Ask a Security Expert: The Case For Cloud-Based Cybersecurity Solutions

Question: What’s the best way to ensure all my customer’s endpoints have active AV protection?  

– David Stokes, Greystone Technology

Answer: For many organizations, it can be quite challenging to ensure all their endpoints have active antivirus protection.

Anderson

Especially with MSPs, there is a greater potential for endpoints to have AV from different vendors or none at all.

This often happens after an MSP acquires new customers or when a new AV vendor is selected.

This poses a major security risk, as threats can wreak havoc on improperly protected endpoints – not to mention the risk posed to the larger network by a compromised endpoint.

Not only is conventional antivirus protection struggling to keep up with today’s attacks, but many traditional approaches also do not provide organizations with full visibility into the security of each endpoint.

It is essential for MSPs to have visibility across all their customer’s networks and access to up-to-date intelligence on threats to their systems and endpoints of all types.

The most effective approach to ensuring all endpoints have active antivirus protections is through cloud-based cybersecurity solutions.

With cloud-based management, there is no firewalled, on-premise hardware or software.

Integrated with your RMM, cloud-based management with full remote endpoint administration makes the delivery of global management extraordinarily effective compared to conventional antivirus.

Simultaneously, cloud-based solutions can provide granular reporting on individual endpoints. 

Effective endpoint protection requires continuous monitoring of every individual endpoint and an immediate response to anything new or unexpected occurring on any device.

Infection dwell times of days, weeks or months are unacceptable, as are forensics and audits that can detail the kill chain but are unable to break it.

The goal of all endpoint security is to mitigate attacks.

However, without comprehensive security of all endpoints, organizations will not be able to stop the next attack.

Proactive mitigation, real-time visibility, and an immediate response are the only real defenses.

George Anderson is director of product marketing at Webroot.

“Ask a Security Expert” is an occasional feature. Send tips and news to [email protected].