(Thanks to Renee Holt at ESET!) Small organizations can’t rely on relative anonymity to keep them safe any more. Corporate Armor has a wide range of endpoint protection answers to everything your cyber-opponents are likely to throw at you. ESET, from $157 a year, Sophos Central Endpoint, Check Point, AVG (from $70), and Fortinet are a few of the powerful purpose-built weapons for these bad actors.
The ongoing shift to working from home means an increased number of devices are unprotected by the usual safeguards of corporate networks. This exposes companies to greater risks. If there aren’t enough corporate laptops and mobiles to go around, employees may need to use personal devices to work at home.
While some IT administrators are prepared for this, others may need to catch up. No matter where your business stands on the preparedness spectrum, it’s wise to think of endpoint protection software as the minimum investment you should make. For every remote device that touches your company’s network.
Endpoint security installed on every work-related device
In other words, employees need to have security on each desktop, notebook or mobile device that handles your business’ digital assets.
The risks of not being protected in this basic way are too great. Users are exposed to online dangers like phishing attacks, malicious websites and ads and al kinds of malware. Good endpoint security is a proactive threat detection system that can handle these threats.
Employers should ensure that endpoint security software is installed on employees’ devices. Products like ESET Endpoint Security, AVG Internet Security Business Edition, Sophos Central Endpoint Protection, and so on. And this includes employees using their own mobile devices for work.
Tell me about endpoint security
Endpoint security refers to the protection of internet-connected devices such as PCs, workstations, servers and smartphones from cyber threats. Endpoints are vulnerable to a wide range of attacks. This means they are commonly targeted by criminals. It is an integrated security solution that detects and blocks threats at device level. Typically this includes antivirus, anti-malware, data encryption, personal firewalls, intrusion prevention and data loss prevention.
Traditional Endpoint Protection is inherently preventative. Also, most of its approaches are signature-based. That is, they identify threats based on known file signatures for newly discovered threats. However, the latest Endpoint Protection has evolved to include a broader range of detection techniques.
When is it time to think about upgrading past basic endpoint protection?
In small businesses, devices are likely protected by consumer-grade security solutions. But, as the business grows (or when employees work regularly away from the office) some issues can arise. For example, work computers have limited file storage capacity. This means employees will sometimes store files in personal cloud storage accounts. Alternatively, employees could put files on USB sticks. These things are usually unencrypted. And they may have personal files mixed in, or worse, malware.
Issues like these have driven organizations into a couple of directions. One is subscribing to cloud business storage like OneDrive, Dropbox, or Google Drive. The other is to set up an on-premises file server.
Both of these options come with their own risks. But the transformative effect they have is to push businesses toward a server-endpoint infrastructure. And this is the beginnings of a true corporate network.
Business-grade security starts to play a larger role in this new kind of setup. The reason is, unlike consumer software, business software view individual employee devices as endpoints in a network. And they’re all interconnected through one or more servers. And of course, servers, along with endpoints, need protection. The new IT setup – offering shared resources hosted and accessed from centralized servers – demands extra security. You’re beefing up your security posture to protect more kinds of devices in more places.
Do you have any questions about endpoint protection, or about ESET? Email us or call Corporate Armor at 877-449-0458. Thanks for reading!
ESET highlights
– Excellent detection rates
– Easy to use remote management
– Powerful intrusion detection abilities
– A great overall value