During the coronavirus pandemic, there has been an observable rise in cyber-attacks. This has been attributed to a work from home culture that companies have been forced to adopt. However, since companies can’t provide security and patches to most employee home systems, these hacks have seen a rise.

It’s become painfully apparent that endpoint management is essential for any company to manage its security.

What is Endpoint Management?

Endpoint management controls all the access points of your system. It gives selective access to different entities to access different levels of data. Endpoint management can be done through verification and authentication via biometrics or through passwords and multi-factor authentication.

It can also be done through device verification and very strict monitoring of user activity. All of it comes down to securing access for a select few individuals to limit the chances of a breach.

Why is Endpoint Management Important?

Remote Work Becomes Easier

Working from home is now the norm. During the pandemic, it has become more widespread than ever before. After the pandemic ends, however, most businesses will either become hybrids of this system or enforce a complete shift. For this model to work, endpoint management has to be at the center of security.

There can only be so many security updates and patches you can roll out to devices. With many employees using their own, likely insecure devices, endpoint management is crucial. Better to limit access to your systems rather than control every device that your employees use.

With selective levels of access for every device, you can limit the data that anyone access point can leak. Also, anyone device can’t be responsible for the compromise of your entire database. In the best-case scenario, the damage won’t occur at all. However, if any damage will be done, it will at least be limited.

Human Error Becomes Less Significant

People aren’t machines and they make mistakes. Hence, anyone can click on an unsafe link or access an unverified website or app. Through this fault, they make themselves vulnerable to hacking and intrusions.

Since human error isn’t going to end, limiting human access to servers and systems can work to offset it. Endpoints are managed by humans that tend to fall into predictable traps. These can be phishing emails, shady software, etc. Since every user can’t be as tech-savvy as an IT professional, it’s much more practical to restrict access.

Endpoint management is one of the best means for businesses to protect themselves against intrusions.

Endpoints can Access Other Networks

Endpoint management’s importance becomes very obvious once you realize that every device can access the internet today. This ranges from your car to your smartphone to your smart TV. Hence, connected devices can provide a pathway for hackers and malware to sneak on to your network.

It may come in the form of a bank account update or a sneak peek at social media. Using other websites outside of the company network can result in the entire system being exposed to cyber threats. This goes back to not being able to control every single device.

So it’s much easier to instead restrict access so that different networks can’t form pathways to yours. While it may not seem like a big deal that an employee visits an unauthorized website for a few seconds. However, it’s only a matter of seconds that allows devices and entire systems to be compromised in a data breach. 

Leaving an E-Trail

An e-trail is extremely important when it comes to tracing attacks. There’s a gray area when data changes hands over a network. It can be hard to determine who has done what. Endpoint security helps to keep track of which employee or entity has accessed data and which changes were made.

This leaves less gray areas and less room for interpretation. This allows a company to have greater control over the data that they produce and modify.

The importance of endpoint management becomes apparent here since many company employees go on trips. They go to foreign countries for conferences and to make deals or attend special events. They may need to access specific data while they’re in that location. For data to remain secure, access has to be secured and restricted.

Data Loss Prevention

The most economical and practical reason to adopt an endpoint management protocol is to secure your finances. Not only do data breaches cause tremendous financial loss to companies, but they also cause tremendous damage to their reputation.

When news of a data breach leaks, reputations are irreversibly damaged. Moreover, when companies declare leaks late, their reputation suffers even more. Investors pull out, customers unsubscribe, and stock prices take a nosedive.  It’s better to prevent that from happening in the first place and management endpoint access from the beginning.

Evolving Technology

Any mobile device on any given day receives tons of updates, be it for applications or its own OS. Updates are needed to fix security vulnerabilities, bugs, and performance issues. However, every time there is an update, it’s likely that security will need to be updated as well.

The incessant software updates can be beneficial to the user in the long run, but it can cause problems for network security. Hence, with so many smartphones being used by your employees, it’s better to reduce access. Through this tool, you can limit the number of devices that can cause a potential breach.

 Since mobile devices aren’t under constant monitoring, they can be very hard to keep track of. To ensure that every individual device is compatible with security measures, you’ll have to control those devices. That would require an IT team on constant alert that guarantees the security of every single device. Since that requires a huge logistics cost that no small company can bear, it underscores the importance of endpoint management. 

Secure all your devices through excellent endpoint management from Cyber Tech Connection today.