5 Things To Know About HP's Newest PC Security Offerings

The company is upping its game around security across small, medium-sized and enterprise businesses with new solutions that are available for partners to sell.

HP Inc. on Wednesday announced a set of new PC security offerings to cover all sizes of customer from small businesses to large enterprises with enhanced capabilities as well as new managed services.

The announcements include an offering for SMBs that will be provided as an add-on to PCs; a managed service for medium-sized businesses; and a version of the Sure Click malware protection solution that is tailored for enterprises.

[Related: HP President Alex Cho Talks 5G, CPU Constraints And PC Security In 2020]

HP has been aggressive in recent years in deploying on-device security solutions in both its PCs and printers. The newly announced offerings also build on HP's acquisition in September of Bromium, the security vendor that has provided the technology behind Sure Click.

What follows are five things to know about HP's newest PC security offerings.

HP Pro Security Edition

The offering targeting small businesses is the HP Pro Security Edition, which HP says combines advanced application isolation with endpoint protection that leverages deep-learning technologies. Smaller-scale businesses, which usually don't have chief information security officers (CISOs) or security operations centers (SOCs), are looking for security solutions that are preconfigured and can easily be managed at their own consoles, said Ian Pratt, co-founder of Bromium and now global head of security for commercial systems at HP.

The HP Pro Security Edition includes an enhanced version of Sure Click--dubbed Sure Click Pro--offering improved isolation protection technologies covering files, browsers and applications. HP Pro Security also includes Sure Sense Pro, which expands on the Sure Sense deep-learning malware protection introduced last year, used for blocking previously unknown malware.

HP Pro Security Edition is "designed to combat the problem [small businesses] have with limited resources, by making it very simple to deploy and manage. Everything is brought together in this unified console," Pratt said in a briefing with reporters.

Partners or customers will be able to order new HP PCs with the HP Pro Security Edition pre-installed at the factory. HP Pro Security Edition will be available on 2020 HP notebook and desktop platforms across 400 to 1000 series machines, including both Intel- and AMD-based devices, though there will be certain minimum hardware requirements, HP said.

"We believe this enables small businesses to avoid being left behind by having really the highest caliber endpoint security, built in and shipped from the factory," Pratt said.

HP Pro Security Edition is expected to be available on select new HP PCs in the summer.

HP Proactive Security

The new managed security service for medium-sized businesses, HP Proactive Security, will be an additional solution that can be sold by partners, HP said.

The service will include monitoring and management by HP cybersecurity personnel, as well as advanced solutions including Sure Click Pro and Sure Sense Pro.

HP Proactive Security also adds analytics and insights gleaned from the HP TechPulse management agent running in the cloud, Pratt said. The solution will be available on non-HP and older HP devices, in addition to its availability on 2020 HP devices.

"These kinds of organizations really want to know what's happening within their estate of devices. And this technology will typically be cross-deployed across all of their devices, regardless of vendor," Pratt said. "With TechPulse, we're able to see and visualize these threats as they occur--and provide these dashboards and reports [to the CISO], so we can show them what we've been able to stop in their environment."

HP Proactive Security is expected to be available to partners and customers in April.

HP Sure Click Enterprise

A version of Sure Click that's tailored to larger businesses and government agencies, HP Sure Click Enterprise, will also be available for partners to sell and will be offered for both HP and non-HP platforms.

Sure Click Enterprise "provides the ability to do sophisticated configuration of the product [and] deployments at scale on large numbers of machines," Pratt said.

The solution will also let partners and customers "collect very detailed threat intelligence and reporting about exactly what's happening in the environment," he said.

HP is planning to make Sure Click Enterprise available in May. The solution supports all Windows 10 and Windows 8 devices, the company said.

HP Sure Click Pro

Along with including Sure Click Pro in its new security offerings, HP is said it is making the solution available for free for the next six months. HP Sure Click Pro will be offered as a free download through Sept. 30, 2020, for all Windows 10 PCs (both HP and non-HP devices).

"It really provides reliable protection against the No. 1 threat vector that users face, which today is opening Word documents they receive in an email," Pratt said. "It also enables them to browse the web with full confidence that websites aren't going to infect the system. And so we're excited to be making this available to everyone."

HP Essential Security

HP PC customers will also still continue to get a suite of security solutions prebundled with new devices--a suite that the company is now calling HP Essential Security.

"We continue to evolve and improve these technologies. I think every one of these technologies takes a step forward with our 2020 devices," Pratt said.

Along with Sure Click and Sure Sense, those security solutions include Sure Recover, which allows an image to be restored even without internet connectivity, and HP's self-healing BIOS technology, Sure Start.