“Endpoints are typically less controlled than, say, the data center. And with everyone working from home, they are literally on the front lines and potentially more exposed due to the enterprises’ lack of control over home networks.â€
By now, most companies have implemented a bunch of measures to deal with security challenges presented by the outbreak. Over the past three months, there has been an explosion of endpoints in remote settings, backed by an uptick in BYODOpens a new window . And to counter the growing threats landscape — CISOs have deployed security solutions across all touchpoints in their IT landscape — securing endpoints and the network to guarantee absolute protection from both inside and outside threats.
But like experts say, architecting a good cybersecurity strategy requires a multi-pronged approach and a long-term view. And now is not the time to make bad cybersecurity choices. IT teams worked at break-neck speed to enable employees to work remotely on a range of devices and across multiple cloud applications that significantly expanded the enterprises’ attack surface. In disruptive times, endpoint management will find tremendous value in digitalization of distributed work environments.
We catch up with Adaptiva’s founder and CEO Deepak Kumar who draws on his more than two decades of experience in Microsoft and Nortel and combines that with his security expertise to give strong recommendations on how enterprises need to go beyond antivirus solutions to ensuring endpoints are always up-to-date and in the configuration state that the business requires.
Kumar makes a formidable business case for endpoint management with enterprise-level use cases and states why security is not about remediating vulnerabilitiesOpens a new window but also about timely software updates. Learn about the dos and don’ts of endpoint management solutions Opens a new window and how to avoid solutions that saturate the network during vulnerability scans or app updates.
Key takeaways from this interview:
- Top endpoint security challenges businesses face in distributed environment
- Best practices for evaluating endpoint management solutions
- How continuous risk assessment can help reduce security threats
- Endpoint security management use cases
Here’s the edited transcript of the interview with Deepak Kumar:
1. What are the most significant endpoint security problems organizations face today?
Visibility and control over the endpoints has always been a barrier to secure endpoints, especially in larger, more distributed enterprises. During the pandemic, that barrier is even larger. Employees are farther away from the enterprise network, sometimes using BYOD rather than company-issued devices, and the company has little to no control over the rest of the home or consumer Opens a new window network.
2. What are the barriers organizations face in achieving an effective endpoint protection strategy? Can you elaborate on how organizations respond to endpoint attacks?
In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, pre-existing endpoint health shortcomings are exacerbated. Keeping endpoints up to date and meeting standard configurations — and with a recent vulnerabilityOpens a new window check — is even more difficult with a distributed workforce. Barriers include poor consumer links, endpoints powered down or otherwise unavailable for updates and status checks, and more.
3. What are the financial consequences of endpoint attacks?
Data loss, brand reputation loss, loss of productivity, and even civil and criminal liability in some cases — all of these are possible if attacks are successful, and again, the attack surface has increased during the pandemic with most people working from home.
4. Can you explain how new or unknown zero-day attacks have gone up and the impact on IT teams and end-user productivity?
Our company has seen a sharp increase in phishing attacks. Many of them purport to be coming from my email address, increasing the chance that the attack will be successful. We’ve had to repeatedly make sure our employees are aware and vigilant.
There’s always some loss of productivity around phishing scamsOpens a new window — employees are more deliberate about checking email addresses and making sure the emails are real. It’s harder with everyone working from home since employees can’t just come to my office and ask me about a strange email.
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5. Why should ITDMs and CISOs allocate more budget to endpoint protection?
Endpoints are typically less controlled than say, the data center. And with everyone working from home, they are literally on the front lines and potentially more exposed due to the enterprises’ lack of control over home networks. If your teenager is playing flash games and one of them happens to be malicious, the entire home network may be at risk, and it doesn’t have the countermeasures a corporate network would have.
6. Should organizations outsource endpoint protection to MSP or third-party cybersecurity vendors?
It depends. The organization needs to determine the talent level of its IT/security administrators, the likelihood of bringing them up to speed and keeping them on top of the latest security trends, budget levels, and weigh their capabilities and shortcomings with the brain drain that may occur long term if on-staff talent is not prioritized.
7. Can you share best practices on evaluating endpoint management solution providers? What are the factors IT buyers should consider before deploying endpoint management solutions?
Adaptiva focuses our products on larger organizations, typically 10,000 employees and above. So, speed and scalability of the endpoint management solution are key. If your endpoint solution is able to protect the endpoints but saturates the network during vulnerability scans or app updates, you’re simply trading one problem for another. Additionally, enterprises are always trying to reduce the number of agents on their endpoints, so a product that provides solutions to multiple problems is always preferred.
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8. In your view, how often do organizations replace or update endpoint security solutions with next-gen solutions?
It depends on the type of organization; for example, forward-leaning financial sector organizations are more likely to stay on top of the latest protection solutions than some other verticals. However, the pandemic has accelerated the adoption of many cloud-based initiatives, which can also mean replacing traditional endpoint management solutions with modern ones.
9. What would be your advice to CISOs on investing in anti-virus solutions and building an extra layer of detection and response? Can you also detail challenges with current antivirus solutions?
My advice would be to focus on the solutions that have a good vision for the future — look at their roadmap and make sure their vision aligns with the corporate vision. Are they thinking about how to make working from home easier? Do they have a plan for offloading VPN and corporate network traffic?
The biggest concern with traditional antivirus productsOpens a new window is that viruses are but one of the issues endpoints can have. Enterprises need to think bigger — beyond just antivirus to ensuring endpoints are always up to date and in the configuration state that the business requires.
10. Can you explain how Adaptiva’s solution provides end-to-end security solutions and delivers more visibility into infected endpoints across the enterprise? How many endpoints can Adaptiva’s solution handle via a single console?
Adaptiva’s endpoint management products look at the network and endpoints holistically. Security is not just about remediating vulnerabilities but also about configuration state and timely software updates. And it does so at unprecedented speed and scale, without disrupting business traffic. That’s really the hardest part of endpoint management, and that’s why we’ve built our platform to be automated and extremely resilient.
Our largest customer has 470,000 endpoints managed by a single Adaptiva server, but we’re confident that the platform can handle even more endpoints if we find a network that’s larger.
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11. In the current app-centric and multi-cloud environment, what are the new, unknown threats that are expected to surface and double in the next two years?
I believe we’ll see more threats that weren’t nearly as relevant before — those that focus on the increased work from home environments we now live in. We see on the news that some businesses are closing offices and moving to permanent work from home. So, I believe we’ll see more attacks on home networks, home IoT devices, and cloud solutions that enable working from home. Attackers always go after the lowest hanging fruit, and home networks are definitely less secure than the corporate network, so it stands to reason that that’s where attackers will focus.
About Deepak KumarOpens a new window : Dr. Deepak Kumar is the founder and chief executive officer at Adaptiva. He is responsible for strategic product direction and leads the development organization. He was the lead program manager with Microsoft’s Systems Management Server 2003 team and program manager with the Windows NT Networking team. Prior to Microsoft, he was a group manager for IP Telephony products at Nortel. Dr. Kumar has received five patents related to his work on SMS 2003 at Microsoft and has written more than 50 publications, including a book on Windows programming. While at Microsoft, Dr. Kumar also authored the Think Week paper for Bill Gates that became Project Greenwich, now known as Microsoft Office Communications Server/Lync. Deepak is an avid outdoorsman and hiker.
About AdaptivaOpens a new window : AdaptivaOpens a new window is a leading, global provider of endpoint management and security solutions. The company’s products, including OneSiteOpens a new window , Endpoint HealthOpens a new window and Evolve VMOpens a new window , empower enterprises to manage and secure endpoints at unparalleled speed and massive scale using the power of peer-to-peer technology. Leading global Fortune 1000 organizations, including T-Mobile, Nokia, HSBC, Walgreens, the U.S. Department of Defense, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, use Adaptiva products to eliminate the need for a vast IT infrastructure and automate countless endpoint management and security tasks. For more information, please visit AdaptivaOpens a new window and follow the company on LinkedInOpens a new window , FacebookOpens a new window and TwitterOpens a new window .
About Tech TalkOpens a new window : Tech Talk is a Toolbox Interview Series with notable CTOs and senior executives from around the world. Join us to share your insights and research on where technology and data are heading in the future. This interview series focuses on integrated solutions, research and best practices in the day-to-day work of the tech world.
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