Did you know that more than two-thirds of organizations have experienced one or more attacks on their endpoints? Ponemon Institute conducted a study that found that 68% of organizations experienced one or more successful endpoint attacks which resulted in data compromise. That’s not all, the same study also found that 68% of cybersecurity professionals expect the frequency of endpoint attacks to increase as compared to last year. A vast majority of these endpoint attacks used malware while some of them used compromised devices.
With the rapid adoption of both cloud and endpoint technologies by enterprises, the threat is even bigger now than it was in the past. So how can businesses protect themselves from these endpoint attacks? How can they secure endpoints on the cloud? Let’s find out.
Table of Contents
Key Features of Cloud Based Endpoint Security Solutions
1. Endpoint Protection
2. Data Encryption
3. Identity and Access Management
Key Components of Cloud Based Endpoint Security Solutions
1. Protection Against Cberattacks
2. Ensuring Business Continuity
3. Regulatory Compliance
Challenges of Cloud Based Endpoint Security Solutions
1. Lack of physical Control
2. Complicated Security Requirements
3. Data Breaches
How To Overcome Cloud Based Endpoint Security Challenges?
1. Leveraging Endpoint Protection Platforms
2. Harnessing The Power of Identity and Access Management Systems
3. Cloud Access Security Broker
How To implement Endpoint Security In The Cloud?
1. Adopt Strong User Authentication Methods
2. Endpoint Detection and Response Solutions
3. User Activity Monitoring
Key Features of Cloud Based Endpoint Security Solutions
1. Endpoint Protection
Firewalls, intrusion detection and prevention systems as well as antivirus software are an important part of your endpoint protection system. Firewalls act as a gatekeeper preventing malicious traffic from entering into your network while an antivirus program blocks malware and viruses. Similarly, intrusion prevention and detection systems keep a close eye on malicious and suspicious activities and raise the alarm bells as soon as they detect one.
2. Data Encryption
Threat actors can not only target data in rest but they can also target it in motion. That is where data encryption comes in handy. It protects communication between two parties so that attackers can not gain access to the message during transit.
3. Identity and Access Management
An identity and access management solution makes sure that only authorized users can access the data you want them to and blocks malicious guests. These systems authenticate and authorize the users before granting access to resources and data.
Key Components of Cloud Based Endpoint Security Solutions
1. Protection Against Cberattacks
The primary objective of an endpoint security solution is to prevent cybersecurity attacks and data breaches. They are even capable of keeping phishing emails at bay. In addition to this, such systems can protect businesses from malware threats as well.
2. Ensuring Business Continuity
Some attacks are designed to disrupt your business operations such as a dedicated denial of service attack. To protect your business from such attacks, you can invest in DDoS protection services. Attackers can send a barrage of malicious traffic requesting access, which brings down the server to its knees, making it unable to respond to even legitimate requests. This can put your business website offline. Cloud based endpoint security solutions have faster remediation and recovery capabilities, which means that it can help your business restore operations in no time.
3. Regulatory Compliance
Irrespective of which industry your business operates in, there might be some industry specific regulations that you have to comply with. An effective cloud based endpoint security system helps you tick most boxes.
Challenges of Cloud Based Endpoint Security Solutions
1. Lack of physical Control
One of the biggest challenges when it comes to securing the endpoints is visibility. Most businesses lack the visibility and physical control over all their devices and endpoints. This makes these endpoints a soft target for cyberattackers and difficult to secure for your security teams. Secondly, it is much harder to implement security controls on virtual environments like a cloud as compared to physical environments like an on premises server setup.
2. Complicated Security Requirements
With most organziations already using multi and hybrid cloud setups, it is much harder for security teams to ensure endpoint security in the cloud.
3. Data Breaches
Probably the biggest threat associated with cloud environments are data breaches. Since data stored in the cloud is not as secure as data stored on premises neither do they have the same level of security controls, it is easier for threat actors to steal cloud data.
How To Overcome Cloud Based Endpoint Security Challenges?
1. Leveraging Endpoint Protection Platforms
One of the best solutions to all the endpoint security woes in the cloud is to implement an endpoint protection platform. They can seamlessly integrate with your cloud infrastructure and offer protection against a host of cybersecurity threats.
2. Harnessing The Power of Identity and Access Management Systems
Identity and access management systems enable your business to manage both entities and user access effectively. You can easily control which users gain access to which cloud applications, resources and services. These systems can minimize the risk of unauthorized access to cloud based endpoints.
3. Cloud Access Security Broker
Struggling to maintain complete visibility and full control over your cloud infrastructure? Cloud Access Security Brokers can resolve this issue. It helps your business to enforce security policies to protect your data and access control policies to prevent account takeover and access abuse.
How To implement Endpoint Security In The Cloud?
1. Adopt Strong User Authentication Methods
To fortify endpoint security, it is crucial to promptly download and install patches, staying vigilant against potential vulnerabilities. Additionally, bolster your defense mechanisms by transitioning to more robust user authentication methods, such as biometrics. This proactive approach significantly reduces the risk of targeted attacks, ensuring a resilient and secure computing environment.To bolster your cyber defenses, you can also adopt multi factor authentication.
2. Endpoint Detection and Response Solutions
Detecting endpoint threats is one thing and responding to these threats is another. An endpoint detection and response solution can help you do both at once. It can not only alert you about any suspicious activity or malicious behavior but can also help you respond to such threats in an effective manner.
3. User Activity Monitoring
Sometimes, the threat actor might not be outside your company but rather inside it.
Create a mechanism for user activity monitoring and log maintenance so you can easily track actions performed on your network.
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