Endpoint Security Is More Important Than Ever
Many employees around the world have spent a year forced to operate from home, and many will continue to do so after the pandemic has abated. Global Workplace Analytics, for example, predicts that 25%-30% of employees will still be working multiple days a week from home by the end of 2021. If there is anything positive that can be taken from Covid-19, it is that remote working can be productive.
But there has been an inevitable downside of the mass adoption of remote working. Cyber criminals have realized that remote workers are no longer as well protected as on-premises office workers. According to research by YouGov, 54% of IT decision makers have seen a higher number of phishing attacks, and 45% saw evidence of printers being compromised as attack points.
This article explores why endpoint security is more important now than ever to protect remote workers and IT professionals.
Blurred lines
A major problem is how the line is blurred between work and personal lives when working from home. According to YouGov research, 76% of office workers felt this blurring of their lives, 46% used their work laptop for personal activities, and 30% even let someone else use their work device - perhaps a child doing schoolwork from home. While the employee might be conscientious about avoiding phishing attacks, other family members won’t be, and all it takes is one lapse and a system could be compromised. You can’t put all the blame on employees working from home for this, though. Instead, it puts the onus on the device they are using itself.
Research by YouGov has shown that 91% of IT decision makers believe endpoint security is at least as important as network security.
Weak systems
Once a system used for work has been infected, it can be used to mount attacks on other employees within the company. The email contacts address book could be accessed and phishing emails sent from the infected system. Other employees will be far more susceptible if they think messages are coming from a legitimate source within the company, which could then mean the whole workforce becomes infected, enabling a mass ransomware attack. Printers could also be susceptible to internal attack once cyber-criminals have access to computers that provide remote access.
Anatomy of Endpoint Security
Many vendors offer endpoint protection platforms (EPPs) that combine different kinds of functionality, including a firewall, data, email and disk encryption (data at rest and in motion) as well as endpoint configuration and management (down to individual devices). Scanning incoming files for viruses and other malware (advanced antivirus) and endpoint threat protection are also key features. Many providers also offer endpoint detection and response (EDR, which may be broken out separately), threat forensics, data classification and loss prevention, insider threat protection, behavioral analysis, centralized administration and security policy enforcement.
A Complex Landscape
As the threat landscape has continued to get more complex, so have endpoint security products. One of the reasons vendors have taken a platform approach is so security organizations can have visibility across the different type of security tool types, unlike a collection of point solutions that weren't designed to work together.
Another benefit of EPPs is their ability to support the different types of endpoints as opposed to just supporting PCs, mobile or IoT/IIoT, for example. That way, if a threat appears via one device, the platform aggregates the threat information so it applies to all endpoints, not just the type that was attacked.
Similarly, though EPPs are available as a cloud or on-premises solution, a cloud solution enables the most up-to-date threat information to be shared across all of a vendors' customers. In fact, Gartner estimates that more than 95% of EPP purchases will be cloud-based by 2023.
Conclusion
There will be a lot more employees working from home post pandemic, and that has potential to be a positive change. Employees can more easily fit work and life together, without any noticeable drop in productivity. With the right computing safety precautions, one of the biggest downsides of remote working can be mitigated. That way, this brave new world of more flexible working can be a win-win for employer and employee alike.
Eileen Harrison is a technical writer for Lucky Assignments.
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