Endpoint security: A smart way to safe guard small and medium sized businesses

Endpoint security is an increasingly important task. Organizations across diverse verticals are transforming rapidly and new age businesses are now empowered with digitization and technology quotient. In order to improve the performance of the organization and striving to be ahead in the technically advanced competitive IT markets, companies are investing in new technologies and also the members of the company have begun to use various devices to simplify their work processes. Many companies are insisting their employees to “BYOD” or bring your own devices to manage the work flow smoothly.  Thus, a huge amount of business-critical data is being passed between these endpoints. With the trend of using multiple own devices such as laptops, mobile devices, tablets, etc., at the workplace, data vulnerability and cyber threats have abruptly increased across the organizations.

Understanding Endpoint Security

With the ever-shifting cyber-attacks and emerging data breaches, a centralized security solution is no longer an adequate security perimeter for today’s data critical organizations. Additionally, (hyper-mobility of workstations is attracting cybercriminals) employees started depending on multiple easy access devices that are connected to the same company network. This phenomenon of hyper-mobility of workstations is attracting cybercriminals.

The ultimate solution to address this issue is to ensure extreme hardline security mechanism/controls across the endpoints/devices that are connected to the same enterprise network. From an IT prospective, endpoint security is providing security to various endpoints on the network, often defined as end-user devices such as mobiles, laptops, PCs and desktops.

Endpoint security supplements centralized security with an additional protection layer at the point of entry for many attacks as well as the point of exit for sensitive data.

By adding security assessments to endpoint devices before granting network access,

enterprises can have greater control over the increasing number of access points. This helps to effectively block threats and unknown access attempts, prior to its entry. Apart from controlling access, endpoint security tools also monitor and block risky and malicious activities.

Reason Why Endpoints are an Easy Target for Cyber Invaders

Cyber experts say that organizations that did not prioritize much on having an effective cybersecurity system faced unexpected data breaches and cyber threats. Also, some businesses are not sure if their workstations are secured whereas some are not conscious about securing them though. It is unfortunate that the organizations assume that their endpoints are highly secured with the latest patches which are automatically updated. But, automation is more likely to break down and does not ensure consistent support for the patch updates.

Businesses will be at stake if the above concerns are unaddressed.

Specific Features of Endpoint Security

The endpoint security framework is likely different from anti-virus software as endpoints bear a considerable percentage of responsibility for their own security. Thus, endpoint security products contain below features and functionalities.

• Application Whitelisting
• Insider Threat Protection
• Endpoint and Email Encryption
• Data classification
• Endpoint detection and response
• Data loss prevention
• Network access control

Evolving Cyber threats require New Defensive Mechanisms

Cybersecurity of an organizational system is one of the key factors which contribute to the peacefully running/conduction of the business. And, endpoint security is the new approach, giving wider dimensions in the world of cybersecurity. Companies need to follow a few strategies to ensure complete endpoint security. They have to ensure that the customer and business-critical data is completely encrypted so as to avoid data loss. Security professionals of an organization should do a detailed study and invest in the best security technology, which promises integrated endpoint security for the entire enterprise network. IT companies must organize cybersecurity awareness campaigns and educate employees on their vital role in complying with organizational security standards.

Hence, predicting the cyber threats and consigning the right solution forays the business without any interruptions.

By Adrian Johnson, Director – Technology, TechnoBind