The shift to remote and hybrid work models, followed by the bring your own device (BYOD) trend, has made endpoint management a crucial process.
While it has always existed at some level, organisations must up their game now that IT infrastructures are more exposed.
Take a look at the current state of endpoint management within your company. How are security threats detected? How are they responded to? Who gets alerted? What controls and security are deployed on each endpoint? What processes are in place to make sure that the incident or vulnerability doesn’t impact the business?
Not quite sure how to address the above questions? Don’t panic. Continue reading to learn more about endpoint management and protection and why it has become so critical in today’s workplace.
What is endpoint management?
Endpoints are at the core of business operations. They are the devices that end users – employees – use to access business services. If we look back ten years, a typical end user had only one device that was, most likely, a desktop in an office location. Since then, the number of devices, and locations, has exploded. And the pandemic only accelerated the surge.
In the modern workplace, it’s common for users to have two or three devices. Laptops, mobile devices, tablets and personal devices all need access to the network. The total number doubles, or even triples, when you include other workplace technologies like digital printers, IoT devices, POS systems and CCTV cameras. To stir the pot more, employees now use devices not only in the office location, but also in their homes and public spaces. All this has made corporate networks more vulnerable to cyber threats.
While the way we work has evolved, so has our approach to endpoint management. We have moved from a locally installed antivirus software, like Symantec or McAfee, to a holistic solution. Today’s endpoint management system has two tasks: supervise endpoint devices and manage access rights; and apply security policies and tools that protect endpoints against cyber threats. It enables IT teams to identify and manage every single device through a single pane of glass.
Why is endpoint management so critical today?
Every business needs some level of protection because all data is sensitive. A company might not have classified information as in customers’ credit card details or phone numbers, but at minimum it has employee data.
Many think that once data is in the cloud, it’s safe. But it’s not quite so. It’s always your responsibility to take protective measures. Look at the terms and conditions from any public cloud provider and you will find that an individual, whether a person or a business, is always fully responsible for the data.
Endpoints are naturally the weakest entry point for outsiders to access corporate data. If you let the endpoints run wild, you will run into security issues sooner or later. It may be an employee who connects their device into a public, unsecured network. It may be an USB stick that contains viruses or a malicious email. In most cases, the clueless end user has not done anything wrong but only used the tools that were given to them. Ultimately, it’s up to IT departments to introduce policies and monitor endpoints to prevent security breaches from happening.
What is endpoint protection?
Endpoint protection, or endpoint security is the approach of protecting endpoints from cyber threats, both external and internal. It compliments endpoint management, creating an effective, comprehensive cybersecurity defence together. The options for cybersecurity products are endless. That’s why it’s always good to do some research before selecting the right solution for your business needs.
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
Endpoint detection and response (EDR), also called endpoint detection and threat response (EDTR), is where you start adding extra functionality to endpoint management. The solution monitors vulnerabilities and prevents threats in real time. This means that if someone tries to hack into a device or inject a virus or a piece of ransomware, EDR raises an alert immediately.
Extended Detection and Response (XDR)
As the name suggests, extended detection and response (XDR) expands the capabilities of EDR. Rather than monitoring a single endpoint, XDR technology provides a consolidated view across the entire security environment. It collects and analyses data from all security layers including networks, clouds, endpoints and applications.
Having all that intelligence stored in a central repository gives you more control over what’s going on. It enables predictive forecast and prevention. Let’s say you detect a vulnerability on one endpoint. Through XDR, you can then create a policy that automatically protects all endpoints from that same vulnerability.
What layers of protection do I need?
Endpoint management and EDR should be a baseline for every organisation, no matter the size or industry. Based on the world we currently live in; XDR is well worth the investment as well.
Selecting the right endpoint protection comes down to the organisation. A five-employee business may not benefit from XDR that much because there aren’t many endpoints to gather information from. What about an organisation with 100 employees? Let’s do quick maths. If every employee has a laptop and a mobile phone, that equals to 200 endpoints accessing the network. Vulnerabilities and risks increase massively and so EDR becomes a more favourable solution.
How to choose the right approach to endpoint management?
A company can choose to work with an experienced managed service provider (MSP) who runs endpoint protection as a managed service. They will be in charge of detecting vulnerabilities and introducing new policies, taking the responsibility from in-house IT teams.
There are various ways to do endpoint management in-house. Start by looking at what you have available as a business, based on existing subscriptions. Providers like Citrix, Fortinet and Microsoft offer some level of endpoint management and protection included in the licences, depending on the licensing tier. They create a good foundation that can be enhanced with EDR and XDR types of solutions for extra protection.
As with all technology investments, it’s important to look at the total cost to avoid surprises. The cost of pay-per-user subscriptions goes up when the number of users go up. Often you will also pay for the number of logs that you wish to store, which can be hard to calculate and become very expensive if retained for long periods. If that becomes cost prohibitive, third-party solutions might be more beneficial commercially. You get the same capabilities but because they are sold as a holistic solution rather than on a per user basis, the cost is more attractive for large organisations.
Don’t overload endpoints with security products
Less is more when it comes to endpoint protection; too many tools can overload a device, (and your IT team). Performance and speed suffer if a device has multiple security products running in the background continuously. And so, the user gets frustrated. Then, in fear of negative user experience, the IT team decides to turn some of the products off and the investment loses its value.
Sometimes, it’s necessary to have more than one product in place. If that’s the case, it’s a good idea to integrate them into a single, holistic endpoint management system. Minimising the number of consoles makes management easier and saves a lot of time from IT teams.
Like most things in the technology world, endpoint management is rarely a one-size-fits-all solution. Several factors – cost, number of users, desired features, existing IT infrastructure – have an impact on what is the right approach for your business.
It can be as easy as upgrading your existing Microsoft 365 licence to include extra features. But more often it gets a little trickier. That’s when the team at Forge Technologies can help to guide you through on your journey towards better endpoint management. Contact us today to chat more.
