Endpoint Security: What it is and Why it’s Important

by IT Executives Council | Dec 19, 2022 | Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity solutions have never played as important of a role in the drafting of information technology strategies.

Organizations of all sizes in both the private and public sectors face an increasingly intense onslaught of cyberattacks from a wide variety of sources, including hackers, nations, organized criminals, and malicious insiders. Endpoint security is viewed as a cybersecurity frontline approach to secure proprietary IT networks. Also referred to as endpoint protection, endpoint security represents a cybersecurity strategy that protects endpoints from harmful digital activities. Endpoints represent devices that connect to a digital network, such as desktops, laptops, tablets, mobile phones, and point-of-sale (POS) systems.

As the number of cyberattacks continues to increase, the need to develop more complex endpoint security solutions has grown as well. Contemporary endpoint security solutions should be able to promptly detect, examine, and thwart any attacks that are in progress. As advances continue for endpoint security solutions, the primary goal involves identifying potential threats and preventing them from causing an organization considerable financial harm. With the rapidly growing popularity of the Internet of Things (IoT), the need for highly effective endpoint security solutions remains a top priority for C-Suite executives.

Why is Endpoint Security Important?

Developing an endpoint security strategy system for your organization is critical because the number of endpoints increases with each passing day, as well as cyberattacks have become much more brazen in intensity. Another factor to consider for organizations concerns the trend of remote working, which increased substantially during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to a Gallup poll released in late spring of 2021, more than half of all employees in the United States worked remotely for at least part of every workweek.

Once perceived as a temporary workplace trend has evolved into a viable solution that helps organizations control operating costs. The downside of the remote work trend is it has dramatically increased the number of endpoints that are highly vulnerable to succumbing to malicious digital activities. The reality is the growing number of endpoint risks represents a daunting challenge for IT professionals that appears to be here to stay moving forward into the third decade of the 21st century.

With the composition and the sheer number of endpoints constantly changing, every organization represents an attractive point for conducting cyberattacks. A study released by Connectwise showed that during the first year of the pandemic in 2020, more than 75 percent of IT decision-makers worried about falling victim to at least one cyberattack over the following 12 months. Another study released by the FBI in 2020 showed the federal crime-fighting organization received an increase of more than 300,000 cybersecurity complaints than it received in 2019, The estimated losses from the cybersecurity breaches exceeded $4 billion. The annual Verizon Data Breach Investigation Report released in 2021 discovered “Servers are still dominating the asset landscape due to the prevalence of web apps and mail services involved in incidents. And as social attacks continue to compromise people (they have now pulled past user devices), we begin to see the domination of phishing emails and websites delivering malware used for fraud or espionage.”

What Are the 4 Core Functionalities of an Effective Endpoint Security Strategy?

To implement a successful endpoint security strategy that fights back against the ongoing onslaught of attempted digital breaches, C-Suite executives, with the leadership provided by CIOs, must incorporate four essential elements into their cybersecurity plans.

Prevention

Before the advent of endpoint security solutions, standard antivirus and malware programs detected fewer than 50 percent of all cyberattacks. Newer cybersecurity technologies that integrate endpoint security solutions must include a preventive component that compares malicious codes to the information stored in a database that identifies every new viral and malware signature.

Next-generation antivirus (NGAV) tools address the preventive issues faced by organizations because of an emphasis on using advanced endpoint security technologies.

Detection

In a perfect world, prevention would be enough to thwart the onslaught of malicious cyberattacks. However, we do not live in a perfect world, which means organizations must continue to perfect cyber attack detection strategies to fight back against harmful digital invasions. Conventional cybersecurity software programs no longer provide the detection capabilities most organizations require to protect their IT networks.

An Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) solution acts as the digital eyes of an IT network to catch attempted cyberattacks in the earliest stage possible.

Manual Searches for Threats

Automated solutions to stopping cyberattacks cannot be the only way organizations fight back against malicious digital invasions. Manual monitoring performed by highly-trained cybersecurity professionals must be included in an organization’s comprehensive endpoint security plan. Manual threat hunting utilizes data retrieved from previous incidents to detect possible future cyberattacks.

Threat Intelligence Integration

The rapidly changing dynamics of cyberattacks mean organizations must dedicate human and financial resources to understand the complexity of advanced persistent threats (APTs). Threat intelligence integration tactics help cybersecurity specialists to refer to constantly updated information to ensure every digital defense is automatically fine-tuned to stay ahead of cybercriminals.

Every threat intelligence integration solution should incorporate automated tools to investigate all cybersecurity threats in real time.