What Is Endpoint Security?

Why endpoint security is important

An endpoint protection platform is a vital part of enterprise cybersecurity for  several reasons. First of all, in today’s business world, data is  the most valuable asset of a company —and to lose that data, or access to that data, could put the entire business at risk of insolvency. Businesses have also had to contend with not only a growing number of endpoints, but also a rise in the number of types of endpoints. These factors make enterprise endpoint security more difficult on their own, but they’re compounded by remote work and BYOD policies—which make perimeter security increasingly insufficient and create vulnerabilities. The threat landscape is becoming more complicated, as well: Hackers are always coming up with new ways to gain access, steal information or manipulate employees into giving out sensitive information. Add in the opportunity, cost of reallocating resources from business goals to addressing threats, the reputational cost of a large-scale breach, and the actual financial cost of compliance violations, and it’s easy to see why endpoint protection platforms have become regarded as must-haves in terms of securing modern enterprises.

How endpoint protection works

Endpoint security is the practice of safeguarding the data and workflows associated with the individual devices that connect to your network. Endpoint protection platforms (EPP) work by examining files as they enter the network. Modern EPPs harness the power of the cloud to hold an ever-growing database of threat information, freeing endpoints of the bloat associated with storing all this information locally and the maintenance required to keep these databases up to date. Accessing this data in the cloud also allows for greater speed and scalability.

The EPP provides system administrators a centralized console, which is installed on a network gateway or server and allows cybersecurity professionals to control security for each device remotely. The client software is then assigned to each endpoint—it can either be delivered as a SaaS and managed remotely, or it can be installed directly on the device. Once the endpoint has been set up, the client software can push updates to the endpoints when necessary, authenticate log-in attempts from each device, and administer corporate policies from one location. EPPs secure endpoints through application control—which blocks the use of applications that are unsafe or unauthorized—and through encryption, which helps prevent data loss.

When the EPP is set up, it can quickly detect malware and other threats. Some solutions also include an Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) component. EDR capabilities allow for the detection of more advanced threats, such as polymorphic attacks, fileless malware, and zero-day attacks. By employing continuous monitoring, the EDR solution can offer better visibility and a variety of response options.

EPP solutions are available in on-premises or cloud based models. While cloud- based products are more scalable and can more easily integrate with your current architecture, certain regulatory/compliance rules may require on-premises security.

Endpoint security components

Typically, endpoint security software will include these key components:

• Machine-learning classification to detect zero-day threats in near real time
• Advanced antimalware and antivirus protection to protect, detect, and correct malware across multiple endpoint devices and operating systems
• Proactive web security to ensure safe browsing on the web
• Data classification and data loss prevention to prevent data loss and exfiltration
• Integrated firewall to block hostile network attacks
• Email gateway to block phishing and social engineering attempts targeting your employees
• Actionable threat forensics to allow administrators to quickly isolate infections
• Insider threat protection to safeguard against unintentional and malicious actions
• Centralized endpoint management platform to improve visibility and simplify operations
• Endpoint, email and disk encryption to prevent data exfiltration

Endpoint protection platforms vs. traditional antivirus

Endpoint protection platforms (EPP) and traditional antivirus solutions differ in some key ways.

• Endpoint Security vs. Network Security: Antivirus programs are designed to safeguard a single endpoint, offering visibility into only that endpoint, in many cases only from that endpoint. Endpoint security software, however, looks at the enterprise network as a whole and can offer visibility of all connected endpoints from a single location.
• Administration: Legacy antivirus solutions relied on the user to manually update the databases or to allow updates at pre-set time. EPPs offer interconnected security that moves administration responsibilities to enterprise IT or cybersecurity team.
• Protection: Traditional antivirus solutions used signature-based detection to find viruses. This meant that if your business was Patient Zero, or if your users hadn’t updated their antivirus program recently, you could still be at risk. By harnessing the cloud, today’s EPP solutions are kept up to date automatically. And with the use of technologies such as behavioral analysis, previously unidentified threats can be uncovered based suspicious behavior.

Learn more about the differences between legacy antivirus solutions and modern Endpoint Protection Platforms.

How enterprise endpoint protection differs from consumer endpoint protection

Advanced endpoint security solutions

Trellix offers a full range of enterprise solutions that combine powerful endpoint protection with efficient endpoint management. Trellix Endpoint Security combines established capabilities such as firewall, reputation, and heuristics with cutting-edge machine learning and containment, along with endpoint detection and response (EDR) into a single platform agent, with a single management console. The resulting integrated endpoint protection platform keeps users productive and connected while stopping zero-day malware, like ransomware, before it can infect the first endpoint.