The Endpoint Is Back on the Agenda (and It’s a Huge Security Threat)

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There was a time when IT security conversations were all about the network, with a focus on monitoring and controlling incoming and outgoing network traffic based on predefined security rules. By adding more walls and watching everything that entered and left the network, IT could safeguard corporate infrastructure and data. The endpoint was an afterthought.Throw in some anti-virus and maybe some encryption, and call it a day.

During the course of the last few years, though, everything has changed. The rise of mobility has expanded the types of devices in use, making it possible for employees to remotely access just about any business resource, including sensitive corporate data. The network is no longer a contained environment; instead, it extends as far as the endpoint, even if it is off the corporate network.

With mobile and remote workers, cyber criminals are no longer limited to a handful of network access points for ingress. Instead, they can aggressively target millions of access points that exist beyond the safety of your corporate network. Today, every endpoint is a potential entry point.

As a result, endpoints have come front and center. Heads are turning and people notice when they walk out of a room. And IT administrators are spending countless hours stalking endpoints online. In fact, in the 2015 Piper Jaffray CIO Survey, 78 percent of CIOs cited advanced endpoint security as their top spending priority. IT understands the potential risks associated with these increased attack surfaces, and a lot of attention is being paid to the hardware and the data contained on these devices.

Effective endpoint security is challenging since you are constantly trying to maintain oversight on a moving target. So, when an endpoint is compromised, it’s imperative that you have visibility over the device, even if it’s no longer on your network.

Visibility across all your endpoints will allow you to establish a security baseline, by identifying where your devices are, what data they store, and what security tools (such as encryption) are still active and enabled. With the right set of response tools, you could even disable endpoints and delete sensitive data from them if the devices have been compromised.  

A persistent endpoint solution that gives visibility into the status of endpoints on and off the network is the perfect complement to encryption, as it can help organizations ensure and prove compliance with key security regulations. This creates a reliable two-way connection so that IT can secure endpoints, assess risk and respond appropriately to security incidents. If IT has a persistent connection to all managed devices--on and off the network--it can remain in control, even if the device is in the hands of an unauthorized user.

As Senior Product Manager, Ali Solehdin is a responsible for defining, managing and executing the product roadmap for Absolute. He identifies the strategic needs and customer priorities for Absolute’s data and device security solution. Ali specializes in Product Management in Information Security. Prior to Absolute, he also served as Product Manager for Sophos, where he managed the Web Gateway, Email Security, and Mac Endpoint Security products.