How Your Enterprise Can Better Secure The Endpoint
Okay, so at this point, you should know your enterprise needs endpoint security. But how can your enterprise better secure the endpoint?
Yes, cybersecurity continues to change. Currently, it focuses on detection rather than prevention, which once dominated the endpoint security discourse. However, you still need a strong digital perimeter surrounding all of your endpoints. After all, each endpoint represents a gateway into your IT infrastructure. Moreover, plenty of threats still attempt to penetrate the network, such as ransomware.
Thus, your enterprise needs to better secure the endpoint. First, you must begin with next-generation endpoint security. However, to secure the endpoint, your enterprise needs to take some additional steps.
Why You Need to Take Steps to Secure the Endpoint
Surprisingly, these questions comprises of two parts: why does your enterprise need endpoint security? And why does your enterprise need to step in to better secure the endpoint?
To answer the first, a strong digital perimeter can often mean the difference between a secure IT environment. Most hackers don’t bother attacking secure enterprises with a strong digital perimeter. Instead, they prefer to target the low-hanging fruit—vulnerable enterprises.
Additionally, the effects of a data breach can prove devastating. Just the damage to your finances (which motivates a majority of cyber-attacks) can hurt you in the short-term. Yet the full damage of a breach often works in insidious ways. Not only does your enterprise need to contend with legal fees and compliance payments, but the loss of customer engagement and trust.
As for the second question, cybersecurity and endpoint security don’t exist in a vacuum. They can only secure your enterprise so much as the culture of your enterprise facilitates it. You need to take steps to secure the endpoint as it connects to your enterprise. Here’s how.
How to Better Secure The Endpoint
Above All, Don’t Give Into Despair
Of course, this is easier said than done. Cybersecurity doesn’t possess a reputation for positivity. So much customer and enterprise information exist now on the Dark Web for exploitation by hackers. Every day brings with it information on a new devastating data breach.
But these do not represent certainties. Your enterprise hasn’t been hacked yet. If you take the time to secure the endpoint, you can help ensure they have to fight hard to get to your network.
If you put up a fight, you’ll find how easily most hackers back down.
Find Endpoint Security That Matches Your Needs
To better secure the endpoint connecting to your enterprise, first ask yourself this: how many endpoints connect to your network on average?
This isn’t an idle question. Each endpoint represents an attack vector in and of itself. Ransomware could lock up an endpoint and cryptojacking malware can dwell on each endpoint individually. Of course, each endpoint could represent a gateway into your network at large.
However, to secure the endpoint properly, you need an endpoint security system you can actually manage. A significant number of enterprises deal with between 5,000 and 500,000 endpoints each day.
On the one hand, a legacy endpoint security solution probably lacks the capabilities necessary to secure all of these devices. On the other hand, trying to enact a next-generation EPP can overwhelm your IT team.
Your business must balance the two.
Know the Threat Landscape
Nothing remains static in cybersecurity, especially not digital threats. Hackers aren’t going to wait patiently for your legacy endpoint security to catch up to them. Instead, they invest their time and energy into strengthening their cyber attacks.
Simply put, a corporate firewall and a legacy EPP won’t cut it.
You need the power of threat intelligence delivered by next-generation endpoint security to properly secure the endpoint. Only with this can your solution remain secure against new threat permutations and attack vectors.
Staying up-to-date isn’t just a “nice-to-have.” It’s a must-have in modern cybersecurity.
Never Neglect Incident Response
Even the strongest endpoint security solution can’t deflect 100% of all cyber attacks. Eventually, if they remain persistent, a hacker can and will penetrate your endpoint and potentially your network.
The question then becomes: what does your enterprise do to secure the endpoint?
First, you should have EDR as one of your key EPP capabilities. This helps detect and alert your security team to potential security threats so faster remediation. Gartner itself considers it a must in the modern digital perimeter, as it helps finds the penetrative threats.
However, for the more proactive enterprise, you need to have an incident response plan. This helps your employees, IT team, and other departments communicate and collaborate during a security incident. So long as you practice it and make sure it fits with your enterprise, this can reduce hacker dwell time and help you retain your reputation afterward.
Streamline, Streamline, Streamline
Do you know that expression, you can never have too much of a good thing? Ignore that…at least for cybersecurity.
The more solutions on your network, the more complexity, the more potential integration issues, and the more potential security holes. Your IT team can easily become overwhelmed, you may receive conflicting information from the solutions, and you may actually slow down your cybersecurity performance.
Instead, select a singular endpoint security solution which fits your distinct enterprise use-case. Yes, you should integrate it with strong identity management and SIEM solutions as well; they fill in the gaps in your cybersecurity more effectively than more EPPs. However, you should keep your enterprise’s digital perimeter streamlined to ensure its optimal performance.
Sometimes, It’s Better to Rip the Bandage Off
Replacing a legacy solution can seem painful. It does require some investment, it may change your bandwidth, implementation efforts take time, etc. Additionally, your enterprise faces the most dangerous of all cybersecurity obstacles: familiarity.
The longer you use a cybersecurity solution, the more your enterprise becomes familiar with it. Thus they become more comfortable with that interface and that can make it more difficult to replace.
However, you can’t languish waiting to strengthen your cybersecurity. While you shouldn’t charge in blindly—this should be a considered decision for your enterprise—you should go forth with confidence and speed. The longer you wait, the more damage could result.
To learn more about how to secure the endpoint, check out our free Buyer’s Guide.