Endpoint Security Series: Top 5 Crucial Layers of Protection

By Oleg Mogilevsky, Product Marketing Manager, Threat Prevention

Malicious actors worldwide are taking advantage of the sudden transition to the work from home reality, exploiting an unprecedented opportunity to breach organizations around the globe. Securing endpoints is essential when it comes to countering those efforts.

To help security professionals assess their options, we’ve listed the five guiding principles for choosing the optimal endpoint security solution in our previous blog.

This time we want to address the five most critical protections required to ensure your endpoint devices are safe from any and every attack vector.

Protecting endpoints today has never been that critical. Yet, what are the capabilities behind it that make it effective? How can security experts ensure they avoid security breaches and data compromise without compromising business continuity?

Achieving that is within reach when you have the five must-have capabilities that we’re going to cover today.

Must-have #1: Anti-phishing capabilities

Today’s phishing emails involve very sophisticated social engineering techniques designed to dupe employees into disclosing sensitive data and/or enable fraudulent financial transactions.

The optimal endpoint security solution should offer advanced anti-phishing capabilities that can protect users from phishing schemes, including zero-day phishing schemes, while they are using their mailboxes or browsing the internet. Such protection can help you stay ahead of cybercriminals and remove the detection burden from the user.

Must-have #2: Anti-ransomware capabilities

Ransomware, particularly zero-day ransomware, can be very challenging to combat. By its very nature, we do not know that it exists until it strikes. And when it does, it does so without warning, leaving the security team unprepared.

To complicate matters even more, it can penetrate the organization through multiple entry points, including the web, emails, and removable media devices. An endpoint protection solution with advanced anti-ransomware capabilities will enable the organization to mitigate the risk and avoid the damage of a successful attack.

Must-have #3: Content Disarm and Reconstruction (CDR)

On the one hand, organizations can’t afford to disrupt productivity by inspecting every file attached to incoming emails.

On the other hand, they can neither risk allowing files to be downloaded to users’ PCs and laptops without first inspecting them.

This is why an endpoint security solution must include an automatic file sanitization capability, also known as Content Disarm and Reconstruction (CDR) or Threat Extraction.

Must-have #4: Anti-bot capabilities

Bots present a formidable security threat. Hackers often use them in an Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) attack against a particular individual or organization.

Bots connect to the organization’s command and control servers, where the hacker controls the bot remotely and instructs it to execute illegal activities.

Such bot attacks can cause data theft – of personal, financial, intellectual property, or organizational data. To prevent these attacks, the endpoint protection must include the requisite anti-bot capabilities.

Must-have #5: Automated post-breach detection, remediation, and response

While traditional endpoint detection and response (EDR) solutions can detect suspicious behaviors, they typically have very few out-of-the-box rules, nor can they perform automatic remediation.

Lacking automation means that the risk of attack residuals is greater, not to mention that manual processes are time-consuming and potentially lead to greater impact.

Summary

As we have seen, the domain of endpoint protection is fraught with complexity and challenge. There have never been more endpoints to protect, and cybercriminals’ techniques have never been more sophisticated.

Overcoming the challenge requires a new approach to the task, with a solution that includes five must-have capabilities:

• Anti-phishing
• Anti-ransomware
• Content Disarm and Reconstruction (CDR)
• Anti-bot
• Automated post-breach detection, remediation, and response

The optimal solution must also be driven by the following five principles:

• A prevention-first approach

• AI-driven multilayered security

• Post-infection remediation and recovery

• Consolidated security and threat intelligence architecture

• Unified and cloud-based management

  
  

By pulling together these powerful capabilities and taking this modernized approach to endpoint protection, security teams can be confident that they are taking the most robust approach to securing the enterprise with sophistication that outwits even the most sophisticated cybercriminals.