Especially as they transition to the digital..
In many fronts of our work and life, a never-ending parade of new technologies is unfolding. Not every developing technology has the capacity to change the corporate or social landscape, but some do have the ability to disrupt the existing quo, and change how people live and work. COVID-19 Pandemic accelerated this, forcing enterprises small and big, to go digital and adopt different technological solutions to ensure business continuity. As a result, it is crucial that business and policy leaders recognize which technologies will be important to them and plan appropriately.
What is endpoint protection?
Cybercriminals may use endpoints as entry points into a company's network. The danger of a cyberattack rises exponentially as businesses expand and add more devices to their network. To prevent threats from becoming a catastrophe and disrupting company operations, firms should constantly check all their endpoints for abnormalities and unusual activity.
Why is endpoint protection important?
Criminals target the following endpoints:
Use them as network entrance and exit points
Access information saved on endpoints
Launch DDoS assaults that overwhelm servers, leading firms to shut down for several hours.
May demand Ransom if they can access data stores
According to Dell Technologies' Global Data Protection Index (GDPI) 2021 findings, 62 percent of businesses were concerned about dealing with malware and ransomware, 74 percent saw an increase in cyberthreats with remote employees, and 67 percent found it difficult to protect cloud-native apps. These findings provide insights into the data-protection confidence participants have in their hybrid, multi-cloud, and edge infrastructure.
Like other businesses, MSMEs continue to have serious concerns about cybersecurity since a large percentage of these companies lack the expertise and technological know-how needed to defend themselves against cyber-attacks. Additionally, MSMEs' capacity to appropriately invest in the proper cyber security solutions is hampered by their restricted access to investment.
According to the Verizon 2021 Data Breach Investigations report, small businesses accounted for less than half of all breaches in 2020 when compared to large businesses. However, by 2021, the disparity had narrowed, with large firms having 307 breaches compared to 263 for small organizations. Furthermore, whereas large firms discovered breaches in more than half of the cases (55 percent), small organizations did not perform as well (47 percent). Endpoint security should be prioritized by any firm, regardless of size or sector.
Lack of investment in endpoint security may have major consequences for enterprises.
Companies that are subjected to a crippling cyberattack may suffer from:
Loss of reputation
Customer dissatisfaction
Information and sensitive data leakage
Disruptions to business activities
Revenue effect is negative.
Contract or business partnership termination, among other things
How can MSMEs improve endpoint protection?
Investing in the right endpoint protection solutions
In addition to boosting endpoint protection capabilities internally, MSMEs should also consider investing in the endpoint protection solutions provided by experts and tech majors to detect cyber risks.
IPM+ suite helps cover critical aspects of endpoint protection for MSMEs
(1) Knowing the assets you wish to protect - IPM+ Smart Asset optimizer helps gain a real time insight into your entire endpoint asset base and their security status. IPM+ covers both hardware, OS and application level security status of your assets.
(2) Gather Knowledge of cyber risks within the organization - IPM+ Vulnerability Scanner provides real time vulnerability information related to your assets. IPM+ also helps track criticality and ageing of such vulnerabilities and aids in quicker prioritized decision making
(3) Hyper-personalize your security policy framework - Unlike standard security products, IPM+ Custom Policy Designer modules help you design and deploy your own custom organization wide security and compliance policy as per specific recommendations and uniqueness of your organizational needs designed by your own security experts. Thus, we help you hyper-personalize the security compliance framework to your organization's unique needs. We believe no one-size-fits-all when it comes to security and compliance
(4) With IPM+ you do not wait for vendors to release patches - IPM+ helps program remote remediation and healing of endpoint specific vulnerabilities - be it OS or application specific. With IPM+, you are no longer at the mercy of OEM vendors to provide patches. Once a problem is identified, your own security and IT team can create remote remediation / healing solutions to perform quick fixes and workarounds across all endpoints using IPM+ Automated Remote Remediation Framework.
(5) Real time policy and compliance audits with automated re-enforcement - IPM+ Real time Policy Audit framework helps in understanding real time state of your organization's security policy and compliance and deviation rates. Policies in deviating endpoints can be automatically re-enforced optionally to ensure 100% mandatory compliance at all times.
Indeed, as more MSMEs go digital, it is becoming increasingly important for businesses to prioritize endpoint protection and engage with the proper IT partner to develop a strong security plan to safeguard their assets and business.
Case study:
IPM+ Tool has helped a large BFSI enterprise more than they expected during the initial Pandemic contingency, and it has remained the best Centralized Tool for System security patching and meeting security compliance. The Enterprise uses the IPM+ as a hybrid solution that covers both corporate network users and WFH users. They are heavily reliant on the IPM+ tool to easily manage and administer systems without L1 support via an actionable Intelligent dashboard.
References
1. https://www.delltechnologies.com/asset/en-nz/products/data-protection/industry-market/global-data-protection-index-key-findings.pdf
2.https://www.verizon.com/business/resources/reports/dbir/2021/smb-data-breaches-deep-dive/