Do I Need Endpoint Protection?

Endpoint protection is an increasingly important aspect of business cybersecurity in today’s world.

Is your business fully prepared to protect itself against modern cyberthreats? Use the How Covered is Your Business? checklist to see what you need to keep your business network secure.

What is an Endpoint?

An endpoint is any device connected to your organization’s network from outside your firewall. This can be laptops, tablets, desktops, phones, wearables (ex. smartwatches), printers, copiers, scanners, POS systems, medical devices, and anything else that is able to connect to the internet and can communicate with your network.

What is Endpoint Protection?

Endpoint protection is a part of cybersecurity that protects your network’s endpoints, any device used on a network such as laptops, desktops, smartphones, tablets, servers, and more. More endpoints mean more potential entryways into your network for hackers to take advantage of in order to steal or corrupt data. To combat this, endpoint protection includes strong antivirus, email monitoring, web filtering, and firewalls installed on each device to help the system administrators and users avoid common attacks like phishing, malware, and ransomware.

Related Blog: What is Advanced Endpoint Protection (AEP)?

Why is Endpoint Protection Important for Businesses?

Endpoint protection is important because, through recent years, businesses are increasing the number of endpoints, or devices, they have connected to their network.

Whether it’s remote work devices like laptops or phones, or just connected workstations, companies use connected endpoints for nearly everything. And each of those devices is a potential entry point for cybercriminals to access your business’ network to steal data.

These endpoints are particularly vulnerable because they often lack the security features required to stay secure, especially if businesses allow their employees to use personal devices where you can’t actively control what antivirus software it's running or how frequently it updates.

70% of successful cyberattacks originated on an endpoint device as of 2020. These devices are juicy targets for cybercriminals and must be secured effectively for a business to be truly protected from modern threats.

More Endpoints Means More Vulnerabilities

As businesses become more reliant on cloud technology that allows people to work from anywhere, the number of endpoints continues to grow significantly—even a modern office refrigerator can be connected to the company's WIFI network.

This brings an increased amount of potential attack vectors that put an organization’s data in harm’s way.

Cybersecurity Climate for Endpoint Security

The pandemic has accelerated the need for endpoint security services due to the sheer number of workers now working from remote locations.

With more endpoints, more technology, and more people working remotely, comes more risk.

70% of businesses reported an increase in phishing attacks since the beginning of the pandemic and working from home increases the risk of cyberattacks by 238%.

Cybersecurity is more volatile than ever, and many businesses are unprepared, especially at SMBs where only 44% of employees receive security awareness training to help them combat modern threats that can attack through multiple channels such as email, websites, downloads, and more.

Market Growth

In the last year, 68% of organizations experienced at least one cyberattack that targeted an endpoint and 68% of IT professionals have found that endpoint attacks are becoming more frequent.

These statistics have made companies re-think their cybersecurity strategies and focus more on protecting endpoints, especially as more workers go remote and cloud communications platforms allow collaboration to be conducted outside of traditional office networks.

This has become a global trend, too. The global endpoint security market rose 8.1% in one year and is now worth $13.99 billion.

With work-from-home and hybrid workers becoming more normalized and accepted moving forward, the endpoint security industry is expected to continue to grow quickly heading into the future, with some experts predicting it to hit nearly $30 billion by the end of the decade.

Endpoint Protection for Remote Work

The rise of remote work has introduced a slew of new cybersecurity risks to businesses that now have to deal with employees who are:

• Connecting to multiple unsecured WIFI networks (home networks, coffee shops, public WIFI, etc.)
• Signing into insecure, non-company devices (phones, tablets, home computers)
• Downloading and accessing data and information remotely

Each of these presents a unique cybersecurity challenge that exemplifies the importance of endpoint protection to ensure that you aren’t leaving your business exposed to threats.

Do You Need Endpoint Security?

In order to answer this question, you need to evaluate your business and be able to answer questions like:

How Much of Your Workforce is Remote?

First, what percentage of your workforce works remotely or from home?

The more people who work from different places increases the security risks and the need for strong endpoint protection compared to a small team who all work under the same roof and on the same network.

Even if most of your team works in-office, endpoint protection can still be a necessity if your team is split among separate offices, you operate with a hybrid workforce, work involves a lot of traveling, or you’re a technology-based company with many devices needed to deliver your services or products.

Do You Need to Remain Compliant with Regulations?

You should also consider if your business is required to adhere to certain compliance guidelines which often means having some level of endpoint security.

What Kind of Information is Being Shared?

It’s important to have strong endpoint protection if your business is regularly exchanging sensitive information.

Businesses in industries like finance and healthcare are consistently handling very sensitive customer information and it’s crucial that the right endpoint security is in place to stop any leaks or breaches that would allow this info to fall into the wrong hands.

What Should You Do If You’re Unsure?

If you’re still unsure whether or not you need endpoint protection for your business, the next step is to get a risk assessment performed by a team of cybersecurity experts.

This comprehensive assessment will not only show you all your endpoint vulnerabilities—and help you determine if you need endpoint protection—it can also help you understand your business’ overall cybersecurity risks and the security solutions you need to secure them.

In Conclusion

So, do you need endpoint protection? It depends on a few factors that vary from business to business such as how remote your workforce is and the types of information you send every day. But, with increasing attacks on endpoints and a larger reliance on technology, it seems like only a matter of time before endpoint security is an absolute necessity for every organization. Don’t be the first company in history to be breached because of an unsecured fridge. Learn more about how you can secure your business’ endpoints by contacting the experts at DOT Security.

Endpoint Protection is just one part of a larger cybersecurity strategy. Your business has many other potential vulnerabilities that cybercriminals will exploit if given the chance. Download our checklist, How Covered is Your Business?, to see what you need to strengthen your business’ security posture.