The digital perimeter around businesses has changed a lot in the past decade, with cloud computing, bring-your-own-device (BYOD) and the internet of things (IoT,) to name but a few. For many, this has meant a radical rethink of their endpoint protection. Companies might do the same because they\u2019ve outgrown their provider or lost trust when the protection has let them down.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re thinking about changing your cybersecurity dance partner while you\u2019re in good company, it\u2019s important to think through your decision. And it\u2019s important to take stock and question if your current solution is going to be good enough to face oncoming threats. Kaspersky\u2019s white paper, Time to switch \u2014 updating endpoint security: Why now is the time to act<\/a>, recommends you ask these questions.<\/p>\n If another vendor is claiming their product is better than what you\u2019ve got, be sure to check whether their claims match up with what independent test labs find. These labs use cybersecurity experts to examine and evaluate features rigorously.<\/p>\n Look at different labs\u2019 results carefully, because there are differences in the performance of different products. For example, AV-Test<\/a><\/u> gave only one company\u2019s endpoint protection top marks in detecting fileless attacks<\/a><\/u>. Look at the results of several tests and see which products consistently score near the top of the list.<\/p>\n With threats becoming ever more sophisticated by the day, products designed a decade back may not be able to cope with them.<\/p>\n Fileless attacks are particularly tricky because they\u2019re designed to avoid triggering anti-intrusion protection. Blocking them would mean blocking legitimate software too.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Endpoint protection that has a behavioral engine<\/a><\/u> does the job. A behavioral engine detects fileless threats at the execution stage by analyzing execution patterns, spotting the fileless attack among a myriad of legitimate processes. It then isolates the threat and restores user data. It also blocks vulnerabilities to prevent this happening in the first place.<\/p>\n Older endpoint security technologies may not be designed for a heavily clouded IT sky. The cloud has led many companies to change how they do things, such as moving away from a centralized data center view of the world. They find it saves money and is more flexible. Security tools should be able to control new attack vectors that come with infrastructure change as well as the old ones.<\/p>\n No company wants to get lost in a forest of different management tools. Your solution should handle it all \u2013 cloud and on-premise \u2013 equally well from a central console, also known as a \u2018single pane of glass.\u2019<\/p>\n The lockdowns around the world that followed the COVID-19 pandemic showed employees must be able to work from home, among other places.<\/p>\n Corporate networks need to be secure and resistant to attack from outside, but by definition, remote workers are outside that network. Existing software may not be able to handle it.<\/p>\n For secure remote working, your endpoint protection platform must be able to secure endpoints remotely. This is especially challenging when employees are using older operating systems.<\/p>\n Reducing human interaction gives your organization a boost in controlling unwanted activity. This is particularly true when using cloud because allocating workload becomes more complex.<\/p>\n There are modern security systems geared for this, often using artificial intelligence (AI.) AI-driven tools like Adaptive Anomaly Control<\/a><\/u> bring automation to the task of sorting legitimate from nefarious activity, and constantly improves with machine learning. Businesses find these kinds of tools can significantly reduce staffing costs and related overheads.<\/p>\n On top of fileless attack protection, endpoint security most often comes unstuck on desktop firewall, ransomware protection and anti-exploit technology. As an example of why this matters, ransomware is a growing threat<\/a> facing all organizations. To be effective, the software must protect not only impacted files, but also the disk to keep the master boot record intact.<\/p>\n Look at your specific needs and see if your security vendor offers that level of protection.<\/p>\n You need to be able to act fast on threats. To be effective, threat blocking should be married with analyzing the root cause.<\/p>\n EDR blocks threats and ensures attacks don\u2019t hit other parts of the corporate infrastructure. It lets you see into all endpoints, for protection and threat analysis. And no matter how complex the attack, security managers have a real-time view of the threat. All this means faster response to a security incident.<\/p>\n Where threats are designed to bypass endpoint detection, sandboxes give an extra layer of security to automate detection and response. The sandbox isolates and detonates malicious applications, to analyze and detect even advanced exploits in targeted attacks. It can be costly, because it usually requires a cybersecurity specialist.<\/p>\n1. What do independent test results say?<\/h2>\n
2. Can your threat prevention cope with the most sophisticated attacks?<\/h2>\n
3. Is it giving you enough management flexibility?<\/h2>\n
4. Does it support remote work?<\/h2>\n
5. Got automation?<\/h2>\n
6. Can it meet specialized needs?<\/h2>\n
7. Is there enhanced visibility with endpoint detection and response (EDR?)<\/h2>\n
8. Does it have an effective sandbox for advanced threat protection?<\/h2>\n