Panda Adaptive Defense 360
Panda’s cloud-based endpoint protection service fills the gaps other security solutions leave behind
SCORE ✪✪✪✪✪ PRICE 25 seats, 1 yr subscription, £1,214 exc VAT from pandasecurity.com
Panda’s Adaptive Defense 360 (AD360) cloud security takes endpoint protection to the next level. Instead of reactively relying on signatures to identify malicious software, it analyses every application running on a client and flags up the ones it doesn’t know about.
That’s not necessarily to say it stops them from running. Rather, Panda’s cloud service checks the app’s security posture in the background; if it’s deemed to be safe, the endpoint client allows it through. To ensure you don’t run into any avoidable teething problems on first deployment, you can start by running AD360 in audit mode, to gather information about your everyday applications. When you’re happy, you can then enable vetting for newly discovered processes, to catch zero-day attacks or freshly released malware.
Alongside antivirus measures, AD360 includes a client firewall, web content filtering, Exchange spam protection and removable device controls. There’s a set licensing fee per host, so you pay the same for protecting workstations and servers.
The management portal opens with a bold status dashboard; graphs show the number of trusted apps, potentially unwanted programs and malware infections detected. A chart below details all apps currently being blocked prior to classification; you can drill down into this for details, and even pull up an activity map showing where it was downloaded from and what it was trying to do when it was spotted.
Deployment is straightforward: the same AD360 and endpoint agents are used for all Windows systems, and can be downloaded from the portal or emailed as a web link. Either way, it only took us five minutes to load it on each of our Windows 7, 10, Server 2012 R2 and Exchange test systems. AD360 also supports Linux, macOS and Android devices, but these platforms only get an endpoint protection agent.
The clients automatically latched onto our AD360 account and all systems were dropped into the default group for immediate protection. If you want to run in audit mode, you should first edit this group profile, as it’s preset to “hardened” mode.
“AD360 had no problem with our malware – the clients blocked, deleted or disinfected it with no enduser interaction required”
Systems can be placed in different groups, each with its own profile that defines active security services, web filtering and firewall rules, plus update frequency. The web filtering module offers a list of nearly 60 categories to block or allow, and you can set schedules to determine when it’s active.
You can also set device control policies to block access to certain devices, such as optical or removable drives, Bluetooth accessories, cameras or modems. Where appropriate, you can set read/write privileges; users who try to access a blocked device receive a pop-up warning.
Adaptive Defense 360 had no problems with our collection of malware: the client software intercepted it all with no end-user interaction required. Any problems can be resolved from the portal by remotely running Panda’s Cloud Cleaner disinfection module. It’s also possible to reboot hosts or launch a remote support session on a client running VNC, TeamViewer or LogMeIn.
One weakness of Panda’s older cloud-protection products was slow response times – it could take four hours before you were notified of a critical security event. Happily, that’s now been greatly improved. In our tests, email alerts arrived around 15 minutes after malware detection and blocked device events.
The portal provides basic report creation services and, for more detail, you can turn to the optional advanced reporting tool. Powered by the LogTrust cloud data analytics service, it takes all of AD360’s data and transforms it into a mass of detailed reports and graphs going back up to six years.
Panda’s Adaptive Defense 360 is a clever cloud security solution packed with features and priced right for SMBs. It’s straightforward to deploy and its smart detection and response service hardens malware protection even further.
SPECIFICATIONS
Windows 7/Server 2008 upwards EPP only – Linux, macOS, Android Options: 25 seats, 1yr AD360 and advanced reporting tool subscription, £1,411 exc VAT