If you work in the area of IT security—or manage teams of people who do—I bet you’ve heard these statements before (or something similar): We’re constantly battling malware. Although we keep our antivirus software up to date, malware continues to get through. What else can we do?
To say that endpoint security is a challenge is a massive understatement. Just staying on top of the volume and variety of endpoints accessing our networks—from desktops, laptops, and a host of mobile devices—can be overwhelming to say the least. So it’s no wonder endpoints have become such a rich target for cyber villains.
Phishing tactics continue to be one of the most effective methods adversaries use to install malware on endpoint devices. Through social engineering and astute awareness of human tendencies, cyber criminals have become adept at duping end users into helping them launch sophisticated assaults against corporate networks and servers. And every year, they raise the bar on their devious and creative approaches.
Now is the time to change the way we protect the endpoint. As noted by Forrester Research in September 2015, the time has come for a new endpoint strategy.1 The good news is that endpoint detection and response (EDR) solutions available on the market today are making it possible to implement better endpoint protection than ever before.
What makes EDR solutions so compelling? Here are a few factors:
Behavior-Based Protection
Traditional antivirus solutions provide signature-based protection, meaning the products rely on virus signatures to be known in order to identify that an endpoint has been infected. If a new malware variant is developed, its signature will be unknown for a period of time until AV vendors become aware of the variant, identify its signature, and produce updated code. Because new, more sophisticated malware variants continue to be created, signature-based solutions alone have become less effective at stopping malware at the endpoint.
On the other hand, EDR solutions provide behavior-based protection. Their effectiveness is not dependent on signatures. The products are designed to monitor the activity of the endpoint device and flag “suspicious” behavior commonly associated with attacks. This type of monitoring helps raise awareness that conditions may be forming for an attack before the assault actually occurs. If unusual behavior is detected, the activity is logged, and action is taken to stop the activity before it can do harm or spread to other systems.
Real-Time, Shared Threat Intelligence
EDR solutions rely on threat intelligence. As activity is monitored at the endpoint, it is compared to a cyber intelligence database that is continually updated. Cloud-based EDR solutions maintain an elaborate cyber threat intelligence database that is updated in real-time from tens of thousands of points across the globe as new behaviors and attacks are identified. Such solutions operate with the most current threat information available, therefore providing the most accurate, effective protection real-time intelligence can offer.
Proactive Threat Analysis
When it comes to security, catching a problem before it happens is always better than picking up the pieces after the incident. By design, EDR solutions are more proactive than traditional antivirus products. Once installed and configured, agent-based EDR products are always running in the background when the endpoint is operational, monitoring and analyzing activity on the device and performing continuous threat analysis.
Picking the Best Solution for You
The endpoint has become the new edge. And stopping malware at the endpoint before it can steal information or further penetrate our networks is critical. While security awareness training and antivirus solutions help, more is needed. Over the past few years, tremendous strides have been made in endpoint security protection. Today, endpoint detection and response (EDR) solutions can provide a more sophisticated defense against endpoint assaults.
There are a number of solutions on the market today, CrowdStrike, Cylance, and Carbon Black to name a few. And new products continue to emerge. At ePlus, we specialize in helping our clients weed through the vast number of products on the market and design the best security solution to meet their needs. We are an industry-leading technology integrator with deep expertise and long-standing relationships with the top manufacturers in the industry.
For more information on how ePlus can help you select and implement the best endpoint detection and response (EDR) solution for you,
click here to contact us or contact your ePlus Account Executive. You can also visit
www.eplus.com/security.
