Endpoint computing devices are evolving rapid­ly, providing greater flexibility for workers, and allowing them to be productive wherever they are, whenever they want. With business professionals no longer shackled to their desks - laptops, smartphones and the latest tablet computers are now the devices of choice and are increasingly used for a mix of work and leisure activities. Organizations have little choice but to allow their network users to work with whatever device they favor - many of which are personally owned and therefore not under the direct control of organizations.

 

However, security threats are also evolving rapidly and are becoming more insidious every day, leaving organizations scrambling to keep up. Traditional defenses have had their day. Almost every organization has deployed some form of anti-malware technology in an attempt to protect their endpoint devices, the data that they contain, and the individuals that use them from compromise. However, many such con­trols rely on signatures which provide no defense against complex, often targeted, threats that use mal­ware variants to defeat those signature con­trols. Further, the signature files cause the software installed on endpoints to expand rapidly in size, causing software bloat that dramatically impacts performance - leading to user frustration and lost productivity.

 

A far better alternative is to subscribe to endpoint security services based in the cloud - reachable from any endpoint device connected to the internet and suited for use by any organization - from a micro firm to a large distributed enterprise. Since most of the services are performed remotely in the cloud, just a miniscule agent needs to be installed on a device to connect to the service, solving the performance problems of traditional controls. Management tasks are dramatically simpli­fied through the provision of a web-based management console, which also provides the management reports and audit trails of all activity. These are required to prove that controls are effective and will aid organizations in achieving their compliance objectives and requirements. The protection offered by cloud-based endpoint security services is also superior to locally deployed controls since they collect feeds from multiple sources regard­ing the latest threats. They can then develop countermeasures remotely using multiple advanced analysis techniques, which are then applied to all traffic passing through the cloud to prevent those threats from ever reaching the endpoints. This provides instantaneous, real-time protection against even the most pernicious zero-day threats.

 

The attached paper looks in greater detail at why organizations should rethink their endpoint security strategies and describes the key ele­ments that are required from a cloud-based endpoint security service, along with the ben­efits that organizations will see from its use. It is intended to be read by individuals in any organization, whatever its size or industry, as no one is immune from the complex, targeted attacks being launched by highly motivated and resourced attackers.