Endpoint Security

Endpoint Security is the sum total of the measures taken to implement security concerning endpoints. These measures include assessing risk to protect endpoints, such as with client antivirus and personal firewall and protecting the network from the endpoints themselves, such as with quarantine and access control. Also Endpoint Security logically extends to the management and administration of these security measures, as well as to the risk, reporting and knowledge management of the state and results of these measures. The ultimate goal for an enterprise is to protect WAN and LAN endpoints and to maintain a safe productivity level that results in improving business results while reducing costs and losses due to security incidents.

Current threats include viruses, Trojans, worms, the use of endpoints as DDoS zombie hosts and spyware. The new threats take advantage of a growing number and variety of endpoint vulnerabilities. These vulnerabilities include the familiar, such as buffer overruns, keystroke loggers and instant-messaging worms and the most recent such as vulnerabilities in the security software itself. Enterprises end up with extreme vulnerability to a bewildering array of threats that increase each day. Endpoints are where the typical enterprise conducts most of its business, and disruption to endpoints is a huge impact to enterprises in terms of cost and lost productivity. Since endpoints are now a primary target of these threats, enterprises are forced by necessity to confront Endpoint Security as a core business issue.

Return on Investment in Endpoint Security

Traditionally, security has not been subject to ROI analysis, but that view is giving way to a more pragmatic view. Enterprises care about Endpoint Security as a means of protecting themselves from threats to property, privacy and productivity. The cost of these threats cannot be ignored. The question is no longer, "Will we get hit by an attack" but "When will we be hit by the next attack, and at what cost?" An investment in proactive Endpoint Security software, services, devices, and resources can be weighed against known costs. Known costs include productivity loss because of downtime, recovery costs because of the required clean up after an attack and legal costs because of the failure to protect privacy and comply with regulatory requirements.

Benelec provides the Endpoint Security tools, solutions and practices in the following areas:

1. Anti-Virus
2. Personal Firewall/Host IDS
3. Anti-Spyware
4. Anti-Spam
5. Patch Management (assessment/remediation)
6. Endpoint Vulnerability Assessment
7. Regulatory Compliance on Endpoints
8. Client Remote Access including IPSec VPN and SSL VPN
9. Client Access Control and Quarantine
10. Endpoint Policy Management and Policy Enforcement
11. Compliance Assessment and host checking
12. Policy Development and communication

In reality, the endpoint security is both an enterprise goal and an enterprise practice. Benelec can help each small and large enterprise to determine best practices to meet business goals and regulatory requirements to secure the extended network.