endpoint security (noun)

Rick Howard: The word is: endpoint security. 


Rick Howard: Spelled: endpoint for user devices that connect to a network and security for protection.  


Rick Howard: Definition: The practice of securing a device that connects to a network in order to facilitate communication with other devices on the same or different networks.  


Rick Howard: Example sentence: Endpoint security schemes can cover a wide spectrum of user devices from traditional computers, like desktops, laptops, and servers to virtual workloads in the cloud, to mobile devices like phones and other wearables, to peripherals like printers, to IOT devices like niche functions in energy and medical, to business consumer interfaces like ATMs and self-service grocery store cash registers. 


Rick Howard: Origin and context: Computer scientists began experimenting with securing mainframes in the 1970s. The idea of endpoint security didn't really begin until after the personal computer revolution in the 1980s and the arrival of the first viruses.  


Rick Howard: In 1986, the Brain Boot Sector Virus started to propagate and according to Daniel Snyder at InfoCarnivoire, "Brain Boot came with contact information for the authors who created it." It was a simpler time.  


Rick Howard: The first antivirus program started appearing as freeware and shareware tools. Researchers used a bulletin board chat group cal antivirus products came from companies like G Data Software and McAfee in the late 1980s.  


Rick Howard: Today endpoint security has evolved from antivirus products as the only solution in town to a pallet of security enhancement solutions. Examples include traditional antivirus, sandboxing, personal firewalls, encryption, anti exploitation, anti-malware, patch management, asset management, and endpoint detection and response, or EDR. EDR solutions typically collect endpoint telemetry in the cloud and run machine learning algorithms on the data to find malicious activity. XDR solutions combine EDR telemetry with network detection and response, or NDR, telemetry in a similar manner.  


Rick Howard: One of the“Virus-L” bulletin board chat group members was John McAfee. McAfee started his own endpoint protection company called McAfee Associates and became one of the most famous, and eventually infamous, cybersecurity personalities ever. In 1992, he launched a marketing campaign that warned the world of the Michelangelo virus that he claimed could infect up to 5 million PCs worldwide. He predicted that on 6 March of that year, it would destroy the data of all those infected hard drives. Sales boomed.  


Rick Howard: According to Andrew Couts at the website DigitalTrends, by that March, at least half the fortune 500 companies had deployed the McAfee Associates antivirus product, but on 7 March, nothing happened. Security pundits accused Mr. McAfee of fabricating the entire thing. By 1994, Mr. McAfee's reputation was so bad that the board forced him out of his company with a whopping $100 million severance package. After that, he dabbled in a few other businesses, became a yoga guru and enthusiastically embraced the sport of aerotrekking, an insane sport which according to Couts, involves soaring through the air on a half-motorcycle-half-hang-glider contraption called a kite plane. After an accident where two people died, Mr. McAfee be fled to Belize to escape a lawsuit. And that's where the real craziness kicked in with the alleged paranoia, a harem of allegedly underage women, alleged drugs, alleged mercenaries, and potentially alleged murder. Allegedly. Oh, also libertarian politics and YouTube videos slagging his former company. He died on 23, June, 2021. Sam Shepard from CNBC news reported it this way.  


Sam Shepard: John McAfee found dead today in a prison cell in Spain, the founder of the antivirus software that bears his name had just been ordered extradited to the United States on tax evasion charges. He faced up to 30 years in prison if convicted. He was 75, and a wild ride of a life it was. McAfee's virus scan software came out back in 1987 and he ran the company for seven years until he resigned in '94. In 2013, he created a profanity laced video explaining how users could uninstall his own software .The year before McAfee faced criminal accusations while living in Belize. As the story went, his next door neighbor poisoned his dogs and McAfee had him killed, but he never faced criminal charges. A federal court in Florida ordered him to pay more than $25 million in damages to the dead man's estate. The feds say McAfee failed to file tax returns for five years last decade. The Securities and exchange Commission came for him, too accusing McAfee of making more than 23 million in undisclosed income from false and misleading cryptocurrency recommendations. The federal court in Manhattan charged him in an alleged pump and dump scheme. Along the way, of course, McAfee ran for president. Last October police in Spain arrested him on the warrant out of the United States. Authorities in Spain say they suspect John McAfee killed himself. His death is under investigation. 


Rick Howard: Word Notes is written by Nyla Gennaoui. Executive produced by Peter Kilpe, and edited by John Petrik and me, Rick Howard. The mix, sound design, and original music have all been crafted by the ridiculously talented Elliott Peltzman. Thanks for listening.