Defend Your Digital Environment with Endpoint Protection

Discover what endpoint protection is, its benefits and its types to understand how it can help fortify your digital defenses.

What Is Endpoint Protection?

To understand endpoint protection, you first need to know what an endpoint is. Endpoints are the physical and online devices connected to a network, including:

• Desktops
• Laptops
• Smartphones
• Tablets
• Servers
• Internet of Things (IoT) devices
• Medical devices
• Wearables
• Printers
• Scanners

These endpoints can create entry points into company networks, and with the rise of remote work, Bring Your Own Devices (BYOD), cloud services and the IoT, endpoints have become more vulnerable than ever. Cyber criminals try to exploit these vulnerabilities by deploying sophisticated attacks every 39 seconds to gain access to corporate networks and steal sensitive data. That’s why endpoint protection has become such a vital part of a company’s cybersecurity plan, especially since it must evolve to meet new attacks.

Endpoint protection encompasses the strategies, tools and technologies designed to secure endpoints from cyber threats, including malware, ransomware and phishing attacks. Endpoint protection monitors, detects and responds to suspicious activity, regardless of whether the device is located on or off the network. It creates a centralized management console that enables admins to easily control the security of all devices.

Endpoint protection often includes:

• Encryption
• Multi-factor authentication
• Antivirus and antimalware software
• Firewalls
• Behavioral analysis
• Limited access controls
• Data Loss Prevention (DLP)

Benefits of Endpoint Protection

Implementing endpoint protection comes with several benefits:

• Comprehensive security: Endpoint protection provides a multi-layered defense mechanism, covering various attack vectors to ensure comprehensive security and visibility for all endpoints.
• Threat detection and prevention: Advanced endpoint protection solutions employ sophisticated algorithms and threat intelligence to detect and prevent known and emerging threats in real-time.
• Data protection: By encrypting data, controlling access and implementing DLP measures, endpoint protection safeguards sensitive information from falling into the wrong hands.
• Compliance adherence: For organizations subject to regulatory requirements such as GDPR, HIPAA or CCPA, endpoint protection helps maintain compliance by enforcing security protocols and protecting sensitive data.
• Enable remote work: With the rise of remote work (it’s predicted that by 2025, 32.6 million Americans will be remote workers) and BYOD accessing the network, endpoint protection facilitates secure access to corporate networks and resources from any location and device.
• Minimal disruption: Effective endpoint protection solutions operate in the background with minimal impact on system performance, ensuring smooth operations without disrupting productivity and efficiency.

The Three Types of Endpoint Protection

Cyber criminals stay up to date on security trends to create sophisticated attacks. This means legacy cybersecurity tools are rendered obsolete, so strong, robust endpoint protection measures are crucial.

1. Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP): EPP is a preventative solution that detects and prevents security threats.
2. Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR): EDR solutions offer continuous, real-time monitoring, threat detection and incident response capabilities. They analyze endpoint data to identify suspicious activities, investigate accidents and mitigate threats properly.
3. Extended Detection and Response (XDR): XDR extends the EDR model to encompass the entire infrastructure, including applications, databases, storage, networks and cloud workloads.

Thriveon Can Help Protect Your Data

Implementing a robust endpoint protection solution can be difficult for companies, especially if they lack the technological mindset to effectively utilize it. That’s where partnering with managed service providers like Thriveon comes into play.

We offer proactive managed IT and cybersecurity services that can meet any challenges our clients face. For more information on our services, schedule a meeting with us today.