The network of your enterprise is outfitted with antivirus and firewall software to help safeguard against certain types of malware. This software stops most common strands of malware from entering your system and wreaking havoc on your network and devices. But is it enough?

While this type of protection is quite useful for eliminating the bulk majority of malevolent activity from entering into a system, it’s the other 10 percent that IT executives need to pay attention to. While the bulk of malevolent programs might be stopped, there are certain strands that could cause quite a bit of damage should they manage to get through.

Just how wide is the variety of threats facing enterprises today? According to a report from Kaspersky Lab, there are 200,000 new malware variants created around the world each day and the figure is only increasing.

Now, for instance, it is possible to download a file that will lie dormant for several days before deploying. These types of sleepy malware will evade antivirus, next generation firewalls and quarantine solutions. This allows the malware to hide and then deploy into the desktop’s memory space where it can easily migrate between applications and programs. For example, spyware such as a worm or Trojan horse could lie dormant until it detects human interaction on the computer. This interaction can be something as simple as a mouse click on the part of the user.

While malware comes in different shapes and sizes, the goal is typically the same””wreaking havoc by stealing and compromising a person’s identities. When an identity is stolen or compromised , it is often used to acquire escalated privileges, as a hacker will work through a network until acquiring authorization from the highest level he or she can achieve.

As the threat landscape continues to evolve, it is increasingly coming into direct contest with the expanding identity ecosystem that is exploding due to mobile and cloud. As more and more devices become IP-enabled, the likelihood of person’s identity becoming compromised will increase, as the attacker now has more vectors to leverage for a successful attack. While a person’s individual identity used to be the sole target, now applications and devices are offering up new targets for virtual thieves.

One step organizations can take to protect individual identities and mitigate the threat of advanced malware is to invest in mobile technology and get on board with the BYOD movement. Due to security features such as secure elements, application sandboxes, strong cryptographic kernels, and biometrics, mobile security features create an out-of-band channel that takes transactions and access requests out of the potentially compromised desktop channel.

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