Microsoft, CrowdStrike Lead Endpoint Protection Gartner MQ>
Data Breach Today – Michael Novinson
Microsoft and CrowdStrike once again dominate Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Endpoint Protection. Cybereason has risen to the leaders quadrant and Trellix has fallen to a niche player.

Microsoft, CrowdStrike, SentinelOne, Trend Micro and Sophos were recognized by Gartner as endpoint protection leaders both this year and last, but their position within the quadrant has shifted. Last year, Microsoft and CrowdStrike sat way above the pack in execution ability, and Trend Micro was a distant third. The gap between the top two and everyone else has shrunk dramatically, and SentinelOne is now in third place.

Firstbrook said SentinelOne appeals to late-stage buyers in sectors such as manufacturing and retail where legacy operating systems are more pervasive and clients have environments that aren’t fully connected to the internet. And Trend Micro and Sophos are the only leaders who can bundle endpoint protection and robust network security technology together. Sophos excels in Europe and Trend in APAC.

In completeness of vision, Gartner last year saw CrowdStrike and Microsoft as head and shoulders above everyone else. But this year, Microsoft barely beat SentinelOne for the silver, and Cybereason trailed closely behind in fourth place. Cybereason leapfrogged from the visionaries to the leaders quadrant due to dramatic improvements in execution ability, where the company jumped from 12th place last year to fourth this year.

A larger percentage of Cybereason customers are using MDR technology than any of its peers, and Cybereason has benefited from investments in the government vertical and a SecOps partnership with Google, Firstbrook said. CrowdStrike does well with sophisticated banks and financial institutions looking to secure the cloud, while Microsoft appeals more to smaller C-suite buyers than technical buyers, according to Firstbrook.

Moving in the opposite direction was Trellix, which was formed early last year through the combination of the FireEye products and McAfee Enterprise organizations. Although McAfee on its own had been recognized as an endpoint protection leader by Gartner, the combined organization only achieved niche player status due to what Firstbrook saw as challenges in integrating the two distinct product portfolios.

Trellix lags behind the market in making a unified XDR offering available to clients, and the company’s products are unlikely to appeal to people beyond the legacy McAfee and FireEye customer bases, Firstbrook said. The separation from Mandiant and the spinout of Skyhigh Security will make it harder for Trellix to deliver managed security services and help customers with consolidating their security stacks.

Visionaries: Palo Alto Networks, Cisco, Broadcom, VMware, Fortinet Challenger: Eset Niche Players: Trellix, Bitdefender, WithSecure, Check Point, BlackBerry, Deep Instinct
Link: https://www.databreachtoday.asia/microsoft-crowdstrike-lead-endpoint-protection-gartner-mq-a-21457