Endpoint security solutions are a staple of cybersecurity, but the rapid decentralization of IT and rise of hybrid work are leading organizations to reconsider their options. Traditional antivirus alone isn’t enough to cut it and endpoint detection and response, while important, doesn’t offer proactive defenses against threats like ransomware.
The best endpoint security solutions provide organizations comprehensive coverage over end user devices and protect them against prominent attack vectors. Let's explore the key features to consider in an endpoint security solution and find the perfect fit for your organization.
Though they vary in style and execution, the top endpoint security solutions all share distinct qualities that make them effective for improving your security posture. As you evaluate your options, seek out these qualities to ensure your needs are met.
Your endpoint security solution is only as good as what it can detect. The best solutions come with an extensive library of static and adaptive detection rules to identify indicators of compromise and other signs of potential threats. Given the current threat landscape, endpoint security solutions must be able to detect possible ransomware and malware strains including novel ones, zero-day attacks, fileless attacks, and more. And, on top of that, they should be constantly updated by their vendor, so you don’t have to manage detection rules while also allowing you to create custom ones to meet your specific requirements.
Cyberattacks occur in a matter of seconds. The best endpoint security solutions can respond to possible threats moments after detection. Acting quickly, they take the necessary steps to prevent scripts from running, payloads from downloading, and other adverse outcomes from carrying out on a system. Going a step further, top endpoint security options either suspend or terminate potentially malicious processes depending on severity so that employees can keep using their critical applications even if a threat is uncovered.
Fileless malware attacks are a growing threat to today’s organizations, operating within a system’s memory to go undetected. These attacks don’t leave behind the same artifacts as typical malware strains, making it difficult for lesser endpoint security software to uncover and stop them. The best solutions quickly identify and eradicate these malicious processes employing “living off the land” techniques without disrupting the system.
Attackers always seek out new ways to evade detections, and as such, their tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) evolve constantly. Your endpoint security needs to be just as agile to keep pace with emerging threats. The best endpoint options not only have continuous rule updates and releases but leverage machine learning (ML) and other analytics engines to adapt to new threats. ML within top endpoint security solutions adapts based on prompting and data analysis, learning to anticipate new threats based on similarities from previous experiences.
Detection alerts are critical, but having too many of them is noisy and unmanageable, leading to alert fatigue. The best endpoint security vendors work tirelessly to tune their new and existing detection rules to filter out false positive detections, only informing you when a real threat is posed to your business. The addition of ML into detections helps reduce false positives even further, relying on analytics to correlate smaller alerts that constitute larger threats.
One of the prime metrics for evaluating endpoint security solutions how it maps to the MITRE ATT&CK framework. MITRE evaluates security solutions across multiple of the areas outlined above, comparing them against real TTPs used by prominent threat actors to see how they’d fare in an actual attack. Measuring Analytic and Telemetry Coverage, Visibility, and other metrics, MITRE helps organizations understand if their potential endpoint solution can withstand the stress of an ongoing attack while keeping them informed throughout the process.
Security is of utmost importance, but system performance is a close second for many organizations. Heavy endpoint agents slow down processes and reduce employee productivity. Find a solution with a lightweight agent and a cloud management portal to maintain an agile security approach. That way, you can easily deploy your endpoint security at scale, ensuring employee devices are secure
Endpoint security solutions are critical but only cover one layer of a robust, defense-in-depth approach to cybersecurity. Your ideal endpoint security solution should integrate seamlessly into the other parts of your security stack including network, application, and identity security. Doing so helps you create multiple layers of defenses that not only help to deter bad actors but also give you as many opportunities as possible to catch them in the act.
The best solutions also feed into a larger observability tool, such as Security Information and Event Management (SIEM), to provide comprehensive visibility over the IT environment. This ensures that organizations can correlate activities which begin on endpoints and progress further across other systems. Direct SIEM integration streamlines the process even further, making it easy for security teams to drill into events and protect the organization at large.
Endpoint security solutions are no good if deploying and managing them at scale is difficult. The best solutions make detecting and responding to endpoint threats straightforward. They can be easily rolled out across system fleets and managed remotely with a streamlined interface. Their alerts are simple to understand, providing insights that are filtered and actionable so that anyone on the security team can make sense of them.
As you continue your search for the best endpoint security option, consider these qualities and what other requirements align with your organizational goals and objectives. To help further your search, we’ve created an eBook with information and questions to help you find your endpoint security solution.
