Zero Trust + AI: fewer alerts, guaranteed security
Excessive cybersecurity alerts are not a trivial matter; they pose a real challenge that directly impacts business security strategies. Too many notifications generate stress on IT teams, which are increasingly being reduced in size while facing a heavier burden of tasks. This situation can lead to urgent alerts being overlooked, putting system security at risk.
Many endpoint security tools delegate the task of manually classifying threats and managing alerts to the administrator, which increases workload, liability, and stress on teams. This also consumes valuable time that should be spent on higher-risk incidents, enabling an effective response before a threat spreads and its impact grows. In cybersecurity, reaction time is a critical factor, as it can make the difference between an immediate and effective response or the threat spreading and potentially inflicting more serious damage on systems.
A recent study by Hack The Box indicates that 84% of cybersecurity professionals experience stress and burnout due to technological acceleration and the increasing sophistication of threats. In an environment where ransomware has become a ubiquitous danger, with more than 317 million attempts detected in 2023, security analyst fatigue represents a serious risk to businesses. How can this issue be addressed?
Traditional Detection Systems vs Zero Trust Application Service
The solution to these challenges isn’t adding more tools. The best way forward is to adopt services and solutions that enable greater automation and accuracy to lighten the workload. Services such as Watchguard’s Zero Trust Application Service provide a new way to manage endpoint threat detection by combining a zero trust approach with artificial intelligence (AI) to deliver more efficient security that is less dependent on human intervention.
Compared to traditional systems, this service presents major advantages such as:
- Improved detection: traditional systems rely on signature files and predefined rules to detect known malware. This limits their ability to detect new or unknown threats, as they require constant database updates and manual adjustments. By using AI to classify 100% of processes in real time, without relying on known signatures, it is possible to detect and prevent sophisticated threats, including unknown threats.
- Automation: Most traditional systems rely on manual intervention to classify threats, which increases the workload of IT teams, thereby raising the risk of inaccuracies in threat classification and detection. Conversely, the Zero Trust Application Service automates the process of classifying applications and processes, significantly reducing the margin of error and freeing IT teams from repetitive tasks.
- Reduction of false positives: traditional systems can generate false positives and uncertainty in classification, requiring manual analysis. This delays response time and increases security team fatigue. In contrast, by providing accurate, uncertainty-free, real-time classification, this service minimizes false positives by enabling faster and more effective responses.
- Adaptability: while traditional systems require continuous adjustments and have trouble adapting to the constant sophistication of threats without human intervention, this service automatically adapts to new threats thanks to its AI-based system.
- Continuous Monitoring: there are types of malware known as zero-day that are camouflaged or unknown to many companies and that most traditional security systems fail to detect. This represents a major risk, as these systems often rely on manual monitoring and classification by the administrator. On the other hand, the Zero Trust Application Service continuously monitors processes and applications in the pre-execution, execution, and post-execution phases. This allows constant monitoring of any process classified as unknown, and if any suspicious or unusual actions are performed, the process is immediately classified as malware, blocking its execution and proceeding to removal.
The Zero Trust Application Service included in WatchGuard EDR is a prime example of how it is possible to offer a more efficient defense, while mitigating the stress and burnout associated with alert fatigue. With this goal in mind, this service is based on a clear premise: trust nothing and no one without first verifying. This ensures that only applications and processes verified as safe are run on the devices.
This is thanks to machine learning algorithms that analyze hundreds of static, behavioral, and contextual attributes of each application in real time. This approach allows 99.98% of processes to be automatically classified, which drastically reduces the number of alerts that require human intervention. The remaining 0.02% is analyzed by a team of top-tier threat analysts who manually assess any ambiguity.
By recommending tools and services that simplify the work of your customers' IT teams, as an MSP you are not only demonstrating a deep understanding of their needs but also position yourself as a strategic ally in protection. With Zero Trust Application Service, the entire process of threat classification and alert management is performed automatically, freeing IT teams from repetitive tasks so they can focus on incidents that are important or require more in-depth analysis. This enables you to provide robust, easy-to-manage security, differentiating you from competitors who still rely on more traditional and complex approaches. This boosts customer satisfaction, strengthens long-term relationships, and makes your offering stand out in the marketplace, driving business growth.
If you want to learn more about how AI improves your customers' security, check out the following blogposts:
