Axonius recently hosted The Great Debate, a 10-part webinar series debating the merits and pitfalls of some of the hottest topics in cybersecurity today. This post recaps the key takeaways from episode eight, where our guest speakers argued the pros and cons of prioritizing endpoint protection.
Read on to find out whether endpoint protection should be the No.1 cybersecurity initiative for IT and security professionals in 2021.
What’s Endpoint Protection?
Endpoint security refers to cybersecurity protection for networked endpoints. These protections often include antivirus and anti-ransomware, email filtering, web filtering and firewall services, as well as detection and response capabilities.
Endpoint protection solutions increasingly use a cloud native architecture, where the solution management analysis and detection workload is done in the cloud. Many of today's endpoint protection solutions combine next generation antivirus with detection and response capabilities to aid incident response and forensics.
Why Endpoint Protection Should Be a Top Cybersecurity Priority Today
Dan Greenhaus, IT and cybersecurity professional, argued that endpoint protection covers more than just antivirus. Malware protection, firewalls, USB restriction, software whitelisting, application control, and encryption are all part of endpoint protection.
Today, almost 47% of all attacks are stopped by endpoint protection — and that's not including the ones users let in accidentally. As users continue to be the weakest link in security, a failure to implement endpoint protection tools will only make matters worse, Greenhaus said.
Another thing to remember? The endpoint itself isn't the target. Threat actors usually leverage endpoints to gain access to an organization’s systems and network. While end user training is important, threat actors will always find a way to get through. The more organizations can leverage endpoint protection tools to prevent threat actors from getting in and pivoting from the endpoint to an internal system or database, the better off their systems are going to be, Greenhaus said.
Why Endpoint Protection Shouldn’t Be a Top Cybersecurity Priority Today
Craig Taylor, co-founder and chief information security officer at CyberHoot, argued that endpoint protection shouldn’t be a top cybersecurity priority because endpoint protection tools only focus on treating symptoms, not the causes of breaches (often a user doing something they shouldn’t have).
The foundation for any robust cybersecurity program involves educating employees. While endpoint protection tools are part of any cybersecurity program, the best prevention teaching employees about the evolving security threats and attacks, Taylor said.
