With cybercriminals becoming more strategic, elusive and ruthless Threat Detection and Response technology, especially Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) is now a non-negotiable tactic in your business’ cybersecurity defence.

You may be familiar with its core, mission-critical benefits: improved security posture, reduced downtime, enhanced incident response and up-to-the-minute threat intelligence. But, EDR has far greater value than you perhaps first imagine – governance control, employee engagement and brand management to name just three.

Keep reading to learn about the surprising added value EDR can offer and the best way to extract the benefits.

• Governance and Compliance
• Employee Engagement
• Customer Trust and Brand

1. Governance and Compliance

Is EDR Part of Business Endpoint Governance and Compliance?

EDR can play an important role in business governance and compliance and is especially helpful now that a significant volume of data is collected and processed by users outside the four walls of your physical premises. As a result, endpoints can be the source of massive governance and compliance risks.

In this context, endpoint governance refers to the processes and policies an organisation puts in place to manage and secure its devices, such as computers, laptops and mobiles. Compliance refers to the requirement to adhere to laws, regulations and internal standards that affect how endpoints are used in your business.

Compliance for endpoints consists firstly of defined processes, and secondly of consistent monitoring, logging and reporting of endpoint activity to identify vulnerabilities and non-compliant use.

 

Why are Endpoints Considered a Compliance Risk?

Whether it customer service call recordings, invoices and payments or even technical data relating to IT infrastructure, hybrid working expands the margin for error (and non-compliance). This is because when a small minority of users are detached from the tangible influence and eyes of peers and managers, they may become slightly careless.

Even one instance of endpoint resources not being used as intended can result in a compliance breach. Let’s say that misuse (an innocent breach of best practice or a malicious act) results in an endpoint-delivered threat harming business continuity or data. Organisations can quickly find themselves under regulators’ scrutiny and face huge fines for not abiding by compliance measures.

As such, organisations need to find a way to manage and minimise the threat of non-compliant endpoint use.  The best way is to implement governance and compliance controls that cannot be readily overwritten and alert security teams of unauthorised or suspicious activity. Endpoint Detection and Response is the ideal tool to achieve this.

 

How Does EDR Support Business and Endpoint Compliance?

EDR supports business endpoint governance and compliance in several ways. The most common and important are as follows:

• Monitoring: EDR provides real-time monitoring of endpoint devices, alerting managers of suspicious activity that indicates that devices are being used in a non-compliant manner.
• Reporting: EDR systems can generate reports on endpoint devices’ security and compliance status, providing evidence of compliance to regulators and other stakeholders.
• Response: EDR is designed to protect endpoint devices from a wide range of threats including ransomware and spyware. Advanced EDR software can respond to suspicious activity and prevent malware infections from cascading throughout your IT network, reducing the opportunity for compliance breaches related to uptime and data security.

 

 

2. Employee Engagement

Can EDR Help Engage my Employees with Cyber Security?

EDR solutions aren’t there to “catch employees out”, so to speak. When deployed with a well-communicated and ethical purpose, EDR can be an extremely helpful tool to engage employees with cybersecurity. Here are four interesting examples:

1. Providing real-time visibility into threats: By continuously monitoring and providing alerts about threats, EDR solutions can help raise employees’ awareness about the importance of good cybersecurity hygiene – and why following process is king.
2. Educating employees about threats: EDR solutions provide organisations with powerful and relevant insight that can be used in education and training programmes. Employees can learn about the threats they are really most likely to encounter in their work, and how they can defend themselves (EDR being one tool!).
3. Encouraging best practices: By providing feedback about employee behaviour and highlighting areas for improvement, EDR offers personalised data for brushing up on security skills and reducing an employee’s risk of being an attack source.
4. Providing a sense of protection: By continuously monitoring and responding to threats, EDR solutions can help to provide employees with a sense of protection in knowing your business has their backs. Although successful attacks don’t affect employees financially, their confidence (and even reputation) can take a hit.

Overall, EDR solutions can help to engage employees with cybersecurity by providing them with the tools and information they need to stay ahead of threats in a tangible manner, and the peace of mind that they’re safeguarded from making a critical error.

 

 

3. Customer Trust and Brand

Why Endpoint Breaches are a Disaster for Brand Reputation

Did you know that two-thirds of customers say they’d stop shopping with a brand after a data breach? And that 19% would avoid a company altogether after a security breach? Now, imagine if you lost those kinds of numbers from your bottom line. You wouldn’t think twice about taking decisive action.

Of the wide range of malware distribution pathways or cyberattack sources an organisation faces, endpoint breaches are acutely harmful. That’s because of the psychology behind an endpoint attack.

Even though endpoint vulnerability can and often results from neglected threat detection and response technology, the implication is that a person did something wrong. I.e., a person cared so little about customer data integrity and service, they actively misused an endpoint and caused harm. Now, we know this is rarely the case, but when the damage is done it’s difficult for brands to rebuild customer trust.

 

How to Stop Endpoint Attacks from Harming Customer Relationships

Of course, the best way to stop endpoint attacks from harming customer relationships is to prevent their occurrence altogether. But should the worst happen, being able to prove that endpoint threat detection and response (EDR) was in place, it is easier to protect or rebuild those relationships with customers, either by showing you genuinely did all you could or minimising what could have been a major problem. In summary, EDR helps uphold good customer relationships by:

• Demonstrating to customers that your organisation is taking steps to protect against endpoint-borne threats
• Continuously monitoring and responding to threats which prevents data breaches and downtime from happening in the first place

In summary, EDR can be a powerful strategic security tool in business and deliver value far beyond the threat identification and isolation capabilities it’s best known for. Compliance control, employee security engagement and customer trust can all benefit from EDR and prove just how versatile and valuable this superhero security solution is.

 

Sentis Managed Solutions Provides EDR Solutions

Are you considering adding EDR to your security stack or want to confirm your current threat detection and response is working to best effect?

Sentis Managed Solutions would love to hear from you. We’re a Managed Security Services Provider (MSSP) delivering a complete range of specialist anti-ransomware, threat detection, and response solutions, EDR included. We also offer a free, no-obligation security audit – so you can confirm what’s working well and what needs reinforcement before committing.

Learn more about our audits here or browse our threat detection solutions here.