Designing a Modern Endpoint Security Strategy
Many organizations rely upon a variety of standalone cybersecurity solutions. These tools are selected to address specific security concerns; however, the resulting complexity of an organization’s security architecture can cause security teams to be overloaded and miss important alerts.
When designing an endpoint security strategy, security unification is critical. As endpoints become more diverse and endpoint security grows in importance, standalone endpoint security solutions can quickly become too complex to manage effectively.
EPP and EDR solutions are designed to unify an array of endpoint security functions within a single solution. However, instead of choosing between the two, organizations should select a single solution that combines the functionality of EPP and EDR within a single tool.
Prevent Cyber attacks with Endpoint Protection Platforms (EPP)
Endpoint Protection Platforms (EPP) is designed to be an organization’s first line of defense against cyber threats. The earlier in an attack’s lifecycle that a cyberattack can be detected and remediated, the less damage and expense it causes to the target organization.
EPP uses a variety of different tools to identify and block threats before they gain access to an organization’s network. Some of the core components of an EPP solution include:
- ML-Based Detection: Malware is rapidly evolving, and traditional signature-based malware detection is growing less effective at identifying modern threats. The use of machine learning (ML) enables an EPP solution to detect and block novel threats to an organization.
- Sandboxed Inspection: Integrated sandboxes allow execution and inspection of suspicious content in a safe environment. This supports analysis of a file’s behavior to determine if it contains malicious content or functionality.
- Content Disarm and Reconstruction (CDR): CDR allows malicious content to be excised from a file and have the benign portions of a file reconstructed to be sent on to the intended recipient. This provides a third protective option between blocking suspicious content entirely or letting it pass through untouched.
By filtering out the majority of threats and malicious content before it reaches an organization’s systems, EPP dramatically reduces cybersecurity risk and the cost of cyberattacks.
Remediate Intrusions with Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) enables an organization to identify threats that are undetected within their network. Its detection capabilities include:
- Alert Triaging and Investigation: SOC analysts are commonly overwhelmed by large volumes of logs and alert data. An EDR solution will prioritize alerts, enabling analysts to focus investigations on the most likely and dangerous threats.
- Threat Hunting: Threat hunting is essential to identifying undetected intrusions on an organization’s endpoints. EDR solutions incorporate data analytics to help analysts identify signs of potential infections.
After an analyst has identified a potential threat, EDR solutions also offer support for incident response, including:
- Integrated Response Capabilities: The need to context switch between multiple different tools and dashboards degrades analyst effectiveness and slows incident response. An EDR solution enables an analyst to investigate and remediate potential security incidents within a single tool.
- Multiple Response Options: Incident response is not one size fits all, and different scenarios require different types of responses. An EDR solution provides analysts the context and options needed to select the right response, such as quarantining an infected machine vs. fully eradicating a malware infection.
- Playbook-Based Automation: Check Point EDR solutions automate remediation across the entire cyber kill chain. This includes blocking lateral movement by quarantining infected devices and restoring them to a safe, clean state.
By supporting incident detection and response and threat hunting, EDR helps an organization to identify and eradicate infections within its network.
EPP vs EDR: Unifying the Two for Full Endpoint Protection
EPP and EDR are both invaluable solutions for endpoint security. EPP solutions prevent a variety of threats from reaching an organization’s systems, and EDR enables detection and response for threats on an endpoint. For more information on how to evaluate endpoint protection solutions, check out this buyer’s guide.
Rather than choosing between the two, an organization should choose a solution that offers both EPP and EDR. These complementary solutions enable an organization to implement defense in depth to protect their endpoints.
Check Point’s Harmony Endpoint integrates both EPP and EDR within a single solution. To learn more about Harmony Endpoint, check out this product tour. You’re also welcome to request a demo to see how Harmony Endpoint can help to improve your organization’s endpoint protection. Check Point also offers a free trial of Harmony Endpoint so that you can try it out for yourself.
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