Today’s workforce is more distributed than ever. Globally, 16% of companies are fully remote, while 40% have a hybrid arrangement.
As workforces become increasingly distributed, security leaders face many challenges. They must monitor potential malicious activity across a wide array of devices scattered throughout the entire network. With the rise of endpoint monitoring tools, it has become easier to monitor devices. But challenges remain.
In this article, we’ll go over everything you need to know about endpoint monitoring to improve your organization’s security posture.
What is Endpoint Monitoring?
Endpoint monitoring is the systematic tracking of individual endpoints throughout the organization. By employing unified endpoint management, an organization can collect, aggregate, and analyze user activities regardless of the types of devices or device location. With constant monitoring across the entire network, organizations can help identify potential threats and establish better security policies.
Endpoint Monitoring Challenges
Due to the increase in remote work, endpoint monitoring has become a crucial security measure for organizations. However, organizations need help with monitoring network devices and managing security issues. Most prominently, these challenges include:
- The number of devices that need monitoring continues to grow.
- Devices are becoming more complex and challenging to manage.
- Many organizations need more resources to monitor their endpoints effectively.
In addition to these fundamental challenges, there are several other challenges impeding endpoint security efforts:
Remote Work
Identifying unauthorized access to networks is difficult when there are potentially legitimate endpoints worldwide. That’s what happens with a dispersed workforce. Access management becomes occluded because of many endpoints, including corporate and personal devices.
Modern organizations can thrive by supporting remote work, but security monitoring must occur in a central location to improve response times should a security incident occur on a remote endpoint.
Malware and Ransomware
Cybersecurity attacks are on the rise. In 2023, ransomware attacks alone increased by 68 percent. Phishing attacks are more prevalent than ever and more accessible when organizations have many distributed endpoints. All it takes is for one negligent employee to click on the wrong link or a bad actor to crack an individual device, and a modern network could become compromised.
Malware and ransomware attacks can grind an organization to a halt by attacking sensitive systems or putting it at financial or reputational risk by stealing customer data or other valuable assets.
Mobile Device Security
With many distributed endpoints, gaining complete visibility into persistent threats in real time is challenging. Personal devices likely don’t have the same security features as corporate ones, making them more vulnerable to threat actors. Some employees may use the same passwords for personal accounts as professional ones, using the same device to access all of them.
Keeping mobile devices secure is a constant challenge, mainly when remote employees use personal devices for work tasks.
Data Loss
Many high-profile instances have been of companies losing customer data or being subject to a data breach. Not only is there often financial and legal fallout from significant data losses, but there can also be reputational consequences.
While the European Union (EU) has made strides to protect consumer data with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), compliance requirements must be more consistent and well-enforced worldwide.
However, mistakes happen, and an employee not well-versed in data compliance and security may accidentally cause a breach or leak by exfiltrating data somewhere it shouldn’t go. Likewise, a motivated insider threat can harm an organization by exfiltrating or eliminating valuable data.
Visibility
Getting complete visibility into an organization may feel impossible, mainly when employees are located worldwide. Visibility is crucial, however, to understand and patch potential security vulnerabilities. Not only that, in the event of a cyber attack or network breach, security leaders need to know how the threat occurred in the first place. Visibility is crucial to stopping persistent threats and identifying potential threats before they play out.
Insider Threats
Insider threats cause 60% of data breaches. There are plenty of indicators of insider threats. Company insiders may be malicious actors trying to harm the company or gain financially by compromising company systems or data, but insider threats are often unintentional.
Having strong security policies isn’t always enough. Employees need vital security training to understand how their actions may put the company at risk, especially when working from individual endpoints outside the regular company network.
What to Look for in Endpoint Monitoring and Management Software
Endpoint monitoring can be a complex endeavor, which is why leveraging endpoint management software is essential. A comprehensive endpoint monitoring solution can effectively tackle all the challenges we’ve discussed and offer real-time remote monitoring of the entire network, ensuring its health status remains positive. Here’s a detailed look at the features to consider in endpoint management software.
Complete Endpoint Visibility
Depending on an organization’s size, the network could have hundreds or even thousands of endpoints. You need to monitor more than just a single endpoint. Larger organizations need the status codes of endpoints all over the network, with real-time monitoring for anomaly detection no matter where it may occur.
Deep visibility is the number one consideration when choosing a unified endpoint management tool. After all, what’s the point of an endpoint management solution if you can’t see all endpoints on the network?
Endpoint Software Control
When a risky situation develops, you need a proactive and comprehensive approach to mitigating it quickly. One of the best ways to do so is with endpoint software control. Some individuals may not realize that a security threat is unfolding before them, and others might be unsure how to resolve the problem.
While many solutions allow security leaders to take over web-based endpoints, endpoint software control gives them remote access to cloud services, software, and more, taking control of an individual endpoint to resolve the problem.
IT Asset Management
IT asset management (ITAM) is the end-to-end tracking and management of an organization’s IT assets. This ensures that every asset is used correctly, maintained, upgraded, and disposed of at the end of the lifecycle, keeping organizations compliant and security systems up to date.
A robust endpoint monitoring solution should provide thorough ITAM for all kinds of data and systems within an organization. Maintaining a solid asset management program is critical to preventing future security incidents.
Threat Detection
You can’t stop a threat before it happens if you don’t detect it first. Real-time threat detection can make all the difference. If someone goes through routine maintenance tasks when their system is attacked, or an insider threat moves to access files, they shouldn’t do so. An effective endpoint monitoring solution should be able to identify a range of security threats before they happen. Once detected, security teams can step in and mediate the issue before it escalates.
Reporting and Alerting
Employee monitoring can be a dicey subject for some organizations. Understandably, many employees may not love that their employer watches their every digital move. You don’t have to constantly surveil employees if you set up alert rules and reporting. This task automation saves you from the ignominy of constant surveillance while keeping the organization safe from potential threats. Maintaining employee trust is crucial to building a security culture, so only monitor what you need to.
How Endpoint Monitoring with Teramind Keeps Your Data Safe
Teramind is a comprehensive endpoint data loss prevention solution that can help organizations of all sizes secure their data. Our endpoint security software monitors user activity and alerts when sensitive data is accessed or transferred unauthorizedly. It can even block user actions when they violate policy. Teramind also includes features that allow organizations to restrict access to specific applications and websites.
User Activity Monitoring
Teramind’s user activity monitoring toolkit takes a comprehensive approach to discovering your workforce’s behaviors. From monitoring more than 15 communication channels to smart rules and automated alerts, Teramind learns to understand what is and isn’t normal behavior. As such, it’s ready to act when anomalous activity enters the network and becomes a threat. By getting to know your employees, Teramind becomes the first line of defense should one become compromised.
Website Monitoring
Plenty of web activity is acceptable and essential for your employees to do their work. Dangerous websites, however, can be devastating to an organization. With active website monitoring, Teramind flags when employees venture into risky or inappropriate territory.
One wrong click on a dangerous link can cause a significant security issue, so website monitoring is essential to an effective endpoint monitoring solution. Website monitoring protects the organization from security risks and can help identify time-wasting activities.
Business Intelligence & Reporting
With deep visibility into operational metrics and activity, Teramind can perform simplified risk assessments to understand risky and vulnerable behavior trends better. This helps identify potential insider threats and data compliance failures and develop mitigation plans and targeted employee training to avoid accidental security lapses.
You’ll better understand your workforce’s most and least productive times and determine ways to motivate them to do better work.
File Transfer & Web File Tracking
One of the most common data exfiltration methods is simply transferring company files outside secure systems. This could be done on a thumb drive or by emailing an essential file to someone outside the organization.
With Teramind, you’ll have deep visibility into file transfers, whether from the web or on individual devices. This allows you to identify breakdowns in data compliance or intentional data theft quickly. Automated responses for file activities, supported by behavioral insights, help protect sensitive files and prevent data loss.
Centralized Endpoint Security Management
Larger organizations may have thousands of various endpoints active at different times of day. With a centralized endpoint security management system, you can monitor these disparate endpoints through a single dashboard. Smart alert rules and machine learning algorithms work in the background to detect anomalous behavior and flag any suspicious activity in real time, no matter where it occurs.
Keystroke Logger
Teramind’s keystroke logger actively monitors and logs all keystroke activity on every endpoint. This core security tool creates comprehensive logs on individual users, formulating a solid base of user-based behavior analytics for remote and on-site users.
Keylogging offers a range of security benefits and employee insight. It can identify when employees use easy passwords or the same password for every account, help maintain compliance standards and regulations, and is a valuable tool for understanding how employees spend their time on various endpoints.
Conclusion
Organizations face many threats in today’s digital landscape. Distributed organizations, however, must navigate security challenges that arise from having many remote and hybrid endpoints. A complete endpoint monitoring solution offers consistent device discovery and protection against advanced attacks and insider threats. Teramind provides a proactive security solution to avoid data loss, cyberattacks, and other security threats, no matter how complex an organization’s endpoint ecosystem may be.
FAQs
What are the benefits of endpoint monitoring?
Endpoint monitoring offers several benefits, including enhanced security, improved productivity, and insights into user behavior. Organizations can identify potential data breaches, enforce compliance, and prevent data loss by monitoring file transfers and web activity. Additionally, centralized endpoint security management enables real-time detection of abnormal behavior, ensuring prompt response to suspicious activity.
What are endpoint management tools?
Endpoint management tools are software solutions that allow organizations to monitor and manage various endpoints, such as laptops, desktops, and mobile devices, from a centralized platform. These tools help ensure security by detecting and responding to abnormal behavior, improving productivity by monitoring user activities, and providing insights into endpoint usage.
What is considered an endpoint device?
An endpoint device refers to any computing device, such as laptops, desktops, smartphones, or tablets, that is connected to a network. These devices serve as endpoints for communication and data transfer between users and the network. Endpoint monitoring tools help organizations ensure the security and productivity of these devices.
What is an example of an endpoint?
An example of an endpoint device is a laptop, desktop, smartphone, or tablet connected to a network. These devices serve as endpoints for communication and data transfer. Endpoint monitoring tools help organizations ensure the security and productivity of these devices.
What are endpoint devices examples?
Endpoint devices, such as laptops, desktops, smartphones, and tablets, are connected to a network and serve as endpoints for communication and data transfer. Endpoint monitoring tools help organizations ensure the security and productivity of these devices.
Is a router an endpoint device?
No, a router is not considered an endpoint device. Routers are networking devices that route data between different networks, while endpoint devices refer to computing devices such as laptops, desktops, smartphones, and tablets connected to a network. Endpoint monitoring tools focus on securing and monitoring these devices for enhanced security and productivity.
Is an IP phone an endpoint device?
Yes, an IP phone is considered an endpoint device. It connects to a network to make and receive phone calls over the Internet. Endpoint monitoring tools can help ensure the security and functionality of IP phones.
