Paloalto Endpoint Security

What Is Endpoint Security and Why Is It Important?

Cybercrime, cyberespionage, and cyberwarfare attacks often target endpoints. Endpoint security safeguards endpoints from attacks.

TECHBEE is one of the leading Paloalto Endpoint Security Partner in Dubai. Endpoint security solutions safeguard endpoints from cyber threats and unauthorised activities, including desktop computers, laptops, cellphones, and tablets. Endpoint security solutions have progressed from standard antivirus to include a comprehensive set of defences to protect against known and undiscovered malware, fileless attacks, exploits, and post-intrusion attack tactics. Endpoint security solutions are frequently able to isolate compromised endpoints, preventing assaults from spreading to numerous endpoints, because threat actors may target endpoints as a conduit into an organization’s network.

The number of exposed endpoints expands as remote and mobile workers become more widespread, expanding the “protect surface” from a restricted corporate campus to endpoints scattered throughout the world. Employee-owned devices, as well as other endpoints that hold or access corporate data, must be protected against cyberattacks.

The terms “endpoint security” and “Endpoint Protection Platform,” or EPP, as coined by Gartner, are frequently used interchangeably. These software products protect endpoint devices from cyberattacks by being installed on them.

Endpoint security is increasingly being included in extended detection and response (XDR) solutions, which span several data sources and provide enterprise-wide threat prevention, detection, and response.

What Is an Endpoint?

A computing equipment connected to a local or wide area network is referred to as an endpoint. Desktop PCs, laptops, smartphones, servers, and even Internet-of-things (IoT) devices are examples of endpoints.

Endpoints have been targeted by attackers as the ultimate target of an assault, such as ransomware or cryptocurrency mining threats, or as the entry point for a sophisticated, multistage attack. Endpoints are becoming increasingly vulnerable to cyberattacks as organisations’ workforces become more mobile and users connect to internal resources from off-premises endpoints all around the world.

Modern Endpoint Protection vs. Traditional Antivirus

Traditional endpoint protection, such as signature-based antivirus, has fallen behind in the face of rapidly growing threats, leaving businesses vulnerable to cyber-attacks. Today’s adversaries have built a toolkit of attacks that can elude signatures and get around outmoded protections. Attackers can even avoid deploying malware entirely by launching attacks using apps already installed on endpoints, even if the apps have been disabled..

Stopping endpoint attacks requires more than simply blocking known malware. You require a system that can automatically detect and block known and zero-day attacks while without causing your endpoints to slow down.

Why Detection and Response?

The finest endpoint security technologies can automatically stop over 99 percent of all assaults, but they can’t stop every one. Detection and reaction are required for the most complex and potentially devastating attacks. Insider threats and advanced persistent threats, for example, frequently necessitate manual investigation and verification by a security analyst. As a result, while these attacks make up a small percentage of all attacks you’ll receive, they can be devastating.

Machine learning is frequently the only technique to detect these assaults by evaluating activity over time and across data sources. You can discover advanced adversary strategies and techniques by integrating rich data and analytics. You can also investigate and respond to occurrences by hunting for dangers and gaining the visibility you need.

Key Endpoint Security Capabilities

When evaluating an endpoint security solution, look for the following essential features:

• Endpoint threat prevention that works: The best endpoint security systems combine numerous security engines to stop an endpoint assault at every stage, from reconnaissance to exploitation through installation and malware behaviour. Consider whether endpoint security software can:
• Block exploits based on their technique rather than their signature.
• Threat intelligence is used to block malware files.
• Analyze files with a local analysis engine powered by AI.
• Use a cloud-based malware prevention service to examine files.
• Detect and prevent harmful file behaviour
• With a specific anti-ransomware module, you can stop ransomware in its tracks.

You can stop the most evasive attacks, such as the SolarWinds supply-chain strike, with ironclad shielding. Validate security efficacy via third-party tests like the AV-Comparatives Endpoint Protection and Response (EPR) Test.

• Capabilities of endpoint protection suites to decrease your attack surface – Look for tools that include features like a host firewall, device control, and disc encryption to avoid data loss and illegal access. Look for endpoint security solutions that allow you to control USB access and firewall restrictions on a per-device basis. When choosing an endpoint security solution, look for features like vulnerability assessment, host inventory, and rogue device discovery.
• Detection that is robust and works right out of the box — Endpoint security requires detection and response, but the capabilities and ease of use differ substantially. To detect stealthy cyber attacks, ideal systems use a broad set of machine learning and analytics capabilities. Examine the breadth and accuracy of detection coverage using independent tests such as the MITRE ATT&CK Evaluation.
• Siloed security tools provide limitless alarms with limited context, allowing for faster analysis and response. Choose security products that provide a complete picture of occurrences with rich investigation details to reduce response times. They should make investigations easier by disclosing the root cause, sequence of events, and threat intelligence data of warnings received from any source automatically. Script execution, direct access to endpoints, host restore, and “search and destroy” are all flexible response options that let you quickly eliminate threats and recover from attacks.
• Cloud-based security — As more workers work from home, you’ll need a system that allows you to easily support them all. Cloud-based administration and deployment not only simplifies operations and eliminates the need for on-premises servers, but it also scales quickly to accommodate more users and data.
• Instead of installing bulky agents that constantly scan your endpoints for attack signatures, use a single, lightweight agent for endpoint threat prevention, detection, and response.

EDR Solution

Security teams can use endpoint detection and response (EDR) systems to locate and destroy endpoint threats. Detection, investigation, threat hunting, and reaction are all common capabilities of EDR technologies. Because there’s no better way to detect an intrusion than by monitoring the target environment being attacked, endpoint detection and response has become a critical component of any endpoint security solution, and the telemetry collected by an EDR platform enables full triage and investigation, endpoint detection and response has become a critical component of any endpoint security solution.

To detect suspicious activity, EDR solutions examine events from laptops, desktop PCs, mobile devices, servers, and even IoT and cloud workloads. They send out alerts to assist security operations analysts in identifying, investigating, and resolving problems. EDR tools also collect telemetry data on questionable activity and may supplement it with additional contextual information from related occurrences. EDR’s features let incident response teams respond faster and, in the best-case scenario, eliminate threats before they cause damage.

Our Approach to Endpoint Security

You need a system that can automatically stop known and zero-day threats while also giving your analysts the visibility they need to detect and respond to them. Palo Alto Networks’ Cortex XDR provides all of this and more.

Cortex XDR is the first extended detection and response platform to combat sophisticated attacks by integrating network, endpoint, cloud, and third-party data. Cortex XDR was built from the ground up to safeguard your entire business while streamlining processes. It protects endpoints from exploits, malware, ransomware, and fileless assaults with best-in-class endpoint protection. The Cortex XDR agent includes the most comprehensive set of exploit protection modules available, as well as Behavioral Threat Protection and AI-driven local analysis, to block the exploits that lead to malware infestations.

Behavioral analytics are used by Cortex XDR to identify unknown and highly evasive attacks that are attacking your network. Threats can come from everywhere, including managed and uncontrolled devices, and machine learning and AI models can detect them.

By providing a thorough picture of each incident, Cortex XDR aids in the speeding up of investigations. It connects various types of data and displays the core cause and timeframe of alerts, making it simple for your analysts to triage alerts. Cyber threats can be contained across your whole infrastructure thanks to tight connection with enforcement points.

You can use your existing security infrastructure as sensors and enforcement points with Cortex XDR, which eliminates the need for additional software or hardware. By keeping all of your data in a scalable and secure cloud-based data lake, you may avoid configuring bulky log servers on-premises.