The Context

Infrastructural changes in the enterprise IT environment are unavoidable. Continuous additions and alterations of new users, devices, and servers put organizations’ IT security at risk. IT administrators’ challenges revolve around continuous monitoring of the end-users’ activities, detection of anomalous activities in the network; and frequent audit and compliance. Even a single mis-configuration on any device in the enterprise network can be very risky if not addressed on time.

Apparently, endpoint security is a less-discussed area. Malicious insiders or even third-party users can compromise the business information assets by misusing endpoints like deleting or changing files in systems. And these unauthorized changes on files can happen at any time, and by any means.

Non-detection of changes made can be catastrophic not only from a regulatory compliance perspective, but also from security perspective.  Hence, IT administrators need a solution that offers everything under one roof.

In this context, File Integrity Monitoring (FIM), has become a critical component of endpoint security.

  • File Integrity Monitoring (FIM) is crucial to complying with IT standards
  • FIM is also important to ensure IT operational effectiveness as without this tool organizations can face operational challenges
  • A large number of approved and unapproved changes in the files can create confusion, risks, and IT negligence

However, it can be argued that a standalone FIM security solution will seldom help to achieve the desired security level and compliance standards. If data integrity has to be effectively managed, FIM security features have to be integrated with endpoint security platforms for better risk assessments. This way, security and risk management teams can manage comprehensive security around endpoints.

Fortunately, enterprise’s IT security teams’ search stops with ARCON’s Endpoint Privilege Management (EPM) solution. The solution now comes with an in-built File Integrity Monitoring (FIM) feature. This addition has transformed this solution into a complete endpoint security package. It addresses the challenges of:

    • Lack of tracking of unauthorized file changes on user devices in real-time
    • No track of file history, and rollback, if required
    • Lack of IT operational inefficiency
    • Non compliance with IT standards

Why is File Integrity Monitoring an additional edge?

IT infrastructure is constantly changing and complex. File Integrity Monitoring continuously assesses the changes or transitions happening in the enterprise network, especially to the critical file servers, devices, important applications or other IT systems.

FIM is a tool that finds out the change and records it with further analysis to determine whether the activity is authorized or not. Not only that, the most revolutionary and remarkable feature of FIM is that it can also reverse the action by transforming the system or application to the earlier baseline configuration. As a result, the IT administrators get a chance to rectify any action that is suspicious in nature. The tool raises an alert for the entire change as an official intimation to the IT security team.

The File Integrity Monitoring (FIM) tool in ARCON | EPM keeps a thorough check on any unauthorized file changes/transfers on end-user devices and identifies if the ‘change’ is an unauthorized one. If required, the entire action is rolled back. Indirectly, it works as a threat predictive tool by indicating a warning that some malicious/unexpected action has taken place. If any organization is unaware of the activities, then it could remain unaware of the possible threats to the IT infrastructure.

With this, it largely helps organizations comply with the standard IT security measures. As it ensures the integrity of files, it helps in complying with the  mandates such as PCI-DSS, SOX, ISO 27001 among others.

Conclusion

mplementing File Integrating Monitoring tool is crucial to maintain a balance between IT operational effectiveness, compliance, and data integrity. If deployed improperly, it can create friction in IT operations. ARCON | Endpoint Privilege Management (EPM) provides integrated FIM functionality that helps to construct robust endpoint security frameworks, and helps to comply with IT standards.