How to Protect Your Endpoints from Vulnerabilities and Exploits in 2023

2HOW TO PROTECT YOUR ENDPOINTS FROM VULNERABILITIES AND EXPLOITS IN 2023

Introduction You already know that traditional approaches to security aren’t enough to protect your organization and employees from threats. Older models relied on perimeter security, but experts agree that today, we need to shift from traditional concepts of access control to a continuous security model throughout the enterprise.

Endpoint security posture management is central to this new model. Sometimes known as exposure management, endpoint security tools give you continuous analysis to detect and patch vulnerabilities in an operating system or app on any of the endpoints connecting to your networks: servers, laptops, desktops, and mobile or IoT devices.

If they’re not patched, attackers can leverage these vulnerabilities to gain unauthorized access to your network, take advantage of inappropriate authorizations and privileges, and compromise your assets and systems. By detecting and repairing vulnerabilities, endpoint security tools can help prevent these types of attacks.While it may sound simple, endpoint security posture is actually one of the hardest problems IT departments are tackling these days. It can be a major headache to implement and maintain.

Why does endpoint posture management matter so much right now? And what are the challenges and obstacles to putting it in place?

Let’s take a look at some of the answers to those questions, then explore several features an endpoint security solution should offer for the simplest implementation and management—

without compromising on security standards.

https://breakingdefense.com/2023/02/countdown-to-2027-where-to-start-implementing-the-zero-trust-strategy-for-the-department-of-defense/

3HOW TO PROTECT YOUR ENDPOINTS FROM VULNERABILITIES AND EXPLOITS IN 2023

Why Endpoint Security Posture Management Matters The number of known vulnerabilities is rising every year, along with their severity. In 2023, some are predicting a 13% increase in critical Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVEs), i.e., identified security threats, shooting all the way up to 1,900 a month on average. That’s 22,800 for this year alone.

Both attacks and attackers are becoming more sophisticated. Some threat actors involved, such as advanced persistent threat (APT) groups, often connected with nation-state actors with very deep pockets.

Beyond this, today’s applications are highly complex, relying on distributed architectures and third- party libraries. This makes every endpoint more vulnerable to attack: the more complex a system is, with more layers and apps, the greater the chance that it contains vulnerabilities, meaning the attack surface is constantly growing.

Finally, criminals are constantly on the lookout for easy-to-exploit vulnerabilities, new and old. Since patching is such a challenge in itself, especially for large organizations, many systems go months or even years before they’re updated. This leaves old vulnerabilities exposed, allowing attackers to breach a business’s defenses.

Endpoint attacks can take many forms, including ransomware, one of today’s rising and most dire cybersecurity threats. For example, in March 2023, researchers discovered Rorschach, a new ransomware strain already operating in the wild. Dark Reading has called it “one of the most sophisticated ransomwares ever seen in the wild.” Rorschach works faster than any previously known malware—encrypting 220,000 files on a 6-core CPU machine in only 4.5 minutes, compared with the previous fastest time of 7 minutes.

Like many ransomware strains today, Rorschach takes advantage of an existing vulnerability—in this case, in a tool that’s been widely distributed as part of a suite of security solutions. And once inside your network, via a compromised endpoint, attackers can often move laterally to create serious harm.

All of this makes endpoint security posture management more critical than ever before. Yet it’s also more difficult than ever to nail down.

https://www.csoonline.com/article/3687137/vulnerabilities-and-exposures-to-rise-to-1900-a-month-in-2023-coalition.html https://www.csoonline.com/article/3687137/vulnerabilities-and-exposures-to-rise-to-1900-a-month-in-2023-coalition.html https://blog.checkpoint.com/research/what-do-the-inkblots-tell-you-check-point-researchers-unveil-rorschach-previously-unseen-fastest-ever-ransomware/ https://www.darkreading.com/vulnerabilities-threats/mysterious-rorschach-ransomware-doubles-known-encryption-speeds

4HOW TO PROTECT YOUR ENDPOINTS FROM VULNERABILITIES AND EXPLOITS IN 2023

What Makes It So Hard? Today’s environments are more complex than older networks, with a wider range of devices, OSs, and software versions. We’re also living in the age of remote work and bring-your-own-device (BYOD), which means handing over access to uncontrolled laptops and other personal devices.

Overall, it’s very hard to tighten up security when you don’t control all the devices able to access your assets. Keeping all these employee devices and apps up to date and running the latest patches can be extremely challenging, since they may be running different versions of operating systems and apps. This both creates a wider range of locations that vulnerabilities could be lurking and makes it harder to be vigilant across such a wide range of apps and environments.

In addition, while vendors are generally prompt to release patches for newly discovered vulnerabilities, manually applying all these patches can be time-consuming, and in some cases, the patch may not be available immediately.

Finally, some employees may also resist updating their devices or apps, either because they are hesitant to change or because they are concerned about compatibility issues. All these factors create a window of vulnerability that attackers can exploit.

Couple this with the number and sophistication of the attacks we’re seeing these days, and it quickly becomes clear that we need to fundamentally shift our approach to security, as laid out in the table below:

Old Security Approach Today's Security Approach

Model Sentry/Perimeter: Protecting the network perimeter through firewalls, intrusion prevention systems, and other security measures

Continuous: Protecting the network perimeter through firewalls, intrusion prevention systems, and other security measures

Devices A predictable assortment of on- premises and remote devices

A wider variety of more dispersed endpoints including cloud-based systems, mobile devices, BYOD, etc.

Primary Focus

Known threats, e.g., signatures, rule-based analysis

Dynamic detection and response, e.g., real-time monitoring, threat intelligence, and incident response planning

Figure 1: Comparison of older security approaches with approaches needed today

5HOW TO PROTECT YOUR ENDPOINTS FROM VULNERABILITIES AND EXPLOITS IN 2023

Top Challenges of Endpoint Security Posture Management Though the need for endpoint security is clear, successful posture management faces some challenges in navigating the above mentioned difficulties, along with several other factors.

For one thing, you can’t see or control all the vulnerabilities that may be present in your systems. With the huge variety of endpoint devices and OSes, especially when considering BYOD, you can’t always control patches and updates.

Prioritization also becomes a challenge when it comes to patching. It’s difficult to know which devices to patch; assessing the risk level, taking into consideration both vulnerabilities and asset criticality is an extremely difficult task.

Lastly, there’s the unavoidable fact that patching in itself is hard. In fact, to apply, test, and deploy a patch, businesses need an average of 97 days. Attackers know this, leveraging both brand-new and unpatched old vulnerabilities to infiltrate your systems through the diverse range of endpoints you have connected.

Not All Endpoint Security Posture Tools Are Created Equal Adding to the challenges is the fact that not every endpoint posture solution makes it easy for you to maintain and administer endpoint security.

Just getting an endpoint security tool up and running could include…

• Putting a skilled team in place to operate the solution

• Maintaining visibility across your environment

• Prioritizing and handling issues as they arise

While some endpoint security solutions might include device posture management - most of those existing solutions do not provide vulnerability patching. This means that the enormous, manual task will still fall on your security team’s shoulders. Additionally, many are standalone posture management tools, i.e., not integrated with your other security solutions, making management more complex than it needs to be.

Endpoint security posture management should make your security team’s work easier, not harder. That’s why it’s important to ask the right questions when it comes to choosing an endpoint posture security solution.

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6HOW TO PROTECT YOUR ENDPOINTS FROM VULNERABILITIES AND EXPLOITS IN 2023

What to Look For in an Endpoint Posture Security Solution As we’ve seen, not all endpoint posture security tools actually save time and labor for your team. A solution that doesn’t measure up will end up adding more work for your organization, e.g., by creating additional manual tasks for your team.

While there are several endpoint posture security products and vendors out there, it can help to know which features and capabilities are absolutely essential to avoid wasting time and money on partial solutions.

So if you’re in the market for a tool that handles endpoint security, it makes sense to start the journey by asking a few key questions, mostly focused on three critical areas.

Continuous risk detection: Traditional security solutions rely on signature-based detection, which can’t keep up with evolving security needs. Continuous risk detection lets you identify and respond to security incidents in real- time, minimizing and even preventing the impact of a potential breach.

• Does the tool provide ongoing monitoring and evaluation?

• Can it handle vulnerability patching so you don’t need to hand this over to another tool?

• Is it capable of overseeing the entire posture management lifecycle?

Balance between automation and manual capabilities: While manual-only solutions are time-consuming and efficient, if your solution is too reliant on automation, you may either miss critical alerts or lack the granularity you need to investigate and resolve specific issues.

• Does the tool introduce automation to reduce manual tasks?

• Does it also provide manual capabilities to give you the fine-tuning and control you need?

Advanced posture maintenance capabilities to boost endpoint security: To keep up with your endpoint security needs, choose a solution that can adapt to today’s changing malware climate and the proliferating range of devices, OSes, and applications.

• Does the tool give your team real-time attack context to help detect and investigate issues?

• Does it feature greater automation thanks to more detailed information on endpoints and threats?

• Can it offer better prevention through accurate policy creation and enforcement?

7HOW TO PROTECT YOUR ENDPOINTS FROM VULNERABILITIES AND EXPLOITS IN 2023

Ease of integration: Introducing any security product into your work processes always comes with the risk that if it’s too difficult to implement and use, it may not provide the protection you need.

• Does the tool require additional installation?

• Can it be managed from a single dashboard within your current security platform?"

• Does it use minimal resources to avoid creating performance issues?

In the next section, we’ll take a look at the Harmony Endpoint posture management solution from Check Point, which provides all of these capabilities and much more.

8HOW TO PROTECT YOUR ENDPOINTS FROM VULNERABILITIES AND EXPLOITS IN 2023

Check Point Harmony Endpoint: Unified Posture Management Harmony Endpoint posture management from Check Point is the industry’s first unified security solution for users, devices, and access. Harmony Endpoint reduces the attack surface by patching vulnerabilities before they are exploited, giving you complete endpoint protection, including…

• Fully automated process. From initial scan to patch, streamline common tasks with automation.

• Smart prioritization. Prioritize risks by severity, application, machine, identity, and risk score.

• Consolidated solution. Get endpoint security and posture management, real-time patch management, and validation for posture management, all in one.

Harmony Endpoint posture management takes a prevention-first approach to keep you safe from malware like Rorschach, combining posture and compliance in a single click from the same management console.

This unique and unified approach is just one reason why IDC has named Check Point a major worldwide player in endpoint security, addressing all of the major challenges to endpoint posture management explored above:

And because Harmony Endpoint posture management integrates with Check Point’s other solutions, you also benefit from a comprehensive and clear picture of your total security posture.

Challenge Harmony Endpoint Posture Management Solution

User resistance Zero negative impact on productivity; proactive measures like phishing prevention while ensuring rapid recovery, e.g., file restore, in the event of malware intrusion; all with clear user benefit

Complexity Simple rollout across a range of devices and OSes; a single management console to oversee security policies and vulnerabilities

Budget Single, efficient, and cost-effective solution; fully flexible to meet your security and compliance requirements

Figure 2. Harmony Endpoint meets the primary challenges of endpoint security posture management

http://IDC has named Check Point

9HOW TO PROTECT YOUR ENDPOINTS FROM VULNERABILITIES AND EXPLOITS IN 2023

What’s Stopping You? With new threats arising all the time and increasing environmental complexity, traditional approaches to security aren’t enough to protect your workforce or your assets. What’s stopping you from stepping up to the endpoint security solution your organization needs today?

From phishing attempts to malicious attachments and zero-day ransomware, Harmony keeps all your users and devices safe from all cyber threats, across all attack vectors.

Check Point Harmony Endpoint posture management answers all your endpoint security needs while simplifying and unifying your control over a large number and variety of devices. It does all this by providing a powerful feature set:

• Relevant, actionable alerts and reporting

• Combined vulnerability assessment and patch management

• Advanced threat prevention capabilities

With Harmony Endpoint, you’ll gain the flexibility and security you need to protect your workforce and your most valuable assets—with none of the hassles or headaches.

Contact us to get started today.

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