[BreachExchange] Preventing Your Endpoints from Turning into Weak Points

[Audrey McNeil]

http://www.fintech.finance/01-news/preventing-your-
endpoints-from-turning-into-weak-points/

As more people work from home or while travelling, every employee’s
smartphone, laptop or home computer has become a potentially unsecured
endpoint enabling access to corporate networks and information – a
vulnerability that many employees, organisations and cybersecurity firms
have been slow to address up to now.

With the proliferation of so-called Bring–Your-Own- Device (BYOD)
programmes, allowing employees to use their own electronic devices for work
purposes, as well as the various end-point systems that employees bring
into the corporate environment (tablets, laptops, etc) organisations are
losing control of the ways in which their networks are being accessed.

Every time an employee goes online, clicks on an e-mail, downloads a file,
surfs the web and connects to the corporate network they are potentially
generating a weak point in network security, particularly if his or her
device is not updated or lacks adequate cybersecurity features.

The same risks extend to the emerging ‘Internet of Things’(IoT) environment
as increasing numbers of devices are given the ability to operate and share
information autonomously – each potentially providing a backdoor into
corporate networks that bypass identity access control and event management
systems. Recently, the actual hacking of a car’s operating system and
allowing a 3rd party to take over its controls is illustrative of the vast
expanding territory of endpoints that need to be protected.

“When it comes to security, always start from the endpoint and build out,”
advises security software group Avecto. “A bank doesn’t leave the vault
door open just because they have a security guard on the door – they start
from the vault and layer security outward. In a business, data and
intellectual property are money. If you don’t secure the endpoint you
simply risk losing it all.”

That realisation is prompting enterprises to draw up more comprehensive
endpoint security plans that extend beyond traditional antivirus and
host-intrusion prevention systems, driving projected compound annual growth
in the endpoint security market of 3.9% to reach €7.5 billion globally by
2019, according to Gartner forecasts.

The trend has also led to a proliferation in the number of firms venturing
beyond the traditional endpoint protection protocols by applying novel ways
of thinking to end-point protection. These new services often incorporate
artificial intelligence and machine learning to provide threat prevention,
detection, forensics and remediation, identifying threats that traditional
prevention systems are ill equipped to handle.

For example, over half of all ransomware attacks on corporations are
estimated to start with an employee using the same device for both personal
and enterprise tasks, enabling the software to access databases, systems
and other devices on the network.

Once inside, ransomware encrypts data and shuts down access until the
victims agree to pay the hackers the ransom. In some cases, just one
person’s errant download is enough to bring down an entire system,
especially if the ransomware has circulated and can activate on multiple
devices at once.

In response, some vendors are now providing complete next-generation suits
of both standalone and centrally-managed tools to strengthen endpoint
security across all devices and (enterprise) network access points.
Advanced solutions incorporate Artificial Intelligence into advanced
prevention tools as well as detection and response systems, along with
other controls such as whitelisting and blacklisting of applications,
sandboxing browsers and isolation technologies including personal firewalls.

As cyber-criminals take advantage of new business models, working
environments, devices and vulnerabilities to launch attacks, it has never
been more vital for organisations to ensure that their endpoints are not
their weak points. The ever-continuing battle between code-maker and
code-breaker in the cybersecurity realm is very tangible in the endpoint
cybersecurity segment, where one can expect a lot of exciting applications
and novel ways of thinking in the years to come.
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