Endpoint protection defends what is now considered the enterprise perimeter – the devices that connect to your network – from malware and non-malware threats. These attacks include ransomware, advanced file-less malware, phishing ploys, and social engineering.
Data breaches are expensive and damaging for businesses of all sizes, costing an average of $3.86 million per breach in the United States, according to Ponemon’s report in 2020 (commissioned by IBM).
Automated Detection and Response
With cybercriminals deploying increasingly sophisticated attack methods, protecting your organization is challenging. A robust endpoint security solution helps you defend against advanced threats without interfering with employees’ ability to work safely and securely using the devices they choose to do their jobs.
Endpoint protection solutions, also known as EPPs or EDRs (endpoint detection and response), monitor the behavior of your endpoint devices to identify and respond to threats. They rely on a combination of file, network, device, account, and security control data to assess the risk level of each endpoint.
They can also reduce your attack surface by limiting how apps communicate with each other, thus decreasing the likelihood that they can be used to launch malicious activity. Lastly, many EPPs offer automated remediation to close security gaps.
Combined with a zero-trust approach, these capabilities help you protect your business’s reputation and keep your employees productive. With more visibility into the state of your endpoints, you can ensure that your business is protected from external bad actors and internal insiders alike.
Detection and Prevention of Advanced Threats
Detection of sophisticated malware and threats requires a security solution beyond traditional antivirus software. A robust solution should rely on complementary technologies and use advanced machine learning algorithms to recognize contextual anomalies on endpoint devices.
Most organizations have multiple endpoint devices on their networks, including laptops, desktops, tablets, and phones. For companies with a distributed workforce, an endpoint protection platform that can secure all devices regardless of employee location is crucial for productivity.
In addition to ensuring that all devices are visible on the network, a good endpoint security solution should also be able to detect and prevent breaches in real-time. It includes detecting phishing attempts, ransomware attacks, and other types of cyberattacks that can cost companies tens or even hundreds of millions in fines and lost business.
Typical antivirus and anti-malware solutions typically rely upon known threat information to detect attacks, which is why they miss many threats. Cybercriminals are constantly tweaking their malware to evade detection, and they can make these changes much faster than cybersecurity professionals can update their protections.
Detection and Prevention of Insider Threats
A typical endpoint protection solution comprises antivirus and other technologies that work together to detect malware on endpoints. Traditional antivirus is signature-based, meaning it looks for patterns of known threats and blocks them. This technology is effective, but cybercriminals are developing new ways to evade detection.
Many endpoint solutions also include network and privileged user access control, encryption, insider threat monitoring, malware prevention tools, and EDR. These technologies are essential to protect endpoints from attacks that slip past preventative security measures.
However, these advanced solutions cannot protect endpoints from internal threats – employees who misuse or mishandle their company’s systems. Companies must ensure that their endpoint protection solutions can identify insiders, whether malicious or simply making a mistake. As the pandemic forces people to work from home or other remote locations, businesses must have complete visibility and robust protection on their off-network endpoints. Without this, the door is open for attackers to steal data and exploit software vulnerabilities.
Data Loss Prevention
With data becoming the most valuable asset of a business, every company must take steps to protect their data. However, more than traditional security tools and methods are needed to secure sensitive information in this threat environment. Moreover, many attacks start on endpoints, meaning adequate endpoint protection is essential for protecting businesses of all sizes.
Endpoint detection and response (EDR) solutions continuously monitor file and application activity for anomalous behavior that indicates a cyberattack is underway. These solutions also collect detailed security telemetry for real-time analysis, root cause investigation, and threat hunting.
Effective EDR solutions detect attacks based on file activity, network activities, user login activities, and changes to files and folders. Also, keys can identify and alert administrators to suspicious or malicious behaviors that could indicate a zero-day attack. Lastly, they can prevent the loss of sensitive data by encrypting all files at rest or in transit. It enables organizations to keep their reputation intact and protect their business from costly breaches.
Compliance
An effective endpoint security solution must quickly detect, isolate and contain threats in progress. It should also deliver advanced protection against phishing emails and other cyberattack methods that can lead to a data breach. The solution should provide immediate quarantine of harmful files so they can be cleaned rather than discarded, and it should be able to prevent a malware attack from spreading across the network by identifying and blocking communications with other systems in real time.
Employees use an increasing number of different devices to access business networks, and the proliferation of bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policies, remote work, and WiFi connectivity means that the enterprise network security perimeter has become even more complicated to protect. Ineffective endpoint protection allows hackers to enter a corporate system and steal or destroy sensitive data.
An endpoint protection solution streamlines the detection of and response to cyberattacks, giving IT teams more time for initiatives that help their businesses grow. It can reduce the cost of recovering from a cyberattack by decreasing the amount of money spent on ransomware payments, expenses related to business disruption and loss of intellectual property, increased insurance premiums, regulatory fines, and lost customer trust.