the extremely granular firewall controls.
Overall pretty decent product and fairly light.
 
It's not in my hand mate, so far Symantec is working well and memory usage has gone down significantly, the AV(idle) and firewall is taking around 50-60MB in total.
The firewall has stopped asking questions ( I couldn't change the firewall settings as client), it's practically silent now.
 
Sorry, I'm late to the thread, but this made me lol:
"According to the lady I spoke to over phone, cyber security specialists in real world do trust Symantec the most."
 
I understand your point and would have agreed to you 10 years ago ( around that time Symantec/ Norton products were horrible and that was the last time I used Windows on a daily basis) After being an Apple slave for more than 10 years, finally got out of the `ecosystem` in late 2019 (only due to the port and dongle galore situation in Apple`s portable Macs) and now using Windows 10 for close to 9 months.
Just like Windows the clunky antivirus solutions have evolved a lot and all the paid ones are pretty much the same. I am not using this software by choice and was really annoyed by the initial high memory usage. Now it has settled down perfectly (maximum 40-60MB memory for the AV engine and FW, practically same as built in security software of W10), it does not bother me at all, and there is zero perceptible system impact ( just like Webroot, it had abnormally small footprint, however the reports of data leak were real and Webroot could neither prevent or alert the user)
We do not exactly work in a corporate MNC, but some of our laptops do have sensitive documents ( specially since December-January) and those must be protected.So far Symantec Endpoint is working fine and the lady I spoke to, does not work for Symantec. She also told me, SEP is the easiest for them to set up and manage remotely, as these laptops are literally scattered across the globe.
 
No the footprint is not what I was referring to actually. I'm by no means an expert or even an amateur, but what I was referring to was the fiasco with Symantec issued https certificates sometime last year. I'm not sure I recall the details, but there were some key and signing issues that led to most popular browsers refusing to trust any certificates by them, and warning users they were visiting an insecure page.

My understanding is that general perception of Symantec isn't great in the it security industry.

Fwiw, we use carbon black at my work (giant mnc), and it doesn't have a large footprint either. One of the considerations may be the affect on battery time, but I'm not able to separate this out since we run a highly tweaked image of Windows, and who knows what that affects.
 
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