Over the past few months, small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) have faced many new challenges—from transitioning to remote work to navigating new business environments to pivoting toward entirely new digital services and products. While much of this transformation could revolutionize your business and lead to growth and greater profitability, one challenge is less forward-looking and more foreboding: the increasing threat of cyberattacks against your business. One site reports that a whopping 80% of businesses have seen an increase in cyberattacks amidst the pandemic. These attacks range from ransomware and phishing scams to business email compromise and malware. 

As more businesses move to remote workforces—either temporarily or permanently— the concept of endpoint security has never been more relevant and critical for today’s modern business. At the same time, one source reports that one in five companies use no endpoint security whatsoever. In this post, we provide some of the basics of endpoint security and demonstrate why it’s important for your team to invest in the right measures that will enable growth and transformation while protecting your business, information, and reputation.

What is endpoint security? 

Simply put, every single device that an employee uses to connect to or access a business network is considered an endpoint. Endpoint devices include desktops, laptops, mobile phones, and tablets. In some cases, these devices will be supplied by employers. In many cases, employees will use their own endpoint equipment for work purposes. No matter who supplies the endpoint device, all present a potential risk and attack vector for nefarious actors who seek to exploit or steal company information. 

Endpoint security, then, is the process of protecting these devices, for both network access and cloud-based services. A Verizon threat report found that nearly one-third of data breaches that involved malware were via direct install (which typically but not always requires credentials). No single industry is immune from endpoint attacks. Healthcare, for example, is top of mind among all of us these days. One source reports that one-third of healthcare organizations report insecure mobile devices as their top worry for security incidents; it’s among the top three vectors of concern alongside negligent employees and cyberattacks, generally. 

But it’s just a mobile phone and I always have it with me. Why is endpoint security so important?

It’s a logical question, and one you’re likely to hear from colleagues, employees, and the public. Research tells us that close to 60% of endpoints harbor hidden threats—one-third of which are critical Trojans, rootkits, and backdoors. These threats are sophisticated, persistent, and often evade even the best protection measures.

But let’s first take a step back. Small and medium-sized businesses, in general, remain a prime target for attackers, often because these firms have limited resources and strained staff. Protecting your business requires proactive planning, a robust strategy, organizational buy-in, and educated employees. This is especially true now, as technology support staff are especially busy as they themselves navigate their own remote work, not to mention the remote safety, security, and productivity of teams and customers. 

Today, as employees connect to company networks and critical data via any number of endpoint devices, it’s more critical than ever to ensure they do so securely. There’s also the real risk of compromised or stolen devices, so technology teams also need to ensure that data on these devices is secure and can’t be lost or stolen. In short, endpoint security has always been important, but remote working policies have opened SMBs up to greater (and graver) cybersecurity risks. The right endpoint security solutions will protect remote workers by protecting their endpoints, no matter where they work from.

The benefits of endpoint security extend beyond basic device protection. Other business benefits of endpoint security include improved protection at all points in the attack chain, greater visibility into endpoint problems, consolidated endpoint information for more streamlined response to helpdesk tickets, quicker and more efficient technical support, decreased deployment complexity, and reduced agent footprint.

OK, got it. But how can I secure all of these endpoints, even among my relatively small and connected team?

One of the best options is to deploy an endpoint detection and response (EDR) solution. The primary function of an EDR solution is to monitor and collect data from endpoints that could indicate a threat and/or identify threat patterns. The right solution will enable you and your tech support team to then respond to threats in a timely manner to mitigate the risk or remove the threat.

At N8 Solutions, we recognize the growing importance of endpoint security for all types of businesses across the country. This is exactly why we partnered with Malwarebytes, the leading anti-malware software, to offer the best-in-class EDR solution for your unique business, no matter how small—or how medium—it is.

Our solution is not complicated—some vendors may suggest overly complicated solutions that require further time and investment for your already strapped technology team—but it is effective. And it’s designed for security professionals of all abilities. Malwarebytes Endpoint Detection and Response enables a resilient endpoint security posture so that you can actively respond to a threat while it is happening. Our solution allows you to isolate, investigate, remediate, and recover your data, putting endpoints back in operation so you can focus on what matters: your business. 

Security benefits of our Malwarebytes EDR solution include active response in minutes, endpoint isolation, up to 72 hours of “Ransomware Rollback” (which allows you to “wind back the clock” and restore files that were encrypted, deleted, or modified in a ransomware attack), and progressive threat detection. While it’s impossible to protect all devices all the time from all threats, we can offer a simple, robust, and affordable solution that will help stop threats regardless of attack vector, across your entire business. 

While everyone is fighting to keep themselves and their businesses healthy amidst the pandemic, let us help you return your endpoints to a truly healthy state. Please get in touch with us today.