HP’s Security Strategy Is More Interesting Than the Market Gives It Credit For

(And It Says Something Important About Where Endpoint Security Is Headed) 

HP, Inc doesn’t usually get mentioned in the same breath as the “cool kids” of cybersecurity. That’s partly because they’ve never really tried to play that role, and partly because the market still tends to think of HP as a hardware company with security features bolted on. 

That framing isn’t wrong, exactly. But it’s incomplete. 

After attending HP’s analyst event earlier this month and digging into HP’s security strategy and portfolio, the more accurate story isn’t that HP has suddenly become a security leader. It’s that they’re starting from a different place than most endpoint security vendors, one that’s increasingly relevant as attackers get faster, cheaper, and more automated. 

At its core, this is a story about where trust actually begins, what happens when detection inevitably fails, and whether endpoint security needs to move further down the stack than many organizations have been willing to go. 

A Lifecycle View of Device Security: Sensible, Familiar, and Hard to Execute Well 

HP’s security strategy is anchored in a lifecycle view of the device, one that spans manufacturing, transit, daily use, and eventual retirement. The idea is that endpoints don’t suddenly become vulnerable when a user logs in. Risk exists long before first boot and long after the device leaves active service. 

That framing won’t surprise anyone. “Protect, detect, recover” is now standard language across the industry. What’s different is how seriously HP has pushed that model into hardware and firmware layers, rather than treating them as background assumptions. 

At the center of this approach is HP’s Endpoint Security Controller (ESC), a dedicated security chip that functions as a root of trust and operates independently of the OS. It remains active even when the system appears powered off, monitoring integrity and enabling recovery actions. HP backs this with third-party certifications that are still relatively uncommon in commercial endpoints. 

The takeaway here isn’t that ESC magically solves endpoint security. It’s that HP is explicitly betting that resilience beats detection, especially in an environment where attacks are increasingly automated, time-to-exploitation is collapsing, and the cost of sophisticated techniques continues to fall. 

That bet won’t matter to everyone. But it becomes harder to ignore as hardware-level threats move out of the “nation-state only” bucket. 

Workforce Experience Platform (WXP): Ambitious, Operational, and Still an Open Question 

HP’s Workforce Experience Platform (WXP) is a key part of how this strategy comes together, not because it is the single most important element, but because it reflects how HP thinks security should be operated. 

WXP is designed to unify fleet management, Digital Employee Experience (DEX), and security across PCs, printers, and collaboration devices, including non-HP endpoints. Rather than positioning security as a standalone domain, it treats it as one dimension of overall device health, productivity, and resilience. 

This is where HP’s strategy shifts from architectural theory to operational reality.

Proactive remediation, predictive failure analysis, and smarter refresh decisions are not traditionally “security” conversations, but they increasingly shape security outcomes. 

That said, several practical questions remain: 

• How do teams really consolidate tools? Is it through a platform like WXP? Do IT and security teams have the autonomy and organizational alignment to centralize around a shared management plane? 

• How much trust will security teams place in an experience-centric platform? Especially in organizations where tooling sprawl is already a point of friction. 

• How clean does multi-vendor management get in practice? The promise is compelling. The execution is where platforms often stumble. 

One important detail that does differentiate WXP is that HP’s Wolf Security Console is natively integrated, rather than loosely connected. Admins can move between fleet health, performance insights, and security configuration without jumping between disconnected tools. This is the kind of convergence many vendors talk about and then approximate through integrations. 

Whether organizations embrace that convergence widely remains an open question. But the direction itself reflects a belief that security, operations, and employee experience are no longer separable disciplines. 

Isolation Over Detection: A Useful Counterweight, not a Replacement Strategy 

One of the more distinctive elements of HP’s portfolio comes from its Bromium heritage, now delivered through Sure Click and Sure Access. 

These technologies don’t try to detect malicious behavior. Instead, they assume risk and isolate it at the hardware level using disposable micro-virtual machines. Click a risky link or open an untrusted attachment and the activity runs in its own micro-VM, disappearing when the session closes. 

Sure Access extends this model to privileged and high-value workflows by creating isolated environments for sensitive applications and administrative sessions. Functionally, this acts like a Privileged Access Workstation (PAW), a hardened environment traditionally delivered via separate physical devices but implemented virtually on a single endpoint. 

The relevance here ties directly to changes in attacker behavior. As HP’s threat research* notes, attackers are increasingly targeting session cookies rather than credentials, particularly as cloud administration moves almost entirely into browsers. Once an attacker steals an authenticated session cookie, MFA becomes irrelevant. 

Isolating those sessions from a potentially compromised host OS is one of the few controls that meaningfully addresses that risk. This does not replace EDR, and HP does not seriously position it that way. It works best as a compensating control for scenarios where detection is already too slow. 

Adoption will ultimately depend on workflow impact and administrative overhead, areas where even technically sound ideas often struggle. 

Threat Reality Check: AI, Cookies, and $20 Hardware Hacks 

HP’s threat research isn’t trying to be provocative, which is arguably part of its value. 

Three trends stand out. 

• AI is now embedded across the entire attack lifecycle. Not just in phishing content, but in reconnaissance, automation, lateral movement, and even malware that can query local AI agents for sensitive information. The practical impact is a dramatic compression of time between vulnerability disclosure and weaponization. 

• Session cookie hijacking has overtaken credential theft. As administration shifts to browser-based cloud consoles, stealing authenticated sessions has become the fastest path to privilege. Info-stealer malware designed for this purpose is now among the most prevalent threat types. 

• Hardware attacks are no longer exotic. Techniques like TPM bus sniffing, once expensive and specialized, can now be assembled for under $20. These attacks are no longer limited to nation-states. They are accessible to financially motivated criminals. 

The common thread is that OS-level security assumptions are under increasing strain. When attacks are cheap, automated, and difficult to distinguish from normal behavior, controls that rely solely on detection and response are increasingly brittle. 

Post-Quantum and Recovery: Preparing Early, Without Overhyping 

HP’s work around post-quantum cryptography (PQC) is notable, not because quantum attacks are imminent, but because firmware trust mechanisms are among the hardest things to retrofit later. 

HP has begun using quantum-resistant algorithms to protect BIOS digital signatures in commercial PCs and has announced similar protections for enterprise printers. This is a quiet, infrastructure-level move that will not matter to most buyers today but could matter a great deal over a decade-long device lifecycle. 

Similarly, recovery capabilities like Sure Recover reflect a recognition that recovery is often the most neglected phase of security planning. These features do not prevent attacks. They reduce downtime and operational pain when things go wrong in ways detection tools cannot fix. 

Neither of these areas will win deals on their own. But they reinforce HP’s broader emphasis on durability over theatrics. 

The Real Test Is Execution, Not Architecture 

If there’s a consistent tension in HP’s security story, it’s not technical ambition. It’s execution. 

Selling layered security through historically hardware-centric channels is difficult. Portfolio naming and packaging still create unnecessary cognitive load. Messaging across PCs and Print has historically been fragmented, though there was good evidence of greater alignment at the event in December. 

HP appears aware of these challenges and is moving toward simplified bundles, unified messaging, and stronger security incentives for sales teams. Whether those efforts translate into sustained traction remains to be seen. 

The strategy is coherent. The market impact will depend on whether HP can make it understandable, repeatable, and easy to buy. 

Bottom Line 

HP’s security strategy isn’t flashy, and it isn’t trying to replace the broader security stack. What it does suggest is a meaningful shift in emphasis, from detection to resilience, from software-only controls to hardware roots of trust, and from isolated tools to operational platforms. 

That approach won’t resonate with every organization. But as attacks get faster, cheaper, and harder to distinguish from normal activity, strategies that assume compromise and focus on containment and recovery deserve closer scrutiny. 

Whether HP ultimately capitalizes on that insight is still an open question. But the direction itself reflects something the broader market is slowly being forced to confront. Endpoint security may need to move further down the stack than we’ve been comfortable admitting. 

*We have HP’s Principal Threat Researcher, Alex Holland, on our Cyber Sidekicks podcast Episode 48 to discuss the newly minted Threat Insight Report.