The Time Has Come for Next-Gen Endpoint Protection

With ever-increasing numbers of endpoint devices, even traditional endpoint security best practices fall short of what’s needed. For example, organizations need more intelligence and insight than first-generation endpoint protection. So it’s time for a better IT solution – enter next-gen endpoint protection.

According to IDC, more than 50 percent of an enterprise’s IT structure by 2023 will deploy at the edge versus an inside data center. Consider that figure was less than 10 percent in 2020.

Think about it.

Since COVID, home offices have become an edge. So if you have a small business with 250 employees, you can have 250 edges. The bigger your company, the more endpoints you’ll need to secure. In many ways, a shift has occurred where workers have become your first line of defense.

Endpoints aside, attack surfaces, in general, have expanded substantially during the last 24 months. With nearly 1 million daily cyber threats, your business needs more advanced security to avoid compromise.

Even though traditional signature-based security catches in the neighborhood of 70 to 80 percent of cyber threats, it’s simply not enough.

The bottom line?

You can’t continue to make cybersecurity, especially endpoint protection, an afterthought.

One-third of global organizations experienced a ransomware attack or breach over the last year (IDC). That’s why the worldwide edge computing markets projects to $250 billion by 2024, with a CAGR of 12.4 percent over the next four years.

Why is Endpoint Protection Important?

Every endpoint offers a doorway for employees to access your network. But, unfortunately, those endpoints provide the same thing for hackers – an attack portal. Owing to their expansion, it’s not surprising endpoints present a severe, growing security risk to your organization.

IDC reports that 70% of breaches originate at the endpoint. Additionally, a 2020 study by the Ponemon Institute revealed that 68% of organizations experienced one or more endpoint attacks that compromised data or their IT infrastructure. Costs relating to successful endpoint breaches fall at just under $9 million for a single breach.

Malware is a standard methodology for targeting endpoints. Password dumpers, which enable hackers to steal credentials stored on a compromised device, account for 40% of malware breaches. Application data capture and ransomware follow, according to Verizon.

From a device perspective, professionals consider smartphones (55%) as the most vulnerable endpoint, followed by mobile devices (48%), desktops (34%), and laptops (24%).

Endpoint security solutions require greater sophistication and proactivity to keep pace.

That’s where next-generation endpoint protection comes into play.

What is Next-Generation Endpoint Protection?

As mentioned, traditional endpoint security relies mainly on a signature database. However, maintaining a database in an environment littered with cyber threats is unsustainable. Moreover, this approach suffers from an inherent lag in distributing threat signatures to endpoints.

Next-gen security protection, however, targets endpoint devices and data to thwart high-velocity, high-volume, multi-stage cyber-attacks. It incorporates these elements:

• Artificial intelligence (AI)
• Machine learning to reduce the risk of false positives
• Tighter integration of network and device security
• Automated detection and response (ADR) to stop threats and remediate systems automatically
• Endpoint detection and response (EDR)
• Behavioral analysis to identify malicious files based on deviations
• Ransomware protection
• Anti-script/anti-exploit capabilities.
• Sandboxing
• Rollback

The upshot is more comprehensive and adaptive protection compared to standard endpoint protection.

More and more threat actors turn to vulnerabilities caused by poor user behavior, faulty cybersecurity hygiene, and shadow IT. Additionally, the sheer number of endpoint devices like smartphones, wearables, IoT devices, and more expand those vulnerabilities.

Next-gen endpoint protection uses real-time user and system behavior analysis to detect zero-day threats and core advanced technologies before and during execution. Plus, real-time analysis sets the stage for immediate response to block, contain, and roll back cyber threats.

Rollback allows technicians to review previous versions of a user’s system. When malicious changes are detected, they can reverse and restore the system to its last state. Of course, you might not restore the system 100%, but the alternative could be losing everything.

At the same time, next-gen endpoint security learns from threats to continuously adapt its methods for combatting them and combatting those threats with improved speed and efficiency.

Equally important, next-generation endpoint protection automates functions to unburden already stretched IT personnel from managing manual workflows.

How Does Next-Gen Endpoint Security Extend Protection?

This next-generation IT solution takes proactivity to a new level with a three-pronged approach.

First, AI and machine learning components recognize patterns to detect threats early on. Second, real-time analysis allows the system to adapt and scale more efficiently. Third, the human element helps fortify your security even more with blacklisting threats and investigation of attack phases.

Versus traditional endpoint protection, next-gen endpoint protection delivers these security enhancements:

• Detection of unauthorized behaviors relating to users, applications, and networks
• Blocking suspicious action before execution
• Machine learning and AI data processing for the malicious file or process identification
• Stopping unauthorized data movement
• Injection of sandboxes to analyze suspect application data
• Endpoint rollbacks in the event of a cyber-attack
• Isolation of endpoints and processes
• Continuous endpoint detection and response (EDR) to mitigate advance threats

What’s all this mean for your business?

You’ll get an integrated security approach that uses layers of security to investigate every phase of an attack campaign. More importantly, your organization will be capable of responding to today’s endpoint security threats as well as threats that arise in the future.

How Can IntermixIT Help with Managed IT Services?

We’ve delivered IT solutions to small and medium-sized businesses throughout Pennsylvania for more than 15 years. Our IT support services offering focuses on the technologies you need for IT success.

Our cybersecurity services take a layered approach that focuses on endpoint protection, including EDR, intrusion detection, and intrusion prevention. We even include a Security Operations Center that proactively looks for security weaknesses inside and outside your organization.

If you’re looking for an IT company near you in the Harrisburg area, get in touch. We’ll start by conducting a FREE penetration test that uncovers what data from your organization is accessible to hackers. Schedule one today to make sure your operation is secure.