MSPs: Reinforce Your Cloud Services with Endpoint Security
The more complex a system becomes, the greater the chance it will experience failure. And as more people start putting their data on the cloud, more security issues have been cropping up.
No doubt, the cloud has not experienced catastrophic security failures. Still, traditional IT sees this far too often. But, can isolated incidents – such as the hack of celebrity iCloud accounts, password theft of Dropbox, and the PlayStation network attack compromising the data of over a 100 million customers – point to a trend that might flare up in the coming years?
“Only the paranoid survive”
The above quote comes from Andrew S. Grove of Intel. Unfortunately, regardless of whichever security features you may have in place, you can never be completely secure. The human element will always have the last say, and more often than not, this is where security issues crop up.
This is what Grove’s motto illustrates – success breeds complacency, and complacency breeds failure, which is why only the paranoid survive.
MSPs must take proactive steps to mitigate threats that are cropping up, or a massive failure might be in the making.
So what does this have to do with end-point security?
The biggest draw of the cloud is its unprecedented flexibility and adaptability. MSPs can scale their infrastructure depending on their business goals without needing to deviate from their core operations much at all. Unfortunately, flexibility is usually gained by forfeiting control. The number of devices accessing your network and data increases exponentially when your infrastructure is spread out over countries or even continents. Every time someone with an insecure device accesses data on your network from beyond your firewalls, you are walking a fine line.
Even an unsecured application, or one with a backdoor built into it, can bring your network within the reaches of a malicious outsider. Antivirus software may or may not help you out here; however, endpoint security just might provide you with the edge to tackle the threat properly. Unlike anti-virus programs, endpoint security software is inherently more “network-centric.” Therefore, it can be centrally managed.
Technically, an endpoint is any computer, laptop, smartphone or tablet that is connected to a network. Endpoint security relies on a client/server model, where a software client is downloaded to all the endpoints in a network from a server or gateway that has centralized security software on it. The server manages all the clients and sends regular update patches and verifies login information.
Why not just an anti-virus?
End-point security applications present certain advantages over traditional anti-virus software, which are very beneficial to the cloud. For starters, endpoint security programs allow admins to manage various computers, workstations and other peripherals with relative ease. They can roll out patches, security updates, detect new endpoints joining the network, and audit the system from a central console. Endpoint security also includes remote access tools with which admins can use to solve issues offsite.
Security-vise, endpoint security allows for network-wide malware detection and can aid the admin to secure an entire network properly. It comes with network access control, email security, and gateway protection, as well as remote workstation security – features that are not available in antivirus programs.
Finally, most endpoint security tools offer data loss protection (DLP), which can stop employees from sending blocked files to parties outside your network either by email, upload to file sharing sites, or chat. Almost all such tools also come with powerful endpoint encryption features, which encrypt data so that even if information is stolen via detachable pen drive or hard disk, it still remains inaccessible.
