There are a significant number of advanced endpoint protection (AEP) products in the market, and their offerings can vary greatly. For this reason, it is in an organization’s best interests to thoroughly understand the technology before beginning the product selection process.

Compared to conventional antivirus products, AEP products promise improvements in security effectiveness, user impact, threat visibility, and system visibility. Every organization must decide which capabilities, approaches, and workflows match its needs, and with the number of available products, selecting an AEP product for a proof of concept (POC) can quickly become complicated.

A proof of concept is a practical way to compare the usability of products and their interoperability with existing security controls and network systems. The goal of a POC is efficiency—security teams should be spending their time on activities like threat hunting, product tuning, and incident response, rather than testing a set of products (which can take months). To avoid wasting resources, it’s best to include only your top two or three products in a POC.

The purpose of Part 3 of NSS’ Product Selection Series is to lay out a combination of AEP product features and actual test results to facilitate purchase decisions. With this information, an organization can spend less time on research and more time focusing on the truly important factors of a security product—how it performs, how it’s managed, and how it operates within their environment.