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Hackers are increasingly looking to endpoints as the ideal entry point for their attack. Are you confident that you’re taking all the required measures to protect these network vulnerabilities?
Are there hidden landmines in your corporate security net? Your network could have hundreds — or even thousands — of endpoints that lack the minimal security required to protect your organization’s digital assets and operations. Networks are much more ephemeral than in the past, quickly evolving as employees, partners and vendors connect remotely to your business servers, data and applications. While this enhances your ability to conduct global business at scale, variability in your endpoint security can significantly increase the risks of cyberattack unless you are following best practices for your protection.
Cybercriminals that are looking for an entry point into your organization analyze a variety of vectors: your website, software you have installed and network devices. Their devious plans are put into place while attempting to hide their activities from monitoring solutions that have been installed on your network. Enhanced security around software and web properties can leave your endpoints such as individual user connections as the most attractive option for bypassing security standards and gaining access to secure systems and essential data. Protecting your endpoints involves a cohesive solution to blanket remote workers, partners and vendors, onsite staff and network devices with an enhanced level of security that can be adjusted quickly and efficiently. According to a recent endpoint security study, 28% of endpoints are missing critical upgrades while 42% are likely to have encryption failures at any given point.
Your IT professionals are not the only individuals that need to be aware of the challenges associated with endpoint security. Each of your users that connect to your network remotely should also be well-versed in the ways that they can help protect your organization from attack or network failure. Even something as simple as using multi-factor or two-factor authentication (MFA or 2FA) can help protect access to your network from unauthorized individuals. Reducing the access that remote users have into your network is one way of limiting the potential threat risks. At the same time, automation or outsourcing of upgrades and patches can help ensure that your IT professionals are not overwhelmed with other tasks. Merely raising the awareness of the problems caused by a lack of security can be the differentiating factor that reduces the intrinsic risk to your organization.
User access maintenance is perhaps one of the most overlooked ways to manage the risks associated with poor endpoint security. Granting one-off access to specific systems is something that happens on a fairly regular basis for organizations. Still, it can be challenging to remember to revoke access when it’s no longer needed as part of that individual’s core job functions. Allowing users access to critical systems may feel harmless. Still, the 2018 Insider Threat Report from Datto shows that 90% of organizations can be vulnerable to insider attacks with nearly 40% of those companies noting that too many users had excessive access privileges to business applications and networks. Endpoint security strategies help protect against internal as well as external threats to your company, ensuring that access to your most sensitive systems and data is on an as-needed basis and revoked as soon as the need is no longer present.
Maintaining adequate levels of security during a challenging business climate can require an exceptional level of support from internal technical assets, which is why many organizations are looking for ways to automate these activities or offload them to an IT managed services provider. This can allow companies to focus more on their internal efforts on innovation and creating a consistent and cohesive experience for employees and their customers alike.