6 Best Practices to Improve Enterprise Endpoint Security

The complexity, number, and diversity of cyber attacks on enterprise networks continue to rise. Zero-day attacks, cryptojacking, ransomware, and phishing are examples of attacks that can hit enterprise network endpoints. This article explains what enterprise security is and provides six tips on improving endpoint security at your company.

What Are Network Endpoints?

Endpoints are devices connected to an enterprise network that serve as access points to your network. The types of devices that likely come to mind include desktop workstations, servers, and routers.

The physical boundary of the corporate firewall now extends beyond on-premise, though—many enterprises facilitate remote access to their networks via mobile devices, tablets, and laptops. These wireless devices create new attack vectors for malicious intruders to gain access to the enterprise network. You need to protect your valuable digital assets and sensitive information across all endpoints.

Any increase in network endpoints leads to a greater attack surface for intruders to work with. Furthermore, employees working remotely may access the corporate network through unsecured home or public Wi-Fi networks, which complicates the protection of the corporate network.

Larger enterprises, therefore, are more exposed and need more visibility into and protection of their endpoint devices. The endpoint security approach is to ensure comprehensive protection against cyberattacks on endpoint devices and it encompasses antivirus, threat detection, and device monitoring.

6 Endpoint Security Tips

Here are six crucial best practices for protecting endpoint devices at your enterprise.

1. Update Operating Systems and Software Regularly

When the vendor of an operating system or software releases an update, the update often fixes security flaws and vulnerabilities. It’s important to remember cybercriminals are experts at finding out about such vulnerabilities and exploiting them where possible.

You need to apply updates to operating systems and software ASAP on all applicable endpoint devices if you want to keep these devices secured. This is a difficult task when left at the discretion of users because users are apt to ignore update notifications and postpone the restarts needed to apply any updates. The use of mobile devices for remote work further complicates applying updates because the operating systems on these devices also need to be patched quickly.

Thankfully, there are solutions to keeping operating systems updated that don’t necessitate punitive measures resulting from passing OS update responsibility to users of endpoint devices. (And the users neglecting those responsibilities). For example:

• Manage Engine’s Android Enterprise Mobile Device Management software provides OS update management for Android devices.
• NinjaRMM provides automation for patch management on Windows and Mac devices.

2. Use Multi-Factor Authentication

Multi-factor authentication only gives access to a device or system if the user provides two or more independent pieces of evidence. Up to 70 percent of enterprise data breaches occur on endpoint devices and 42 percent of endpoints are unsecured at any given time.

Enterprise IT admins can prevent these intrusions—which often occur due to poor password hygiene—by adding an additional layer of authentication to gain access to the corporate network. An example could be pairing standard user credentials with a one-time password that is only accessible via SMS or email.

3. Keep an Endpoint Inventory

Visibility into every single endpoint device on your corporate network is crucial if you want to stop sophisticated it clandestine attacks. Without an up-to-date inventory of endpoints, it’s easy for IT admins to lose track of what they need to secure and update. Not only does your inventory need to be complete, but it should also be continuously updated.

Inventorizing endpoints manually is both inefficient and ineffective. Automation is the answer; using a tool such as Ivanti helps you discover all devices in real-time on the corporate network in addition to discovering rogue access points on the network.

4. Educate Employees on Endpoint Security

You don’t need to go into the intricate details of securing endpoint devices. However, establishing a base level of awareness about endpoint security can help with the adoption of a security-first mindset. Employees are often the weakest links in the enterprise security chain, but they are less likely to be weak links if enterprises take the time to inform them about basic device security.

Facts and figures are particularly helpful in reinforcing how people learn and why something is important. The fundamental thing to communicate is that any device connected to the corporate network is a potential attack vector and should be adequately secured.

5. Follow the Principle of Least Privilege

Part of securing your endpoints is making sure any possible compromises of these devices are limited in scope. It’s an oft-repeated story hearing about a major enterprise data breach caused by a successful social engineering attack on an employee who had more access than was necessary to complete their daily work.

The principle of least privilege limits the scope of cyberattacks by ensuring employees and their endpoint devices can only access the databases and software strictly essential to complete their normal work.

6. Consider Dedicated Endpoint Protection Software

With the perimeter of the enterprise network expanding to the cloud and to mobile devices, it might be worth considering a dedicated enterprise Endpoint Detection & Response (EDR) software. EDR tools are the most advanced defense against the diverse range of cyberattacks that occur at enterprise endpoints. Such tools combine traditional antivirus with advanced detection, monitoring, and alerting systems that cover all network endpoints.

Closing Thoughts

The basic tenets of endpoint security are visibility into all endpoints, the proper functionality of security controls, and the ability to respond to incidents rapidly while facilitating applications to persist functioning. Substantial portions of corporate budgets are spent on security controls for endpoints, yet data breaches still often begin on these devices.

There needs to be a balance in terms of the number of different tools used for securing endpoints. Companies can strike the right balance by making sure their endpoints security tools cover those three key tenets of endpoint visibility, functionality (e.g. does your patch management tool actually apply updates on time?), and persistent, rapid incident response.