Cybercriminals are searching for the easiest way into your network—which, unfortunately, is often through its users. Social engineering and phishing attacks are common methods used to conduct cybercrime, and are designed to persuade and trick people into handing over their sensitive login information. These attacks may also entice an individual to click on a malicious link or open an attachment, which gives cybercriminals an opportunity to deploy malware on your system or access confidential data.
One way that MSPs can reduce the risk of these attacks being successful is by training employees how to reduce the chance of human error occurring. However, cyberattacks are becoming increasingly sophisticated, with criminals researching their targets via social media and using the details they find to craft sophisticated phishing emails that seem legitimate. To help ensure your system remains secure, MSPs should use endpoint security solutions like EDR platforms, which can detect, stop, and in some cases, rollback attacks of this nature.
2. The rise of the internet of things (IoT) and bring your own device (BYOD) creates vulnerabilities.
Modern business networks include mobile and IoT devices, which create a larger attack surface and reduce visibility of malicious activity. The average large global enterprise is dealing with approximately 2,400 unsafe apps on the mobile devices in its environment. Survey findings indicated that roughly 82% of security professionals anticipate that an IoT device will be responsible for a data breach within their organization at one point or another.
It is crucial that organizations be able to identify and secure all their network endpoints, whether they are hardwired or connected via Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or transmitting data over a public network from a remote location.
3. There is often minimal visibility into endpoints.
Victims of a cyberattack are most likely to discover attacks on their servers. This is because modern attacks begin at endpoints before moving to the servers, and then to targets of higher value. Given that servers are the second step in the attack process, the fact that most victims discover attacks at the level of the server suggests that there is a lack of visibility into the earlier stages of the threat chain. This means that in order to catch threats earlier and mitigate the potential damage, there needs to be increased endpoint visibility.
4. Neglecting to use an EDR platform is a mistake.
While antivirus monitoring is an essential component of IT security, effectively combating advanced cyberthreats requires more than anti-malware solutions. Endpoint detection and response (EDR) technology not only helps prevent malware, but also affords you visibility so you can conduct analysis and respond to threats across multiple endpoints. EDR can be combined with other endpoint protection solutions to assist you with addressing a range of threats before they have a significant impact on your clients.
5. The machine learning trend is impacting endpoint security.
Just as the rise of machine learning is impacting the wider cybersecurity world, it is also affecting endpoint security. Cyberthreats are becoming more varied and sophisticated. Machine learning has come to play a greater role in endpoint security, with algorithms using statistical methods to improve their own code.
In essence, machine learning replaces the need to manually make applications aware of new threats—instead, the systems learn how to distinguish between malicious and non-malicious behaviors for themselves. Machine learning models can detect malicious files, enhance a team’s threat detection capabilities, and automate security tasks to improve MSP efficiency.
6. The growing cloud-delivered or SaaS-based endpoint security trend is also changing the market.
An increasing number of enterprises are using SaaS-based or cloud-delivered endpoint security solutions to improve their capabilities. There are numerous benefits to this new trend, including the cost savings associated with computing scalability and cloud storage, how low maintenance the requirements are, the simplicity of deployments, and the ongoing capability deliveries of the SaaS model.
By centralizing endpoint security data collection, threat detection analysis becomes more advanced and can be delivered in real time. Offloading analytics to the cloud minimizes the potential negative performance impact to be had on endpoints.
7. The consolidation of endpoint security makes matters easier for everyone.
Endpoint security is becoming increasingly consolidated with every passing year. This began with the consolidation of personal firewall, antivirus, and anti-malware products into a unified suite. Now, siloed endpoint security programs are being consolidated into a single agent, creating a centralized management platform for these numerous security functions. This simplifies the solution for customers and allows MSPs to offer more efficient and comprehensive services.
What should MSPs look for in endpoint security?
Although different MSPs will have different requirements, there are a number of key features that most MSPs should be looking for in an endpoint security solution. Firstly, your solution should feature application control. This prevents known malicious applications from being executed on networks, which would otherwise lead to unauthorized access and network weaknesses.
Secondly, your endpoint security solution should be able to detect and prevent a wide range of threats. This should include major threats like CryptoLocker, as well as minor vulnerabilities that could evolve into significant issues if undetected. An auto-update feature is also useful, because it allows your software to access and download profiles for new threats in real time—which allows MSPs to vastly improve their response times. Moreover, an effective endpoint security solution should feature on-access scanning that is constantly running in the background and checking every file that is opened.
Lastly, your solution should have a small footprint, if possible. This means that it is lightweight and preserves bandwidth, disk space, and processing speed so that your productivity is not negatively impacted by ongoing scans.
How do you update endpoint security?
The process for updating endpoint security will vary between providers. This guide will use Kaspersky Endpoint Security 10 for Windows as an example. You can run a database update in one of two ways:
To run a database update via the application interface:
- Open the Kaspersky Endpoint Security 10 for Windows tool
- Go to the “Protection and Control” tab and click to expand the “Tasks” subsection
- Right-click on the “Update” task
- Click “Start update”
To run a database update via the command line:
- Open the command line
- Run the following command: "<Path to avp.com file>\avp.com" UPDATE [update source] [/R[A]:<report file>] [/С:<configuration file>] [/S]
- An example of how the command might look: "C:\ProgramFiles\Kaspersky Lab\KES10\avp.com" UPDATE "ftp://my_server/kav updates" /RA:avbases_upd.txt
Choosing the right MSP endpoint security solution
SolarWinds® RMM offers robust endpoint protection features that make it the ideal endpoint security solution for MSPs. It is integrated with Kaspersky, allowing you to automate various routine operations. Another advantage of this integration is that you can view all key information via a single console. RMM includes out-of-the-box monitoring templates, fast and secure remote access capabilities, patch management, antivirus monitoring, data-breach risk insights, web protection, and much more.
The endpoint detection and response features included in SolarWinds RMM are extensive, with policy-driven automation, real-time file analysis, automated rollback, behavioral artificial intelligence engines, forensic analysis, offline endpoint protection, and autonomous threat responses. This tool can prevent sophisticated cyberattacks, detect threats, and minimize the need for manual intervention with multiple automated processes. It is a sophisticated endpoint security tool that can help MSPs stay ahead of threats without contributing to your workload.
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