In our increasingly digital world, endpoint security has become a critical concern for businesses of all sizes. As the number of devices connected to corporate networks continues to rise – ranging from laptops, smartphones, IoT devices, printers, wearable technology and even smart office equipment – the risk of cyberthreats targeting these endpoints grows exponentially.
Each type of device has different operating systems, configurations and security protocols, creating a diverse environment that is difficult to monitor and secure consistently.
Each device serves as a potential gateway for cybercriminals seeking to exploit vulnerabilities, making endpoint security a top priority for IT professionals and business leaders alike.
Endpoints are often the first line of defence in an organisation’s cybersecurity strategy, yet they are also among the most vulnerable. Cyberattacks, including malware, ransomware and phishing, frequently target endpoints to gain access to sensitive data or disrupt operations. With remote work and mobile device usage on the rise, securing these endpoints has become even more complex, requiring robust and adaptive solutions to keep networks safe.
The challenge lies not only in preventing attacks but also in detecting and responding to them swiftly when they occur. Modern endpoint security must go beyond traditional antivirus software to include advanced measures like threat detection, behavioural analytics and automated responses. This comprehensive approach is essential to protect against sophisticated threats that can evade conventional defences.
Detecting endpoint attacks is challenging due to several factors that contribute to the complexity of modern cybersecurity landscapes.
In many organisations, especially those with large and complex networks, there is limited visibility into what is happening on endpoints. If security teams cannot monitor every device effectively, it becomes difficult to detect unusual behaviour or signs of compromise. This lack of visibility is particularly problematic for IoT devices, which often have limited security features and may not support traditional endpoint security software.
Furthermore, endpoint security is often reliant on user behaviour. Employees may unknowingly introduce threats by downloading malicious files, clicking on phishing links or using weak passwords. Social engineering tactics exploit human vulnerabilities, making it difficult to detect and prevent such attacks through technology alone.
Apu Pavithran, Founder and CEO, Hexnode
One of the greatest threats to endpoint security is the complexity of today’s endpoint landscape. With a multitude of diverse endpoints scattered all over the world, it’s hardly pragmatic to manage all of them manually. The solution lies in implementing a system that allows centralised monitoring and management of these diverse endpoints from a single console.
Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) solutions are a prime example, offering centralised control over various endpoints, including laptops, smartphones, tablets and IoT devices. Visibility and control are keys to security, and having both gives organisations a fighting chance against potential threats.
An endpoint management strategy starting with UEM enables administrators to gather real-time information and receive alerts from enrolled endpoints, regardless of their location. From this unified panel, admins can enforce security policies, encrypt data and ensure that their endpoints are regularly patched and updated.
Ensuring that all endpoint devices are running the latest software versions and security patches is crucial in preventing vulnerabilities that could be exploited by attackers.
Just as remote work reshaped the traditional workspace, the inception of the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) culture introduced a new layer of complexity to endpoint security. However, since these are privately owned devices, admins have limited access to secure them without infringing on an employee’s privacy.
Therefore, your endpoint management strategy should also be configured to handle BYOD scenarios effectively. This involves establishing clear guidelines, implementing applications that allow listing and containerisation, educating users and conducting regular security assessments to safeguard BYOD devices.
To complement UEM, Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) systems are essential for a comprehensive security approach. EDR enhances endpoint security by providing a centralised view, automated threat detection and response, and improved threat-hunting capabilities. It collects data from various sources, including endpoint behaviour, user behaviour, etc., correlates it to identify threats, and automatically detects and responds to incidents.
By addressing these multifaceted challenges and deploying the right tools, organisations can significantly strengthen their endpoint security posture.
Grant Geyer, Chief Product Officer, Claroty
Within asset-intensive organisations, CISOs need to completely rethink their approaches to protecting endpoints such as operational technology (OT) assets and connected medical devices. These assets are referred to as cyber-physical systems (CPS) – a term that encompasses the fact that these assets have one foot in the digital world and the other in the physical world. This inherently brings the risk implications of a cybersecurity breach to a whole new level.
For instance, on one end of a connected medical device, there might be a patient, or in an industrial plant. CPS is connected to equipment that has safety implications like pipelines, water treatment equipment, elevators and production lines. That’s why these organisations have a culture oriented toward change aversion, as opposed to an IT culture of rapid change.
In addition to the safety implications, there are additional operational, environmental and risk constraints that need to be considered. First, due to the safety implications, these assets are infrequently updated or patched – even though in many cases they might be rife with vulnerabilities and high-risk exposures.
Second, in many cases these assets are incredibly capital-intensive investments requiring assets to be used for years after the software and operating systems are no longer supported by the vendors – so they can’t be patched.
Third, these systems are frequently unmanaged, so in many cases, you can’t install endpoint security software on these assets. Finally, in the case of medical devices, government regulation limits the ability to patch these assets without approval.
When you put these factors together, it’s clear that CISOs of asset-intensive organisations need to take different approaches to ensure the cybersecurity of CPS assets compared to IT devices. The most successful organisations take a business- and consequence-oriented approach to understand the organisational impact of a cyberattack to focus their efforts.
They also take a different orientation, shifting their aperture from the asset identity – such as a critical HMI or PLC to an asset purpose view – understanding how a set of assets need to work together as a system to understand how a failure of one asset could impact the whole business process. With that understanding, there are two critical processes organisations need to get right: patching where and when possible and implementing compensating controls such as network segmentation to take entire classes of cyber-risk off the table.
Vishal Pala, Senior Solutions Engineer – META, Barracuda
An endpoint can include desktop computers, laptops, smartphones, tablets, printers, other specialised hardware such as POS terminals or retail kiosks, and more. In today’s distributed digital enterprises, this presents a significant potential attack surface. Securing this broad, complex and interconnected landscape demands a multi-layered approach – one that combines advanced technology with user awareness and continuous monitoring and response.
For security professionals, particularly in smaller businesses, this can seem like an overwhelming challenge. However, it doesn’t need to be if it’s approached step by step.
A good starting point is getting the basics right. This involves enforcing strong, unique passwords paired with Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) – and ideally, moving towards Zero Trust measures over time. It also includes setting appropriate access controls, ensuring individuals can only access the assets they need. This reduces the attack surface and helps contain any breaches should the worst occur.
Keeping software updated is another straightforward yet vital strategy. Regular updates to operating systems, applications and firmware are essential to patch known vulnerabilities that attackers often exploit. In addition, each endpoint should have reliable security software installed. This not only helps shield devices from known threats but also enables security teams to detect any suspicious activity that may indicate a potential threat.
Firewalls form the next layer of defence. When applied at the endpoint level, firewalls help filter network traffic, block suspicious connections and prevent unauthorised access. Crucially, when combined with full-disk encryption, they ensure that even if a device is lost or stolen, the data stored on it remains secure.
Advanced solutions such as Extended Detection and Response (XDR) significantly strengthen these strategies. XDR gathers and correlates data from across networks, endpoints and cloud environments, giving organisations a clearer, more complete picture of potential threats. This level of visibility is essential in identifying sophisticated attacks that may bypass traditional defences.
Alongside your security technologies, policies and programmes, it is equally important to ensure that employees are aware of potential threats and know how to report them. Educating users on recognising and avoiding phishing attacks or suspicious behaviour can greatly reduce risks. It’s about making security a shared responsibility.
Finally, there is the need for backups. Regular, secure backups provide peace of mind, ensuring that critical data can be restored in the event of a disaster, such as a ransomware attack.
Ultimately, strengthening endpoint security isn’t a one-time task; it is an on-going effort. As new devices are added and threats continue to evolve, organisations must continuously monitor their environments, assess the landscape and implement the solutions and processes that will keep their digital assets safe.
Andy Ward, VP International, Absolute Security
With the complexity and volume of cyberattacks increasingly on the rise, organisations must adopt a compressive strategy to bolster endpoint security involving both technical defences and cyber-resilience. With remote work becoming the new norm, traditional security measures – often reliant on secure connections to the business network – are no longer sufficient.
The onset of work-from-anywhere has increased the challenge for security teams managing an expanding attack surface due to devices being more spread out than ever, requiring a revamp of legacy security strategies. As highlighted in our Cyber Resilience Risk Index, Endpoint Protection Platforms and network access security applications on managed PCs fail to operate effectively 24% of the time. Especially given a significant proportion of these devices are being operated by remote staff, this makes cyber-resilience a top priority for organisations.
Our research highlights how 73% of CISOs believe remote devices are the biggest weakness in their organisation’s cyber-resilience posture, meaning organisations, now more than ever, need a comprehensive cyber defence strategy which includes reactive, preventative and recovery measures.
Effective endpoint security starts with keeping track of all devices and ensuring they are set up correctly and securely. This involves managing software updates, security settings and other configurations to prevent vulnerabilities and ensure each device functions properly. By maintaining a detailed inventory of all endpoints and applications, organisations can easily identify systems that need updates or have unauthorised changes, reducing the risk of attacks.
However, just protecting the network isn’t enough if the devices themselves are vulnerable due to outdated security measures so it’s crucial to ensure each device is up to date with the latest security patching.
Centralised IT teams need constant network visibility and to be alerted to suspicious activity in real-time. Once abnormal behaviour is detected, they should have the ability to freeze, or even shut down, potentially compromised devices to stop cybercriminals moving laterally across a network and causing even more damage.
By tackling potential breaches in this way, organisations can limit unnecessary downtime, while ensuring cyberattacks don’t get out of hand. This also helped to manage situations where a member of staff may be logging on from a new location, such as on holiday or a different coffee shop, giving security teams individual access to isolate the potentially suspicious device. Coupled with a robust incident management process, this ensures swift response and recovery from security issues.
Click below to share this article
