Elevating the Security Features of UEM - HCL BigFix With CyberFOCUS Security Analytics

Enterprise attack surfaces are expanding rapidly as organizations manage endpoints across on-prem, cloud, mobile, and remote environments. According to IBM, the average cost of a data breach has reached $4.45 million, with endpoints remaining one of the most frequently exploited entry points for attackers.¹ Fragmented endpoint tools, delayed patching, and limited visibility across distributed infrastructure significantly increase both security risk and operational disruption.

This is where Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) becomes a critical layer for both security and business control. HCL BigFix, enhanced with CyberFOCUS Security Analytics, elevates UEM beyond basic device management by unifying real-time endpoint visibility, automated remediation, continuous compliance, and intelligence-driven risk prioritization within a single platform. Together, BigFix and CyberFOCUS help organizations shrink exploitable vulnerability windows, strengthen security posture, and scale endpoint protection without adding operational complexity.

In this blog, we’ll delve into HCL’s UEM platform and how it takes endpoint security to a whole new level.

What is Unified Endpoint Management (UEM)?

Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) refers to the ability to manage, secure, monitor, and automate all endpoints - servers, desktops, laptops, mobile devices, and cloud workloads from a single, unified platform. As enterprise IT organizations increasingly expand across cloud, data centers, and remote workforces, organizations increasingly need unified endpoint management solutions that go beyond device control, bringing together security, automation, and analytics under a single operational framework.

Meet BigFix: The Comprehensive Endpoint Guardian

Let's talk about HCL's BigFix. BigFix, HCL’s unified endpoint management solution, supports on-premises, mobile, virtual, and cloud deployment and provides visibility and security for all the endpoints regardless of their configuration. Not only that, but it leverages AI/ML-based intelligence, endpoint discovery, multiplatform support, co-management, Multicloud management, and remediation through its offerings BigFix Lifecycle, BigFix Compliance, BigFix Inventory, BigFix Workspace, and BigFix Remediate.

Endpoint management is no longer optional. As organisations face increasing cyber threats and a growing number of endpoints, endpoint management software provides the centralised control needed to secure devices, enforce compliance, and support hybrid work. As organizations face increasing cybersecurity threats and a growing diversity of endpoints, endpoint management has moved from an optional IT task to a strategic necessity. Endpoint management software and endpoint management solutions provide centralized control and monitoring of physical devices, remote devices, personal devices, and devices operating in cloud environments. These tools and strategies are essential for managing the expanded attack surface in today’s hybrid and cloud environment.

Endpoint management functions as a 'digital air traffic control'—ensuring all endpoints are authenticated, properly configured, and healthy. It ensures that only authenticated and approved devices—including personal devices, remote devices, and physical devices—can connect to the network, which is crucial for maintaining security. Endpoint management involves the tools, policies, and practices that security and IT teams use to authenticate, monitor, and provide access to an organization’s devices across all environments.

Rather than treating endpoint management, security, and infrastructure automation as separate disciplines. HCL BigFix unifies them into a single operational plane, connecting infrastructure monitoring, server automation, and endpoint security.

How Unified Endpoint Management Works with HCL BigFix

• HCL BigFix Lifecycle simplifies the management of OS and application lifecycles by automating patching across all connected endpoints within any configuration. Additionally, it provides endpoint inspection and real-time query of endpoints, eases OS upgrades, software deployment, server automation, and remote control. As an endpoint management tool, HCL BigFix provides centralized oversight, reporting, and control, helping IT teams ensure every device is regularly scanned and reviewed for vulnerabilities.
• HCL BigFix Insights grants high-level endpoint visibility, enabling in-depth analysis of endpoint trends, leading to risk identification. All endpoint data is diligently stored in a repository, from which valuable insights are extracted, paving the way for informative visualization reports that empower effective decision-making. The centralized dashboard incorporates alerting capabilities to monitor device activity, status, and security events, enabling rapid response to potential issues.
• HCL BigFix Compliance continuously monitors endpoints and applies security configurations to ensure alignment with industry-standard security benchmarks, including CIS, DISA STIG, USGCB, and PCI DSS. The continuous compliance capabilities are unique in that the automated monitoring and remediation are autonomous to the endpoint, i.e., it doesn’t require a continuous internet connection. This autonomous design is particularly critical for hybrid and remote infrastructure, where continuous connectivity cannot be assumed.
• HCL BigFix Inventory takes charge of license compliance, deftly ensuring software asset management for enterprises. The software asset inventory offers a comprehensive view for license reconciliation and compliance needs, furnishing critical insights into all deployed software on the endpoints. Since it uses the same agent and is integrated with the other modules, it automates license enforcement actions at scale, such as uninstalling application software when you have exceeded your license count.
• HCL BigFix Remediate is all about automated patching: It efficiently patches hundreds of thousands of endpoints at scale, regardless of device type, location, connection, or status. It supports over 100 different OSes and hundreds of 3rd party apps, and offers remediation integration with the top vulnerability remediation scanning solutions.

Together, these capabilities form the backbone of infrastructure management and intelligent automation within the BigFix UEM ecosystem.

Why UEM Matters for Security and Business Outcomes

In the modern threat landscape, endpoints are not a peripheral concern; they are the primary concern. According to IBM research, as many as 90% of successful cyberattacks and 70% of data breaches originate at endpoint devices such as laptops, servers, and mobile endpoints.² This makes effective endpoint management and security an essential business imperative, not just an IT task.

At the same time, Gartner forecasts that by 2027, 75% of employees will use technology outside IT visibility, dramatically increasing unmanaged devices and security blind spots.³ Without a unified approach, organizations risk prolonged exposure windows, inconsistent policy enforcement, and increased breach likelihood.

1. Reduce Risk Across Distributed Environments

Endpoints, including remote workers and BYOD devices, expand the attack surface and introduce vulnerabilities that traditional security tools fail to cover consistently. Securing endpoints is a critical part of reducing risk and is essential for a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy. 

A UEM platform like HCL BigFix, augmented by CyberFOCUS security analytics, provides real-time visibility and automated remediation across all endpoint types. This helps reduce exploitable vulnerability time and prioritizes fixes based on real threat activity, turning endpoint security from reactive to proactive.

2. Lower Operational Burden with Intelligent Automation

Manual patching and siloed security workflows are costly and slow. Research shows many organizations still patch inconsistently, leaving endpoints vulnerable longer than necessary. By unifying compliance, patching, and remediation, HCL BigFix reduces manual effort and cuts operational overhead. 

Automating endpoint management delivers key benefits such as improved cost-effectiveness, enhanced security, and greater operational focus for organizations. Automating routine tasks in endpoint management also closes vulnerability windows faster than manual processes. 

Additionally, endpoint management solutions can simplify tasks like automatically scheduling operating system updates and sending new device configurations. CyberFOCUS further refines this by identifying which vulnerabilities matter most, so teams focus on what truly reduces risk, not just what exists on paper.

3. Improve Resilience for Remote and Hybrid Work

As remote and hybrid work becomes standard, endpoint visibility and control become harder to achieve using legacy tools. BigFix’s autonomous agent can inspect and remediate endpoints regardless of location, while CyberFOCUS ensures that security prioritization tracks active threat intelligence in real time.

4. Align Security Metrics to Business Impact

Security leaders need metrics that translate technical actions into business outcomes. HCL BigFix’s integration with CyberFOCUS provides measurable insights into exposure reduction and compliance status, enabling organizations to tie improved security posture directly to reduced breach risk, improved uptime, and better compliance posture.

In sum, UEM matters because it aligns security with business priorities: reducing the risk of breach and financial impact, lowering operational costs, and enabling consistent endpoint control across distributed and hybrid environments, all essential in a world where endpoints are the leading vectors for attacks.

The Game-changers: HCL BigFix WorkSpace, CyberFOCUS, and HCL BigFix AEX with Generative AI

HCL BigFix prioritizes end-user experience and endpoint security and offers BigFix Workspace and CyberFOCUS as its key differentiators. This is where BigFix extends beyond traditional UEM tools, bringing together endpoint security, digital employee experience, and advanced security analytics.

HCL BigFix Workspace:

BigFix Workspace offers a comprehensive management suite encompassing desktops, laptops, and mobile devices. It centralizes end-user device management, automates endpoint security, enhances the user experience, and drives cost savings while optimizing processes to proactively tackle security threats.

This solution empowers end users with BigFix automation, allowing them to reduce IT workload through one-click resolutions.

For example, it can handle password resets, restore security configurations, and optimize disk space without IT intervention. Leveraging AI technology ensures consistent, personalized end –user support cost-effectively, significantly reducing service desk calls and boosting employee satisfaction.

HCL BigFix AEX: The Agentic AI Platform

HCL BigFix AEX is an enterprise-grade Agentic AI platform that redefines the Digital Employee Experience (DEX) by shifting from simple self-service to autonomous problem resolution. It empowers organizations to deploy intelligent AI agents that handle complex workflows with human-like reasoning.

Key Capabilities

• No-Code Agent Orchestration: Utilizing the Agentic AI Studio, teams can visually design, build, and deploy intelligent agents. This allows for the creation of custom workflows and the integration of pre-built tools without requiring a single line of code.
• Proven Generative AI Intelligence: AEX provides a GenAI-driven conversational interface capable of executing dozens of out-of-the-box use cases, including:
  • Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs).
  • OS and Application troubleshooting.
  • Automated security and configuration remediation.
• Omnichannel Engagement: Supports natural interaction through voice, text, and chat, ensuring a seamless experience across the modern workspace.
• Massive Scalability & Validation: Currently trusted by over 3 million active users to manage more than 5,000 unique use cases across diverse industries.
• Deep Ecosystem Integration: AEX acts as a central brain, integrating natively with:
  • Communication Channels: MS Teams, Slack, Facebook Messenger.
  • Enterprise Systems: ITSM, CRM, Robotic Process Automation (RPA), and Run Book Automation (RBA).

HCL BigFix CyberFOCUS:

Let's dive into how HCL BigFix, with its cutting-edge companion CyberFOCUS security analytics, is revolutionizing endpoint security. Imagine a world where your devices are not just managed but fortified against threats in real-time. CyberFOCUS is a security analytics component that seamlessly integrates with HCL BigFix. 

This capability enables security and infrastructure teams to move from reactive vulnerability response to proactive, intelligence-driven remediation, aligning cyber risk reduction directly with business priorities.

CyberFOCUS has a vulnerability simulator that maps all the MITRE Advanced Persistent Threat attack groups to exploited vulnerabilities and exposures. This simulator allows “what if” analysis that shows the number of exposures that would be reduced by remediation of specific CVE’s (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures) currently being exploited by specific groups. It also automatically recommends specific remediations that will reduce the maximum number of exposures to reduce the overall attack surface with the least amount of business disruption.

BigFix insights for vulnerability remediation provides seamless integration with top- tier vulnerability scanners like Tenable, Qualys, and Rapid7, delivering a unified perspective of all vulnerabilities throughout the organization. This solution automates CVE attack surface reduction by pulling CVE exposure and prioritization data directly from those vendors and matching it with the correct remediation content to enable automated remediation processing.

By consolidating vulnerability intelligence, prioritization, and remediation into a single workflow, BigFix reduces operational friction between SecOps and ITOps while accelerating vulnerability closure. 

BigFix CISA KEV (Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency Known Exploited Vulnerabilities) catalog is a US Federal Government resource that tracks attacks in the wild. The BigFix integration immediately tells you, at a glance, if you have CISA Known Exploited Vulnerabilities in your environment and if you are past the government due date, helping organizations to manage cyber risk reduction across SecOps and ITOps with collaboration and speed. It also does this without any additional scheduled endpoint scans. Access to the detection and remediation content requires the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Content Pack Add-On.

This tight integration ensures that known, actively exploited vulnerabilities are not just visible, but actionable within the same unified endpoint management workflow.

BigFix introduces the new concept of Protection Level Agreements (PLAs), which facilitates measuring and tracking cyber risk from a business perspective. In this case, PLA corresponds to the OS and Application patching cadence, or the amount of exploitable vulnerability time that your organization has agreed to allow. The number of days it takes you to patch your systems is directly related to the value proposition at the intersection of security and IT, which is the ability to control and reduce your vulnerability exploitation time. It is a measurable control point, which is the PLA. PLAs allow organizations to translate technical patching performance into business-aligned security metrics, making cyber risk measurable, trackable, and governable.

BigFix automatically evaluates the number of devices that were patched, as well as the devices that were not patched over a user-adjustable time period. It gives a report of devices that are compliant to the patching cadence and the devices that are not, and does this over multiple security patching software content, including critical OS server patches, critical Windows patches, as well as various application patch content as well. BigFix therefore provides automated measurement of your organization’s cyber risk via measurement of the exploitable vulnerability time, which is under your control.

This automated measurement reinforces BigFix’s role as both a UEM and infrastructure monitoring platform, bridging endpoint visibility, server automation, and security analytics.

UEM vs MDM vs EMM

Endpoint management platforms vary significantly in scope and capability, making it essential to understand how UEM compares with traditional MDM and EMM approaches. 

Use Cases for Unified Endpoint Management with HCL BigFix

Below are key enterprise use cases where HCL BigFix, enhanced with CyberFOCUS security analytics, delivers measurable security, automation, and infrastructure management outcomes at scale. 

1. BYOD and Mobile Workforce Security

Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) environments significantly expand the enterprise attack surface by introducing personally owned and often inconsistently secured devices. HCL BigFix enables organizations to extend unified endpoint management policies across employee-owned laptops and mobile devices without sacrificing visibility or control.

Using a single agent-based architecture, BigFix enforces security configurations, automates patching, and maintains endpoint compliance across diverse device types. When paired with CyberFOCUS, security teams gain intelligence-driven insights into which devices present real exploitation risk, enabling prioritized remediation rather than blanket enforcement.

Remote and Hybrid Work Environments

Remote and hybrid workforces introduce persistent visibility and compliance challenges, especially when endpoints operate outside corporate networks. Traditional tools often fail when VPN access is unavailable or intermittent.

HCL BigFix overcomes this by using an autonomous endpoint agent capable of inspection, remediation, and compliance enforcement regardless of device location. CyberFOCUS security analytics further enhances this model by correlating vulnerabilities with real-world threat activity, allowing organizations to reduce exposure windows even when endpoints are fully remote.

Together, BigFix and CyberFOCUS ensure consistent endpoint security and operational resilience across distributed work environments.

Hybrid IT and Multicloud Infrastructure Management

Modern enterprises operate across on-premises infrastructure, public cloud, and hybrid environments, often spanning Windows, Linux, macOS, and virtualized workloads. Managing these environments with fragmented tools leads to policy inconsistency, delayed remediation, and operational inefficiencies.

HCL BigFix provides a single operational plane for infrastructure management, enabling server monitoring, automated patch management, configuration enforcement, and lifecycle management at scale. CyberFOCUS complements this by prioritizing vulnerabilities based on exploitability and business impact, ensuring remediation efforts focus on the most critical risks first.

Regulated Industries and Compliance-Driven Environments

Highly regulated industries such as healthcare, finance, and government require continuous compliance, audit readiness, and rapid vulnerability remediation. Periodic assessments and manual checks are insufficient to meet modern regulatory and threat landscapes.

HCL BigFix enables continuous compliance by autonomously enforcing benchmarks such as CIS, DISA STIG, and PCI DSS directly at the endpoint. CyberFOCUS adds a risk-based prioritization layer, helping organizations focus on compliance gaps that expose them to active exploitation.

By unifying compliance monitoring, vulnerability intelligence, and remediation, BigFix simplifies regulatory adherence while strengthening security outcomes.

The Big Picture: Why BigFix Workspace with CyberFocus & AEX

BigFix Workspace is a truly unified solution providing comprehensive management and security for all client and mobile devices. When combined with CyberFocus security analytics, Workspace extends beyond device management to deliver intelligence-driven endpoint protection and infrastructure automation. 

CyberFOCUS provides organizations with innovative methods to reduce their attack surface and protect their brand integrity. Together, BigFix Workspace, AEX, and CyberFocus align digital employee experience (DEX), intelligent automation, and security analytics into a single unified endpoint management solution

In the world of Unified Endpoint Management, HCL BigFix Workspace, AEX and CyberFOCUS security analytics are a formidable combination that can be thought of as the comprehensive endpoint guardian that can elevate an organization’s endpoint security to new heights. By leveraging its capabilities, the safety and integrity of the devices and associated corporate data in today’s fast-paced, technology-driven landscape is ensured.

Elevating UEM Security with Intelligence, Automation, and Scale

HCL BigFix, enhanced with CyberFOCUS security analytics and AEX, delivers a truly unified approach to endpoint management - where visibility, automation, and risk reduction work together seamlessly. By combining real-time security intelligence with autonomous remediation and digital employee experience, BigFix enables organizations to secure diverse endpoint environments while reducing operational complexity and cyber risk.

Contact the BigFix team or Schedule a free demo today.

Frequently Asked Questions

1: What is the UEM solution?

HCL BigFix is a Unified Endpoint Management solution that combines lifecycle management, compliance, inventory, automation, and security analytics managing servers, desktops, mobile, and cloud endpoints from a single platform.

2: Does UEM work for remote employees

Yes. BigFix securely manages and remediates roaming and off-network devices using intelligent agents, making it ideal for remote and hybrid work environments.

3: What is the difference between EDR and UEM

EDR focuses on threat detection and response, while UEM, like HCL BigFix provides holistic endpoint visibility, patching, compliance, automation, and security analytics.

4: What are the key trends shaping the future of UEM cybersecurity?

Key trends include autonomous endpoint management, AI-driven remediation, integrated security analytics, and tighter SecOps–ITOps collaboration.

5: How does Unified Endpoint Management differ from traditional endpoint management?

Traditional tools operate in silos, while BigFix UEM unifies automation, compliance, patching, analytics, and user experience into a single, scalable platform.

References:

1. https://www.ibm.com/reports/data-breach

2. https://www.ibm.com/services/endpoint-security

3. https://www.hcl-software.com/blog/bigfix/endpoint-management-core-of-zero-trust-security