

Several vendors (particularly those that have been around a while) still offer on-premises solutions with many of the benefits found in a cloud-hosted suite. While cloud-based solutions may make the most sense for many customers, don’t assume that they are the only option. More advanced endpoint management solutions may even leverage cloud-based machine learning to protect against zero-day attacks (more on this later).

This communication typically involves receiving log information about scan results and blocked threats, receiving software and policy updates (or even instructions to roll back these updates), and remotely initiating management tasks. To maintain security for these endpoints your endpoint protection suite needs to communicate with these devices on a semi-regular basis. This could mean customer devices spread across disparate networks including those under corporate control, home networks, and public Wi-Fi connections. What features make up a modern endpoint protection suite? For starters you should prioritize a solution that fully embraces a modern hybrid cloud architecture. The term endpoint protection also speaks to the modern network architecture, which could include various device types spread across multiple corporate locations, potentially even connected to the corporate network through a virtual private network (VPN) or outside the bounds of corporate control entirely such as employee-owned devices. Because of the diverse array of attack vectors a variety of protection methods must be leveraged to protect endpoint devices from compromise. Threat vectors for end-user devices include browser-based attacks, phishing attempts, malicious software, or spyware.

As attack methods and the technology behind them have become more diverse and sophisticated, so too must the security tools tasked with protecting what are often the most vulnerable devices on the corporate network: those your users access daily. Antivirus, more appropriately known as antimalware, has matured significantly since the days of dedicated antivirus servers, daily signature updates, and manually managed policies.Įndpoint protection covers much more than antimalware. Okay, I made that first part up, but the second part is, of course, true. Studies show that CSO readers are most likely to know that endpoint protection is the modern iteration of the antivirus tools of previous generations.
