Cybercriminals are getting more sophisticated, as you’ve probably heard. Cyberattacks on business devices are increasing. It is vital that every organization, no matter how large or small, has a robust cybersecurity plan to prevent and detect attacks. This includes ensuring strong endpoint security for all company devices. You should also have a management portal that allows you to update and monitor your endpoints from anywhere.

What is Endpoint Security?

Before we get into endpoint security, let’s first define what an “endpoint” is. An endpoint is any device that has the ability to access corporate networks or sensitive data. These devices include laptops, tablets and mobile phones as well as desktops.

Endpoint security refers to the protection of all devices used by employees for work or that have access to the corporate network. Endpoint protection protects your company from cyber threats such as ransomware. These solutions are able to detect, analyze and block malware and other cyberattacks. Cybercriminals are attracted to endpoints that connect back to the network. They can steal data and compromise the network.

How Does Endpoint Security Works

Endpoint Protection can either be installed on-premises or in a cloud environment, depending on the preference of your organization. These platforms are also known as EPP or endpoint protection platforms. They examine files that enter the network and then compare them to a cloud-hosted malware database. These platforms can help protect your company from cyber threats by using real-time machine learning. Endpoint protection solutions are able to detect advanced and more complex threats than ever before.

1. Fileless malware- This sophisticated malware uses legitimate programs to infect computers. It is not a file like traditional malware and is disguised by legitimate programs so it is often overlooked by anti-virus software.
2. Zero-day attacks – Developers can release software that contains vulnerabilities. Zero-day attacks are when hackers discover a vulnerability and write code to exploit it before developers can fix it. These attacks are almost impossible to detect at the beginning.
3. Polymorphic attacks – Polymorphic is an easy way to describe complex malware. To avoid detection by anti-virus software, polymorphic malware changes its features constantly, such as file names and encryption keys.
4. Juice Jacking- These malicious USB ports can be modified to infect computers with malware. These devices are often disguised as charging stations and found in public places. This could be a problem if your users frequently travel for work.

Your IT team can customise the security they receive with endpoint protection. IT administrators have access to a central console that is installed on your server or network gateway. This allows them to manage the security of each endpoint. IT administrators can assign software to each endpoint via remote management, direct installation, or Security as a Service (SaaS). This allows them to enforce corporate policies and push updates as necessary, without disrupting employees. Policies can also be customized based on individual employees and the information they require, much like the cybersecurity concept of least-user privileges.

Why is Endpoint Security important?

Cybercriminals are getting more sophisticated, so you need protection that can keep up. Ponemon Institute, an international institute for cybersecurity research, has found that 68% of companies were the victims of endpoint attacks that compromised their infrastructure or data. Endpoints can be a gateway to all of your corporate data and network. Therefore, it is important to protect endpoints. For organizations that allow remote workers or use BYOD policies this is especially important. They are less likely than corporate devices to be secured. Ponemon Institute’s 2020 study found that 80% were new or unknown zero day attacks. Endpoint protection solutions can protect against these attacks.

Endpoint Security versus Antivirus Software

You may now be curious about the differences between anti-virus software and endpoint protection. While these two types of cybersecurity protection have many similarities, their main purpose is to detect and prevent malware from entering an organization. However, they have some differences.

Antivirus software relies upon signature-based malware detection. Some malware is associated with a particular pattern or footprint, such as a sequence of byte in network traffic. Antivirus software will detect this pattern and stop it from infecting your network. Cybercriminals are becoming more sophisticated and so is the malware they use infecting your company. Because there is no signature, it’s possible to miss newer and more complex types of malware. This includes fileless malware or polymorphic attack. Anti-virus software is also standardized and leaves little or no scope for IT staff to customize.

Endpoint security, on the other hand, protects and secures your company’s corporate devices. Endpoints are gateways to your entire network. If malware is to infect even one device, it can cause havoc across the whole company. Your IT administrator can monitor endpoints and track suspicious activity. Support is provided based on the device. Endpoint security is not based on signature-based detection and prevention. Instead, it can offer features and benefits like:

1. Sandboxing- Sandboxing is a way to identify fileless malware within legitimate programs. Endpoint protection software creates a virtual environment to run the program in isolation. This is called a “sandbox” and allows for monitoring of the results. Endpoint protection software can detect if malware has been released and reject it.
2. Data loss prevention – Although this software isn’t a backup or recovery solution, it protects the endpoint and the data within it.
3. Data encryption – This is a different type of antivirus software that blocks data being accessed by unauthorised parties.

Top Endpoint Security Solutions

There are many options available to your company for endpoint security. Here are our top three recommendations.

1. Webroot Business Endpoint Protection

Webroot Business Endpoint Security is a popular choice for small businesses looking for endpoint security solutions. The cloud-based management console makes it easy to deploy and scan endpoints quickly and efficiently. The management console was recently upgraded to make it more user-friendly, streamline remediation workflows and reduce errors. Webroot’s Evasion Shield can protect your organization from complex cyberattacks like malicious Java and fileless scripts. It also allows your administrator to whitelist legitimate scripts. This is an excellent choice for organizations and you can try it for free for 30 days.

2. Microsoft Defender for Endpoint

Microsoft Defender for Endpoints is a solution that can be used by organizations already using Microsoft Office 365. Microsoft Defender uses Intune mobile device management for a comprehensive endpoint protection solution. They use big data analytics and device-learning to identify insights, detections and recommend responses. Microsoft Defender uses advanced threat intelligence from Microsoft Security teams and partners to keep you up-to date on the latest techniques and attacker tools. This can be leveraged to your benefit. To ensure that your network is secure, this solution can be integrated with other Microsoft security solutions such as Microsoft Azure Sentinel and Cloud App Security.

3. Malwarebytes Endpoint Security for Businesses

Malwarebytes Endpoint Protection for Business provides a lightweight, comprehensive solution for endpoint protection. Their patented goodware model allows them to whitelist code from trusted vendors and save it in the library for future reference. You can also be assured that your system is protected at all stages by testing for malicious code and bad behavior. This solution provides endpoint protection that is simple and effective, even against sophisticated cybercrimes like zero-day attacks.

Your Microsoft Security Score: Why it’s Important

The Microsoft Secure Score measures a company’s security posture from 1-100. Higher scores indicate a better security score.

Follow the Secure Score recommendations to protect your company from potential threats. Organizations can monitor their Microsoft 365 identity, apps and devices from a central dashboard within the Microsoft 365 Defender portal.

Find out what your preferences are by:

• The current security situation of the organization is reported.
• Providing visibility, guidance and control will improve their security.
• Compare benchmarks to establish key performance indicators (KPIs).

This test will give you a clear view of the trends, metrics, and integration of Microsoft products within your organization. This will allow you to compare your scores with other organizations and identify areas that need improvement.

How to improve your security score

These actions will increase your security score.

• Configuring security recommendations
• Security-related tasks
• You can address the improvement action using a third-party software or application, or another mitigation.

Some improvement actions give only partial points, while others give full points for all users or devices. You can accept or decline the risk if you are unable or unwilling to take one of these improvement actions.

Scores are automatically updated to reflect the visualisations and improvement pages. Secure Score syncs daily for data about each subsection.

How Improvement Actions Are Scored

Each improvement action is worth 10 or less points, and most of them are scored in binary. You get 100% of the points if you complete the improvement action (create new policies or turn on a settin). Points are awarded as a percentage for other improvement actions.

An example: You can earn 10 points for an improvement action that protects all users using multi-factor authentication. Only 50 users out of 100 are protected. This would give you a partial score equal to 5 points. (50 total * 10 maximum pts = 5)

Products included in the Security Score

There are currently recommendations for these products:

• Microsoft 365 (including Exchange Online).
• Azure Active Directory
• Microsoft Defender for Endpoint
• Microsoft Defender for Identity
• Defender for Cloud Apps
• Microsoft Teams

Recap

Microsoft Defender Antivirus is the best antivirus software for computers managed by Microsoft 365 Business Premium. Windows 10’s antivirus feature number 1 This program protects your PC from spyware, viruses, and malware more than any other antivirus solution. Organizations can be confident that Microsoft Defender Antivirus protection on Windows 10 devices is always running with an upgrade to Microsoft 365 Business Premium.

Microsoft Defender Exploit Guard is another feature that comes with Business Premium. This new set of intrusion prevention capabilities adds to the package.

Endpoint’s benefits for users:

• Email protection
• Antispam protection for all devices. Email content.
• Antimalware protection for all 365 email messages, attachments and content
• Next Generation Protection- Microsoft Defender Antivirus for your devices and the cloud
• Endpoint detection and response – Get behavioral detection alerts to identify persistent threats and get endpoint detection
• Automated investigation – Reduce alert volume and remedial threats
• Integration- Endpoint allows customers to integrate security data into their existing platforms. To increase security and awareness about unusual activity, you can migrate your Defender to an event management tool.

Conclusion

Endpoint Security is a critical aspect of network security. These devices are a gateway to your entire IT infrastructure. Although anti-virus software can be a good option, it is not able to keep up with cybercriminals’ ever-evolving methods of compromising your network. Endpoint protection solutions like Malwarebytes and Microsoft Defender can help your company stay safe from malware of all kinds. This will save your company time and money. Endpoint protection is an essential part of any IT infrastructure and network security plan. It’s important to implement it regardless of how large your company is.