ControlUp Secure DX - Enhancing Endpoint Security

Towards the end of 2020 and into 2021, Aidan McEvoy, the Director of Digital Workspace, Keith Howell, the Managed Services Manager, and I embarked on a meaningful journey to craft a managed service dedicated to enhancing the Digital Employee Experience. One pivotal aspect we identified as critical for assessing user experience was achieving end-to-end visibility, spanning from the user's client machine to their Citrix session. Since 2015, we have meticulously developed our Citrix Managed Service with a focus on ControlUp, yet we recognized the gap in endpoint monitoring and management.

Additionally, we pinpointed other crucial components of the service, including compliance, patching, and addressing vulnerability issues at the endpoint. Application drift and vulnerability drift emerged as significant challenges. Initially, we hadn't linked these components directly to the Digital Employee Experience. However, reflecting on our journey, I now view these elements as integral to our overarching goal of humanizing IT, ensuring that technology not only serves but also enhances every employee's work life by making it more secure, efficient, and aligned with their needs.

humanizing IT, examining how every technological interaction and its management impacts the Digital Employee Experience. This discussion highlights the cause-and-effect relationship between the nuances of technology use and the overall well-being of employees.  "Reimagining the IT Service Desk to the Employee Helpdesk"

In early 2021 ControlUp started to give us some early insights into their new product that would be released in the summer of 2021, the product was Edge DX  "endpoint management & DEX for all physical endpoints | ControlUp"  and also fast forward to 2023 the release of Remote DX  Announcing ControlUp Real-Time DX v8.8 with Remote DX. With these two products, we had that end-to-end visibility of the user but still lacked the compliance, patching, and addressing vulnerability until March 20th, 2024, and the Release of Secure DX                         
"Improve your endpoint security with ControlUp Secure DX".     Citrix endpoint management & DEX for all physical endpoints | ControlUp 

Secure DX complements Edge DX as an optional enhancement and necessitates the installation of an extra agent, along with the procurement of additional licenses. The quantity of Edge DX and Secure DX licenses doesn't need to match. At present, the system supports only Windows OS, though MacOS support is a top priority on the development roadmap. The inclusion of other operating systems will be considered based on user demand. 

Also at this point, multi-session servers are not supported but can be installed on a standard server as long as Edge DX is also installed.

SecureDX is broken down into the following categories:

Misconfiguration:  Operating system settings that don't meet security recommendations and best practices.

Compliance: Check if antivirus and other security control software are installed and working properly to protect your devices. Note that some security checks simulate real threats such as a malware download and might cause excessive alerting in other security software. These security checks are indicated by a yellow or red warning icon. A yellow icon means that the check might cause moderately severe alerting and a red icon means that the check might cause extremely severe alerting

Vulnerability & Patching (OS and Application):  Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs) checked against 3rd party database with over 38k known vulnerabilities going back for the last 20 years. Windows patching is downloaded from Microsoft and other vulnerabilities are downloaded for vendors directly if they have made a fix available.

Application End-of-life: Also applications are checked against end-of-life with      vendors and reported on within SecureDX

Management and remediation revolve around two fundamental elements: "templates" and "scheduling." To begin, you craft a template tailored to your specific needs, focusing on aspects such as Misconfiguration, Compliance, Vulnerability & Patching, and Application End-of-life. This template is then allocated to a designated group of devices. Following that, you set a schedule to dictate the timing of scans using the configured template. Within the scheduling component, a variety of options are available to customize the process further. 

In conclusion, ControlUp's Secure DX represents a significant stride toward enhancing endpoint security, addressing the gaps in endpoint monitoring and management previously unbridled. This tool is a testament to the journey towards humanizing IT, by ensuring technology not only meets the basic needs but elevates the Digital Employee Experience. Secure DX, with its focus on misconfiguration, compliance, vulnerability, patching, and application end-of-life, underpins creating a secure, efficient, and responsive IT environment that resonates with the evolving needs of every employee. Secure DX stands as a pivotal element in our ongoing effort to safeguard and empower the digital workspace.