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Brand names matter. If your first car was a slightly busted up Toyota sedan or a compact but zippy Mazda, chances are that somewhere down the line, you’ll gravitate back to those brands when upgrading.

It’s exactly the same with cyber security. Running a business is complex and constantly changing. So when our renewals come up, our brains seek to simplify the noise of the dozens of options at our fingertips. And they do this by leading us towards options that we are familiar with already.

Norton and McAfee are well-known brand names in the cyber security space. But this article is going to take you through why relying on those old, familiar names might leave your businesses vulnerable today.

A Rapidly Changing Tactical Landscape 

In 1939, Europe was preparing for War. France and Germany shared a huge land border, and were going to be on opposing sides. But France had spent the past decade preparing. It had prepared a vast interconnected array of forts and defences, reinforced with barbed wire, bunkers, heavy artillery and machine guns. And they all pointed in one direction: Germany. The French had taken the lessons of the previous war and prepared well.

But they were the wrong lessons, from the wrong time. When World War 2 broke out, France fell to the invading Germans stunningly quickly. How did the attackers overcome the entrenched defences? They didn’t. 

Three new technologies rendered those defences redundant: planes, tanks and mechanised infantry. The Germans used surprise and speed. And they simply went around the outdated defences that had been prepared.

So, why are we talking about this? It’s to demonstrate a little fact: technological changes drive big changes to how effective certain kinds of defences are. 

Norton and McAfee rose to prominence in a different era of the internet. The sophistication of online hacking attempts, organisations, and threat vectors have evolved a very long way since that time. And it is arguable that those two providers have not fully evolved with them. 

The Limitations of The Legacy Providers

Traditional anti-virus software is designed to first detect and then block known threats such as viruses and malware that can disrupt the operations of your business. Unfortunately, the effectiveness of these solutions has declined as cyber criminals have become more sophisticated in their attacks. Those antivirus measures can be thought of as well-known ‘fixed’ defences. The downside of fixed defences that have existed for many years is that potential attackers have a long time to plan how to work around those defences. It’s why many cyber threats today are specifically designed to bypass traditional anti-virus software, making it easier for attackers to gain access to your systems undetected.

The Importance of ‘Next Generation’ Threat Detection

If you were trying to defend the airspace of a nation today, the World War 2 era Spitfires and Hurricanes made famous in many movies and TV shows wouldn’t be up to the job. The 3rd and 4th generation planes that are available today are orders of magnitude more sophisticated and would run rings around those earlier models.

That example helps illustrate why ‘next generation’ endpoint detection and response are crucial for your small business. The technologies used are far superior to traditional anti-virus software like Norton and McAfee. 

For example, today's solutions use artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms to analyse vast troves of data and detect threats that traditional anti-virus software would miss.

Responding in Real Time

The flow-on effect of that continual learning and adaptation process of modern cyber defences is that it allows your defences and your organisation to respond in real-time, rather than having to wait to find out that your systems have been breached.

This is particularly important when you have an intruder that spends significant time inside your systems undetected. This time can be used to harvest sensitive data, better understand your defences and to plant malware inside your systems that is harder to eradicate. All of those things lend weight to the demands the hacker would make down the track, as they have more material with which to hit you with. 

Transitioning to A More Effective Solution

We’re not hear to disparage Norton or McAfee, or to make anyone who is using their products within their business feel like they have done the wrong thing. But the fact is that there are more complete, more effective solutions out there that are more appropriate to today’s cyber environment.

If you’d like to talk about securing your digital assets and transitioning to one of these options, CyberUnlocked can help. We are experienced in cyber audits and implementation, and can guide your business through the change so that you emerge with upgraded cyber defences.