Application control is a security approach to block unwanted and unauthorized applications from being executed on enterprise endpoints to protect data against potential risks. The software safeguards various business-critical endpoints, such as desktops, laptops, smartphones, tablets, Point-of-Sale (POS) systems, virtual machines, and other fixed function devices, and protect them from threats such as Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs), zero-day malwares, and targeted attacks. With the proper application control solution, an organization can greatly reduce the risk of losing critical data while ensuring data integrity and improved business continuity.

Top 10 Application Control Software

These are the organizations that offer established and reliable digital transformation solutions and services and also are strategically and geographically well placed.  Some of the major players are:

  1. Symantec Corporation
  2. Intel Security
  3. Trend Micro Incorporated
  4. Check Point Software Technologies
  5. Digital Guardian
  6. CyberArk
  7. Heat Software USA
  8. Carbon Black
  9. Ivanti Appense
  10. Arellia

Top Application Control Software Features

As the nature of cyber-threats is becoming sophisticated and complex day by day, the traditional security solutions such as antivirus, antimalware, and firewall have proved ineffective to defend network and endpoints against advanced threats. The convergence of IT and cyber security has changed the security market dynamics with more and more applications integrating with endpoints. It has become very important for businesses to properly assess the software prior to choosing one. Below mentioned are of some of the features that businesses can consider prior to choosing an ideal Application Control Software:

  1. Active Whitelist
  2. Progressive Memory Protection
  3. Knowledge Acquisition
  4. Reputation Based Execution
  5. Centralized Management
  6. Malware Protection
  7. Total Endpoint Security
  8. Improved Inventory Management

Top Application Control Use Cases

Using a general set of security standards for all devices doesn’t make much sense. So it is critical for businesses to spend some time in summarizing the main use models of these devices and defining some standard ‘profiles for which they can then design apt security controls. Belo mentioned are some of the important use cases:

  1. Fixed Function Devices
  2. Servers
  3. General Purpose Devices
  4. OS Lockdown

As the nature of cyber-threats is becoming sophisticated and complex day by day, the traditional security solutions such as antivirus, antimalware, and firewall have proved ineffective to defend network and endpoints against advanced threats. The convergence of IT and cyber security has changed the security market dynamics with more and more applications integrating with endpoints. This in turn is driving the need for deploying application control solutions in small, medium, and large enterprises.

VISIONARY LEADERS

Symantec Corporation, Intel Security (McAfee), and Trend Micro, Inc. lead in the application control market and are recognized as Visionary Leaders. They have strong product portfolio and robust business strategy to achieve continued growth.

DYNAMIC DIFFERENTIATORS

HEAT Software USA, Inc. (Lumension Security, Inc.) is identified as a Dynamic player in the market. It is strong in business strategy and has made recent partnerships with other key vendors for inorganic growth. It has the potential to broaden its product portfolio to compete with other key market players.

INNOVATORS

CyberArk Software Ltd., Digital Guardian, and Carbon Black, Inc. are recognized as Innovators in the application control market. They have innovative products and the potential to build strong strategies for their business growth to be at par with the Vanguards.

EMERGING COMPANIES

Check Point Software Technologies Ltd., LANDESK Software (AppSense), and Thycotic (Arellia) are recognized as Emerging players in the application control market. They have the potential to build on strong product portfolio and business strategy to compete in the market with the Vanguards and Innovators.

Application Control Software

Comparing 12 vendors in Application Control Software across 152 criteria.

360Quadrant For Application Control Software, Q2 2022

The 20 Companies That Matter Most And How They Stack Up

599,864 professionals have used our research since 2010

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McAfee Application Control is one the premium products in the application control market. The strong brand presence of Intel Security in the market is helping the product gain traction. The company’s innovative approach of providing the solutions as a stand-alone option as well as an integrated solution with other products accessible over all types of endpoints, desktops, servers, virtual machines, and PoS terminals, makes it one of the most trusted and deployed solution providers in this market. Its strong portfolio of solutions, with a large number of channel partners and the potential to serve a wide customer base, has helped the company build a strong base for customers across regions. To keep on growing in this highly competitive market, Intel Security adopted both inorganic and organic strategies in the market. As a part of its organic strategy, the company enhanced its product portfolio by launching new solutions and releasing new versions of its existing products. In 2015, the company launched the new McAfee Endpoint Security 10.X to improve performance and visibility into advanced threats detection and remediation for endpoints. In 2014, the company launched its latest version of McAfee Mobile Security to help customers run free privacy and security scans. To cater to large enterprises, the company enhanced its portfolio with the addition of McAfee Complete Endpoint Protection – Enterprise, and McAfee Complete Endpoint Protection – Business. McAfee gets major portions of its sales from follow-up service, support, and subscriptions to its software and managed services. The company sells directly and through resellers to enterprises and consumers mainly in the U.S. Furthermore, in 2014, the company spent around USD 11.5 billion (20.65% of its revenue in 2014) on R&D expenditure towards developing new security products as per the changing market demand.
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The company is a leader in the emerging next-generation endpoint security market. The company's core capabilities include real-time visibility, threat intelligence, endpoint threat detection and response, advanced endpoint prevention, and open and extensible endpoint security. The company offers security solutions to industries such as education, finance, government, healthcare, manufacturing, oil & gas, utilities, and retail.
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Trend Micro aims to grow in the application control market by enhancing its market offering to acquire new customers as well as stay competitive in the ever-growing security market. In order to increase its market share Trend Micro implemented the strategy of acquisitions and partnerships. For instance, they acquired HP Tipping Point in 2015, to broaden their NGIPS portfolio. They integrated Trend Micro Cloud App Security with AppDirect for Office 365 in the AppDirect cloud service commerce ecosystem of applications. The company has also launched new product advancements periodically based on the changing demand of the customers. In 2015, Trend Micro announced the availability of Trend Micro Mobile Security for Android and iOS devices. The company also extended its support services for medium and large enterprises in North American region. Moreover, the customized service and support portfolio of Trend Micro is helping the company in serving its customers in a better way. In 2014, the company launched enhancements to its Trend Micro Complete User Protection with the addition of new features enhancing security for endpoints. Such advancements help Trend Micro Endpoint Application Control stay in pace with the market demand and gain a competitive advantage over its competitors.
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Symantec is one of the premium providers in the application control market and caters to a large customer base. With the growing trends of IoT and rapid rise in the number of connected devices, the company has changed its focus from protecting endpoints to effectively protecting and managing digital information in endpoint devices, which has become one of the prime necessities of today. Symantec’s investment in its channel partners is helping the company in driving customer satisfaction. Their go-to-market strategy includes direct sales as well as indirect sales resources which support their partner ecosystem. The company firmly adheres to the business strategy of having strong relationships with its partners in the market by forming alliances and partnerships with a number of OEMs towards enhancing its products. They partnered with Giesecke & Devrient (G&D), a global leader in mobile security, to collaborate on the development of protected security applications on smartphones and tablets. Symantec also expanded its incident response services to North America, the U.K., and select APAC regions to leverage comprehensive threat intelligence which would help the organization to predict and respond to cyber-threats. This helped the company to double its customer engagement over the last quarter. Besides this, the company is focused toward global Research and Development (R&D) strategy to drive innovations. For this, the company spent USD 1.14 billion in 2015 on in R&D to develop new technologies and product enhancements.
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McAfee Application Control is one the premium products in the application control market. The strong brand presence of Intel Security in the market is helping the product gain traction. The company’s innovative approach of providing the solutions as a stand-alone option as well as an integrated solution with other products accessible over all types of endpoints, desktops, servers, virtual machines, and PoS terminals, makes it one of the most trusted and deployed solution providers in this market. Its strong portfolio of solutions, with a large number of channel partners and the potential to serve a wide customer base, has helped the company build a strong base for customers across regions. To keep on growing in this highly competitive market, Intel Security adopted both inorganic and organic strategies in the market. As a part of its organic strategy, the company enhanced its product portfolio by launching new solutions and releasing new versions of its existing products. In 2015, the company launched the new McAfee Endpoint Security 10.X to improve performance and visibility into advanced threats detection and remediation for endpoints. In 2014, the company launched its latest version of McAfee Mobile Security to help customers run free privacy and security scans. To cater to large enterprises, the company enhanced its portfolio with the addition of McAfee Complete Endpoint Protection – Enterprise, and McAfee Complete Endpoint Protection – Business. McAfee gets major portions of its sales from follow-up service, support, and subscriptions to its software and managed services. The company sells directly and through resellers to enterprises and consumers mainly in the U.S.
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2.7
CyberArk is one of the leading security companies whose prime focus is on privilege account security. CyberArk acquired Viewfinity in October, 2015, a provider of application control solution. This acquisition extended CyberArk’s offerings to privileges account security and application control, to limit the progression of malware-based attacks on endpoints. Apart from delivering a new category of targeted security solutions and preventing attack escalation, the company is also mastering in high stake compliances and audit requirements. CyberArk has its business presence in regions such as the U.S., Israel, the U.K., France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Singapore and serves customers in more than 65 countries. With its offices and partners located across the world, CyberArk caters to a wide range of industries such as healthcare, energy & utility, education, telecom, government, finance, and others.
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Check Point is a leading B2B and B2C IT security service provider. The company offers complete security solutions from internet security, network security, cloud security, device security to data and endpoint security. The company offers reliable 5th generation cybersecurity architecture–Check Point Infinity–designed to protect the enterprises from highly dangerous cyberattacks like ransomware, in the configuration of security software, hardware, and services to all sizes of organizations and consumers. The other software solutions offered by the company are Check Point–Firewall and Check Point–EndPoint.

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It offers protection to enterprise Windows systems from APTs through their innovative security products. Arellia solutions address external and insider threats through privilege management, application whitelisting and reputation, administrator rights management, and security configuration assessment, and remediation. Arellia has a global presence with offices in the U.S. and Australia as well as a European sales office in Germany and Tallinn, Estonia. Arellia was founded in 2009 and is headquartered in Utah, U.S.
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Heat Software endpoint management solution manages and secures corporate endpoints and helps to detect and protect them from known and zero-day malware.
Appsense is the global leader in User Environment Management (UEM) for secure endpoints across physical, virtual, and cloud-delivered desktops. AppSense solutions protect about 9 million endpoints across 3,600 enterprises, globally. The company specializes in endpoint security, windows migration, virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), hardware recovery and desktop security. The company offers desktop management products and services to various industries such as healthcare, BFSI, education, government and legal among others.
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