When your business has employees connecting from multiple endpoints, you’ll want to ensure each device is secure. This can be a challenge in bring-your-own-device (BYOD) environments if you don’t have good endpoint security.
With good endpoint security management, you can ensure that the various devices that connect to your network remain safe. So, let’s look at endpoint security solutions, how they work, and how Splashtop can help protect your endpoints.
What is Endpoint Security?
Endpoint security is the process of protecting your endpoints (including desktop and laptop computers, smartphones, and IoT devices) from hackers, viruses, and other malicious attacks.
The goal of endpoint security is to reduce the areas where attackers can infiltrate a network. Securing endpoints cuts off potential points of ingress, keeping unauthorized users out.
Why is Endpoint Security Important?
Endpoint security solutions help companies protect data, prevent threats, and maintain privacy. If a connected device is compromised, it could provide hackers or other bad actors with a connection to the company’s network, so protecting and monitoring devices is critical for a business’s security.
Without endpoint security, organizations are left vulnerable to cyberattacks. This can compromise employee and customer information, company data, and more, causing irreparable harm to a business’s productivity, profits, and reputation.
How Does Endpoint Security Work?
This brings us to the question of how endpoint security solutions work. What do they do to keep devices protected and bad actors at bay?
Endpoint security solutions primarily protect data and devices that connect to a company’s network by examining files for threats, securing endpoints through application controls, and encrypting data.
These solutions also include endpoint monitoring, detection, and response, so businesses can identify security threats such as malware or other viruses quickly so that they can stop attacks at their source.
Additionally, endpoint security solutions tend to have a centralized management console, which gives admins control over the security of connected devices. This allows them to roll out updates and corporate policies across connected devices and block users from downloading unsafe or unauthorized apps.
What are Endpoint Security Controls?
Endpoint security controls are the technologies and practices designed to protect endpoints from cyber threats. While they come in many forms, each serves a purpose for protecting devices.
Endpoint security controls include:
Firewalls to control network traffic
Antivirus tools to detect and eliminate viruses
Endpoint Detection and Response tools to monitor and respond to potential threats
Identity protection solutions like multi-factor authentication (MFA)
End-to-end encryption to protect data in transit
Patch management to regularly update security
Access controls to manage who has access to what systems and data
Behavior monitoring to identify suspicious activity
Each of these essential tools helps prevent and mitigate threats. When used together, they provide multiple layers of security to keep your endpoints safe.
Key Technologies Driving Endpoint Security Solutions
Next, let’s examine the technology behind endpoint security solutions. Endpoint security uses multiple solutions and tools, so it’s important to understand how each helps provide security.
These include:
Antivirus software that scans systems and endpoints to identify any viruses or malware and remove them before they can cause any harm.
Endpoint detection and response (EDR) solutions that can detect, investigate, and respond to threats.
Mobile device management (MDM) and autonomous endpoint management (AEM) software that can secure, monitor, manage, and enforce security policies for all mobile devices that connect to the company network.
Data loss prevention (DLP) tools to monitor and manage data as it moves across endpoints.
Identity and access management (IAM) solutions that manage user identities and enforce access controls, including user authentication tools.
5 Main Components of Endpoint Security
As previously mentioned, endpoint security is composed of multiple features and tools that provide layers of endpoint protection. Five key components include:
1) Endpoint Monitoring and Management
It goes without saying that endpoint monitoring and management are key to endpoint security. These tools enable you to monitor multiple endpoints in real-time, from a single interface, so you can watch out for suspicious activity or threats. Should you need to roll out updates, patches, or policy changes, endpoint management makes it possible to send these out across each endpoint.
2) Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
Endpoint detection and response is, as the name suggests, designed to identify, investigate, and respond to threats that put endpoints at risk. These can detect and mitigate a variety of threats, helping keep devices and networks safe.
3) Antivirus and Antimalware
Antivirus and antimalware tools are a consistently powerful defense against malware, spyware, ransomware, and other viruses. These tools scan devices and files for viruses or other forms of malware, identify them, and remove them before they can cause any harm.
4) Zero-trust Policies
Most organizations don’t allow free access throughout their networks. Restricting access to information, programs, and networks based on user identity can help keep systems secure, and zero-trust policies help with this by keeping access restricted to the most limited. Under a zero-trust policy, users need to verify their identities and permissions before accessing anything, helping to ensure that only authorized users are getting through.
5) Patching and Software Updates
Hackers and other bad actors are always looking for new vulnerabilities, so cybersecurity needs to stay one step ahead of them. Frequently rolling out patches and software updates is important for endpoint security, as these updates can fix security vulnerabilities before hackers have a chance to utilize them.
Key Benefits of Endpoint Security Management
One might wonder: Is endpoint security management worth all the hassle? Well, in addition to the consequences of poor security, there are also multiple benefits to endpoint security management.
First, endpoint security solutions can reduce security vulnerabilities in an organization’s endpoint devices, making it more difficult for bad actors to compromise or damage systems. Minimizing security weaknesses and attack surfaces is vital, as a single hacker or ransomware can cause incalculable damage.
Additionally, organizations must comply with certain security requirements, especially in industries that deal with sensitive personal information. Endpoint security is a key part of meeting those security requirements, so having a good endpoint security solution will help companies meet their IT compliance requirements.
Endpoint security solutions also grant centralized management and control over security policies and devices. This makes it easy and efficient to manage multiple devices and roll out updates, making life easier for your IT teams and improving productivity.
There are also costs to consider. Endpoint security solutions can streamline workflows and improve security processes, which minimizes the costs of security incidents and boosts efficiency. Proper endpoint security’s ROI can be measured in the damages it prevents and the productivity it provides, both of which are significant.
Common Challenges in Endpoint Security
There are some challenges businesses may face when implementing endpoint security. Fortunately, with a little forethought and preparation, these obstacles can be addressed. Common challenges include:
Managing remote work security: Enabling employees to work from anywhere and on any device is great for productivity, but presents a new set of security challenges as companies struggle to find the balance for secure remote work.
Disparate devices: Employees tend to use a wide range of devices and operating systems, so it can be hard to find an endpoint security tool that is compatible with each of them, and the array of devices can lead to inconsistent patches and updates. It’s vital to find a solution that works regardless of device or OS.
Security and productivity balance: The more security tools you use, the longer it can take for employees to authenticate themselves and access the tools they need, but good security is also essential. It’s important to strike a balance between the two so that neither security nor productivity is sacrificed for the other.
User awareness/human error: Sometimes, employees make mistakes. It’s unfortunate, but it happens. Training users to identify and respond to phishing scams and cyberattacks is key for endpoint security, and employees should be trained on IT security best practices to reduce the risk of costly mistakes.
Best Practices for Endpoint Security Management
If you want to keep your endpoints secure, there are a few best practices to keep in mind. Consider the following when developing your endpoint security strategy:
Update regularly: Consistent updates will help ensure your endpoints always have the latest security patches.
Train your employees: Make sure employees know what warning signs to watch out for, know how to prevent phishing scams, and practice password security.
Use multi-layered protection: Using multiple layers of security, such as multi-factor authentication and firewalls, helps keep devices and accounts safe.
Backup regularly: Should the worst happen, having a secure backup can help restore business activities even in instances of ransomware attacks or data loss.
Enforce zero-trust security: Using zero-trust security and least privilege access keeps access limited to those who need it.
Manage remote devices: You need a solution that lets you remotely manage and support all your endpoints from a single interface, both for security and ease of use.
What to Consider When Choosing an Endpoint Security Solution?
With all that in mind, what should you look for when buying an endpoint security solution?
First, consider ease of use. A solution that’s too complicated to use won’t do you any good; it’s important to find a powerful and user-friendly solution.
Next, ensure the solution can integrate with your existing IT infrastructure. It’s vital to find a platform that works with your existing tools and systems, as a disparate solution won't do you nearly as much good.
Of course, scalability is important too. You’ll want a platform that can grow with your company and add new users and devices as necessary; otherwise, any new employee or device can become a new vulnerability to exploit.
Enhance Endpoint Security with Splashtop AEM and Antivirus Add-on: Get Started Today!
If you’re looking for a powerful, robust tool to remotely manage and secure your endpoints, Splashtop AEM (autonomous endpoint management) has everything you need.
Splashtop AEM empowers you to automate tasks, streamline IT operations, and roll out updates across multiple endpoints from a single Splashtop console. This makes it easy to address vulnerabilities in real time while gaining new control over and visibility into all your endpoints to ensure security compliance.
Additionally, Splashtop AEM provides proactive alerts and remediation, so you can identify and resolve issues immediately. With its policy framework management, you can customize and enforce security policies across each of your endpoints.
Plus, with Splashtop Antivirus, you can protect devices across your network with real-time threat detection and automated response. Managing and protecting your devices and endpoints has never been easier.
Want to experience Splashtop for yourself? Get started with a free trial today:
