Overview

About the service

ESET LiveGuard Advanced is a paid service provided by ESET. Its purpose is to add a layer of protection specifically designed to mitigate new threats in the wild.

Change of the service name

On March 23, 2022, ESET Dynamic Threat Defense was re-branded to ESET LiveGuard Advanced. In ESET business products, you can find it also as ESET LiveGuard. Both names refer to the same service.

How it works

Suspicious samples that are not yet confirmed as malicious and may potentially carry malware are automatically submitted to the ESET cloud. Submitted samples are run in a sandbox and are evaluated by our advanced malware detection engines. Malicious samples or suspicious spam emails are submitted to ESET LiveGrid®. Email attachments are handled separately and are subject to submission to ESET LiveGuard Advanced. Administrators or users can define the scope of files that are submitted and the retention period of the file in the ESET cloud. Documents and PDF files with active content (macros, javascript) are not submitted by default. See the detailed description of How detection layers work.

In the Submitted files section of the remote management console, administrators get a brief report of the observed sample's behavior for each submitted file. If a file turns out to be malicious, it is blocked for all users participating in ESET LiveGrid® as a suspicious object. If evaluated as suspicious, it is blocked on all machines within the user’s organization, depending on the sensitivity threshold.

Files can be submitted manually or automatically based on policy configuration. In the ESET PROTECT Web Console, a user can submit .exe files reported from client machines.

What are the differences between ESET LiveGuard Advanced, ESET LiveGrid® and ESET Threat Intelligence?

Architecture

ESET security products and management console

Whenever a sample is uploaded to ESET LiveGuard Advanced for analysis, that sample's metadata is uploaded to the management console if the Client can connect to the Server. This provides the console Administrator with a list of samples uploaded to the ESET cloud.

ESET security products and ESET LiveGuard Advanced

Whenever an activated and configured ESET security product decides a sample needs to be analyzed, it uploads the sample to ESET LiveGuard Advanced. After ESET LiveGuard Advanced analyzes the sample, it provides the result to all machines in that company (or MSP customer) and to all companies that have ever submitted that file. The security product takes the appropriate action based on the policy in place. In ESET endpoint and ESET server products version 7.2 and higher, you can select an action to take on suspicious files downloaded by browsers and email clients.

ESET signs all transferred packages to mitigate the risk of attack. When using an HTTP connection in the internal network, the product checks if the connection is upgraded to HTTPS behind a proxy. If the proxy is not configured correctly, the HTTPS connection is also used in the internal network.

ESET management consoles and ESET LiveGuard Advanced

The ESET LiveGuard Advanced is available in on-premises and cloud-based management consoles (ESET PROTECT On-Prem, ESET PROTECT). After ESET LiveGuard Advanced receives a sample from an ESET security product, it automatically informs the management console about the status of the analysis. When the analysis is complete, the result is transferred to the management console.

Roaming Endpoints and ESET LiveGuard Advanced

A roaming endpoint is any client with an ESET security product operating outside of your company's perimeter and has no connection to ESET PROTECT On-Prem. Usually, it is a computer at home or on a business trip without a VPN. A roaming client takes full advantage of ESET LiveGuard Advanced. However, it does not notify ESET PROTECT On-Prem about samples that have been submitted for analysis. When the client returns to your perimeter and connects to ESET PROTECT On-Prem, the client's metadata is synchronized, and the list of submitted files is updated. Other clients on your network can receive updates that result from discovered threats while a client is roaming even before it synchronizes with ESET PROTECT On-Prem.

ESET Cloud Office Security and ESET LiveGuard Advanced

ESET LiveGuard Advanced analyzes submitted files by executing suspicious code in an isolated environment to evaluate its behavior. ESET Cloud Office Security submits suspicious email attachments and files from Microsoft Exchange Online, OneDrive, Teams groups and SharePoint sites to ESET LiveGuard Advanced for analysis. ESET Cloud Office Security does not require or upload data to an ESET management console. Information about submitted files and their results are present in ESET Cloud Office Security.

Global Database

ESET LiveGuard Advanced uses two Azure data centers (the USA and Europe) to store hashes of the files and the results of their analysis. Data centers provide faster results for already analyzed files. The ESET Headquarters (located in Slovakia) stores all the submitted files and performs the analysis. Each customer's (company's) data is stored separately in one global database. ESET routes user connections to the nearest data center.