18 Nov 7 Types of Endpoint Security for Organizations
What are the types of endpoint security for organizations?
- URL Filtering
- Anti-Virus
- Application Control
- Browser Isolation
- Cloud Perimeter Security
- Internet of Things (IoT) Security
- Network Access Control
The different types of endpoint security for organizations are designed to protect endpoint devices usedEndpoint Security for Organizations by your employees.
Endpoint devices simply refer to laptops, tablets, smartphones, or virtually any device where back and forth communication occurs between it and an external network. With the rise of BYOD and IoT, these devices mustn’t be vulnerable to cybersecurity threats. Continue reading to learn more.
URL Filtering
Let’s say you’re an employee and you’re surfing the internet during your free time on your company-issued laptop. At some point, you come across a website that is blocked by your organization. The page informs you that an application installed on the device by your company has prevented your entry to that particular website.
This is a type of endpoint application that is powered by URL filtering technology. It does essentially scan network traffic and compare the traffic to a categorized list of URLs that may contain potentially dangerous elements for the device.
Oftentimes, however, URL filtering is used on non-work-related pages that organizations don’t want their employees to visit. This helps the company manage their resources and make sure that their employees are keeping themselves productive.
Anti-Virus
Anti-virus applications are one of the most basic types of endpoint security. These programs have various features that are designed to protect users from real-time threats that they may encounter while surfing the web.
For example, when an employee accidentally downloads a suspicious file over email, the anti-virus software can block the execution of that downloaded file. Oftentimes, these files can contain phishing attacks or harmful malware that can compromise the files, as well as connections that take place on that endpoint device.
An anti-virus software is also capable of real-time scanning to ensure that all the files and systems contained on the device are safe. You may also find an anti-virus software that’s equipped with other features like URL filtering/blocking, firewall protection, email protection, and the like.
Application Control
Like URL filtering, application control endpoint security programs block users from downloading applications on their devices, potentially harmful. This is done by examining all the signatures of the programs installed on the device and creating a ruleset that is compared against future applications.
Think about application control as a program that blacklists files that may potentially contain cybersecurity threats or phishing attacks while subsequently whitelisting files that are deemed as “good” for the device.
You’ll frequently find application control on bring-your-own devices (BYOD), which are connected to an organization’s network. In this way, employees’ personal devices connected to the internet would be free from any cybersecurity attack.
Browser Isolation
As the name suggests, browser isolation isolates the internet activity of users on an endpoint device. Instead, the user browsing activity takes place in a remote server that can be provided either on-site or through cloud-based.
This remote server can be thought of as a virtual environment where users can safely download files, send emails, and connect to the internet. Any threat that occurs on the isolated server is immediately contained and won’t be able to harm the systems on that device.
Cloud Perimeter Security
The emergence of cloud computing has primarily made many internet-related activities more convenient for organizations. In particular, cloud service providers have been providing companies with low-cost options on data storage, transfer, and access that are considerably more practical compared to on-premises software.
Like many advancements in computing technology, there are also innovations developed by cybersecurity criminals to target cloud networks. This is where cloud perimeter security comes into place.
With cloud perimeter security, organizations can protect their internal network (servers, databases, or workstations) from threats found in external networks (i.e., the internet). These tools help eliminate several threats like crypto-jacking, data breaches, denial of service attacks, hijacking, and many more.
Internet of Things (IoT) Security
The Internet of Things simply refers to a network of devices with built-in features that allow data exchange between systems and communication over the internet. These can range anywhere from a simple smartphone connected to the internet, to smart speakers powered with voice assistance.
With this in mind, IoT security software secures these interconnected devices, but there are some limitations regarding this. For one, this type of security isn’t entirely robust on the devices because of its low-priority across these IoT devices. However, endpoint solutions providers usually include IoT security for businesses to fill in this gap.
Network Access Control
What network access control (NAC) security does, is to align all the endpoint security solutions used by all devices. As mentioned before, many devices are constantly connected to an organization’s network — an anti-virus software installed on a single device may not be enough protection.
NAC offers comprehensive security, as it is capable of enforcing policies on all the devices. These policies serve as the basis for monitoring, categorizing, or managing applications and reinforcing all other cybersecurity implementations.
Key Takeaway
The different types of endpoint security for organizations can be either one or two or more of the following: Antivirus software, cloud perimeter security, application control, URL filtering, browser isolation, network access control, IoT security the like.
These endpoint security solutions are your company’s best defense against modern cybersecurity threats to-date that aim to compromise the devices used by your employees.
Direc Business is the leading provider of endpoint security solutions in the Philippines for several decades now. Click here to learn more about how our solutions can benefit your business.