Security audit of 193,000 corporate endpoints reveals threat potential

Promisec revealed findings from audits performed at 30 large organizations covering 193,000 corporate endpoints. The results from these findings indicate the prevalence of unauthorized software, rogue processes and endpoint security gaps that have the potential for significant security issues at the nation’s largest organizations.

Findings of the Promisec summary audit conducted over the last twelve months revealed that 25,090 (13%) of the corporate PCs surveyed had unauthorized USB devices attached to them, opening the door to data loss and the opportunity for USB-borne viruses and malware to enter the corporate network.

7720 (4%) of corporate PCs had peer-to-peer (P2P) applications installed. 2895 (1.5%) of the corporate PCs did not have the latest Microsoft service packs and 3281 (1.7%) had anti-virus monitoring and remediation issues. 2316 (1.2%) of the 193,000 audited endpoints were without required 3rd party desktop security agents.

Finally, 1582 (0.8%) of endpoints had unauthorized remote control software, and a lesser percentage had unauthorized and unprotected shareware.