Endpoint management is an essential part of modern and advanced IT security and device administration, providing every organization with the ability to identify, monitor, manage, and, of course, secure all network-connected endpoints by using a single centralized platform. These endpoints include laptops, desktops, smartphones, tablets, servers, and IoT devices that serve as a potential entry point to a company’s network.
This critical cybersecurity practice involves several key functions, such as software deployment and updates, security patch management, device health monitoring, access control, and policy enforcement, in order to protect every single device and ensure uninterrupted workflows guaranteeing the business continuity of your company.
Implementing robust endpoint management solutions in your organizations is a necessity because it is able to automate routine tasks, ensure compliance with security policies, and last but not least, respond swiftly to potential cyber threats.
Endpoint Management by Definition
Endpoint management, by definition, is a comprehensive IT solution that enables every organization to identify, provision, deploy, update, control access, and troubleshoot all endpoint devices within the company’s network infrastructure. An endpoint is every single device that connects to and communicates with a network, such as computers, mobile devices, servers, and IoT devices.
This robust security technology encompasses the tools, processes, and methodologies required to maintain operational efficiency, strengthen security protocols, and ensure compliance across all endpoints, all from a single management console.
Endpoint management has become an inevitable part of every successful business because its purpose is to maintain the health, security, and functionality of all connected devices while reducing IT overhead and minimizing potential security risks.
This is achieved through automated monitoring of the endpoint status, reporting, and remediation tools that are providing administrators and security teams with the opportunity to have complete control over their organization’s entire device ecosystem.
Why do you need endpoint management?
Nowadays, remote work became increasingly common, which led to a constantly growing number of sophisticated cyber threats, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world. This is one of the reasons why endpoint management is a must for every organization, no matter its size, because it helps to maintain productivity while securing endpoints and sensitive data across their networks both on-premises and in the cloud.
Without robust endpoint management, your company’s risk exposure to malware, data breaches, and compliance violations increases significantly. On the other hand, an effective solution provides you with the ability to automate routine tasks like software updates and installing security patches, which reduces manual intervention and the human error factor.
Further, it enables IT teams to have real-time visibility into device health and security status, providing them with the opportunity to quickly identify and remediate potential security threats before they escalate into major problems, leading to serious consequences like downtime for the organization. The growing complexity of cyber threats makes endpoint management important for ensuring comprehensive protection of your digital assets.
Another core strength is that such solutions guarantee maintaining compliance by enforcing security policies and generating detailed audit trails, strictly following all regulatory requirements.
Simply put, a robust endpoint management strategy is not just a necessity; it is a must for every successful business in order to be able to monitor, protect, and control the network’s access.
What are the processes of endpoint management?
Endpoint management is a combination of individual but interconnected processes that are responsible for monitoring, securing, and optimizing an organization’s digital device network. Below we will explain in detail every process separately:
Inventory management
The efforts here are concentrated on creating a catalog of all endpoint devices, including their unique identifiers, hardware specifications, software installations, network configurations, and current operational status. Thus, a complete digital map of your organization’s technological ecosystem is created.
Software distribution and patch management
This is the process of automated deployment of software updates, security patches, and system upgrades across all endpoints. Ensuring all devices remain current, secure, and protected against the latest cybersecurity threats while maintaining consistent software versions organization-wide.
Security Management
Is responsible for applying multi-layered security approaches, such as antivirus protection, threat detection, firewalls, access control, and a variety of cybersecurity protocols, in order to safeguard your endpoints and the sensitive information stored there from the mean digital threats that are constantly stalking around the corner to strike in the most inappropriate moment.
It is a well-known fact that implementing multifactor authentication mechanisms, user permissions, and network access restrictions plays a key role in every advanced security strategy. Thus, only authorized users can access specific endpoint devices and the sensitive data stored on them.
Configuration Management
Takes care of establishing and maintaining standardized settings across all endpoints, ensuring compliance with organizational policies, security standards, and regulatory requirements. This process helps create a uniform and predictable technological environment.
Performance monitoring
This process is another core strength of effective endpoint management solutions by processing a real-time monitoring of every endpoint performance, security status, update status, resource utilization, and potential anomalies. This proactive approach provides your organization with the ability to detect at an early stage potential issues before they escalate and cause serious damages across the entire IT infrastructure.
Policy Enforcement
Establishing and enforcing endpoint management policies—including password requirements, encryption protocols, and remote work guidelines—helps maintain network security and compliance.
Ensuring that all endpoints strictly follow and adhere to predefined organizational standards, security protocols, and compliance requirements. The advantage of this process is that it automatically checks and corrects device configurations that deviate from the established guidelines.
Reporting and Analytics
This is the process which is responsible for generating comprehensive insights about endpoint status, security posture, compliance levels, and performance metrics. This data-driven approach supports strategic decision-making and continuous improvement of the organization’s endpoint management strategy.
Endpoint management is not just a technical process but a strategic framework for protecting and optimizing your organization’s digital ecosystem. It’s complexity and the variety of interconnected processes ensure your company’s business continuity and uninterrupted processes.
Simply put, implementing endpoint management into your company’s security strategy safeguards your business from facing catastrophic damages by timely addressing and remediating security threats before being exploited by the cybercriminals.
What is the difference between EDR and Endpoint Management System?
A lot of people are not aware that EDR (endpoint detection and response) and endpoint management are two different cybersecurity solutions. The only thing that they have in common is their main purpose of protecting organizations’ endpoints, but in the next paragraphs we will explain how they differ in order to get you known better with each of them.
EDR and endpoint management serve distinct yet complementary roles in organizational cybersecurity strategies. As we already mentioned, they both focus on endpoint device protection but have different primary functions and objectives that differ significantly.
Endpoint management, has a broader scope of device administration, handling tasks such as asset inventory, software deployment, patch management, configuration control, and policy enforcement across all network-connected devices.
The focus of endpoint management is concentrated on maintaining operational efficiency and establishing baseline security measures through centralized device control.
EDR, on the other hand, is designed to focus on advanced threat detection, investigation, and incident response. It continuously monitors every endpoint activity, collecting and analyzing behavioral data in order to identify potential sophisticated cyber threats, malware, and security breaches in real-time.
EDR solutions rely on advanced analytics, machine learning, AI, and automated response mechanisms with the main purpose of detecting and neutralizing security incidents before they escalate and cause catastrophic damages to your business organization.
Imagine endpoint management as the foundation, which is responsible for maintaining device health and applying basic and effective security processes. EDR is the upgrade to your basic endpoint security that is able to provide you and your company with deep visibility into potential threats and active security incidents.
Many organizations implement both solutions in their security strategy because endpoint management ensures that every single device in the network remains properly configured and maintained with up-to-date software, while EDR is responsible for the advanced threat hunting and response capabilities, which are essential in the cruel battle against sophisticated modern cyber threats.
What type of endpoints need to be managed?
If you ask yourself what are the examples of endpoints that need to be properly managed, the answer is:
-
Laptops
-
Desktops
-
Tablets
-
Smartphones
-
Smartwatches
-
Workstations
-
Servers
-
Internet of Things (IoT) devices
Each of these devices can affect the overall organization’s processes; maintaining their overall health and security is a top priority, because even if one of these endpoints is not in good health or not properly secured, it could pose a significant risk for the company.
According to one of the latest researches made by the intelligence firm IDC (https://webinars.govtech.com/Closing-the-Endpoint-Security-Gap-in-State-and-Local-Government-102979.html), endpoints such as laptops, desktops, or mobile devices are the reason for 70% of the successful breaches. For that reason, equipping your business organization with robust endpoint management is absolutely mandatory in order to minimize the risks chances of experiencing security breaches, data exfiltration, malware infection, and other security incidents.
Unfortunately, nowadays there are a lot of business owners that implement endpoint management into their security strategy after they have already faced cyberattacks. Only if they had taken actions to provide their company with endpoint management tools earlier, they would have had a 70% greater chance to avoid becoming victims of the cybercriminals.
Endpoint Management Policies
Implementing effective endpoint management solutions begins with establishing robust access control mechanisms to ensure only authorized endpoints and authenticated users can connect to the organization’s network infrastructure.
This fundamental security measure requires implementing multi-factor authentication protocols and identity verification systems on approved devices, enabling legitimate users to access corporate data and resources securely.
In enterprise environments, where managing numerous endpoint devices and diverse user permission levels becomes complex, manual device configuration proves inefficient. This necessitates implementing comprehensive endpoint security policies through advanced endpoint management platforms. Security teams can define granular access controls, device acceptance criteria, and user permissions through centralized management consoles.
Endpoint management helps administrators efficiently implement role-based access control (RBAC), restricting user access to specific applications, data resources, and network segments based on their organizational roles.
For instance, deploying department-specific security templates through endpoint management systems allows security administrators to simultaneously configure and monitor multiple devices per user while maintaining consistent security standards. These endpoint security solutions enable rapid policy updates and automated distribution of security configurations across all managed endpoints when network policies evolve.
Given the escalating importance of network security and the vulnerabilities associated with traditional password authentication, modern endpoint management platforms incorporate advanced device authentication methods. This includes implementing hardware-based security tokens, device certificates, and biometric authentication mechanisms such as fingerprint verification and facial recognition, particularly crucial for mobile device management (MDM) and BYOD environments.
However, secure authentication represents just the initial layer of endpoint security. Post-authentication endpoint monitoring and protection become crucial as authorized users and their devices interact with network resources. This is where comprehensive endpoint detection and response (EDR) capabilities, integrated within endpoint management solutions, provide continuous security monitoring and threat protection.
What are the benefits of endpoint management policies?
Every self-respected organization must have on their side robust endpoint management policies because they deliver multiple advantages to their cybersecurity posture and operational efficiency, such as:
Enhanced Security
First and foremost, these policies are known for establishing standardized security protocols across all endpoint devices connected to the network, thus significantly reducing the attack surface that cybercriminals can exploit.
Centralized Control
Nowadays, effective endpoint management solutions provide every company with the opportunity to manage all of their endpoints from a single platform, where device configurations, software deployments, and security updates can be scheduled to be processed automatically.
This centralized approach proves particularly valuable for organizations managing remote workers and BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) environments. Thus, guaranteeing streamlined IT operations and consistent policy enforcement across the organization.
Cost Optimization
Another advantage is that using such policies leads to cost savings because of the automated device management and minimized IT overhead. Meaning that your IT team will have the opportunity to concentrate their efforts on more critical tasks.
Improved Compliance Management
One of the most important aspects is that these policies ensure adherence to industry regulations by automatically enforcing security controls and maintaining detailed audit trails. Thus, your organization will avoid compliance penalties and maintain a positive reputation.
Real-Time Monitoring
Endpoint management has proven its effectiveness by providing immediate visibility into potential security threats and enabling swift incident response. This way, your security team can identify and address security issues before they escalate into major breaches. The ability to remotely manage and troubleshoot devices also improves IT efficiency and reduces downtime, contributing to improved productivity across the organization.
Enhanced Asset Management
Endpoint management policies provide you with better and more effective asset management through comprehensive device inventory and lifecycle tracking. Which will help your business company to optimize resource allocation, plan hardware changes, and, of course, maintain software license compliance.
Efficient Remote Management
Enables IT teams to troubleshoot and resolve issues without physical access to devices. This capability is especially helpful for supporting remote workers and distributed teams.
Privileged Access Control
Implements granular control over user permissions and access to sensitive corporate data. This ensures employees can access necessary resources while maintaining robust security protocols.
How to choose the right endpoint management software for your business?
The importance of providing your organization with the right endpoint management software to safeguard your digital assets against the countless cyber threats is essential, but definitely not an easy task. When looking for effective endpoint management solutions, there are some critical factors to consider in order to choose a platform that aligns with your unique business requirements.
First and foremost, you have to carefully consider the needs of your business company because it plays a critical role in determining the most suitable endpoint management solution. For instance, enterprises with complex IT environments, multiple locations, or a large number of on-premises and remote endpoints will definitely require a more robust and scalable platform than a small-to-medium business would need.
Understanding the scope and scale of your endpoint infrastructure is essential in order to choose an effective endpoint management solution that can adequately manage and secure your IT infrastructure.
Automation
Automation and remote management capabilities are critical considerations because they are able to streamline IT operations, minimize manual workload and human errors, and automate tasks such as software deployment, security patch management, and device configuration.
Furthermore, seamless remote management (remote access) features are able to help your security team swiftly identify and remediate security issues without physically accessing the endpoints, enhancing overall efficiency, especially for managing mobile devices and supporting remote employees.
Endpoint security features
Endpoint security features are known as a fundamental part of any effective endpoint management solution; for that reason, opting for software that has built-in advanced threat detection, incident response, and data protection mechanisms is essential for safeguarding your corporate network against sophisticated cyber threats.
Remediation
The remediation capabilities of the software, including its ability to quickly isolate and mitigate security beaches, are equally important because they are responsible for maintaining the business continuity of your organization.
Integration capabilities
Last but not least, consider the integration features of the endpoint management software according to your existing IT infrastructure and security tools that are already in use. Smooth and seamless integration allows for centralized visibility, streamlined administration, and, of course, the implementation of a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy across your organization. This will definitely result in significantly improved overall performance of your endpoint management and security posture.
By carefully assessing these key aspects, including privileged access management, operating system support, and cloud environment compatibility, you can be confident that the endpoint management software you choose aligns with your business needs and requirements and provides the robust security and management capabilities that are required to protect your organization’s digital assets.
Action1 is more than your average endpoint management solution
Action1 reinvents patching with an infinitely scalable, highly secure, cloud-native platform configurable in 5 minutes — it just works and is always free for the first 100 endpoints, with no functional limits. Featuring unified OS and third-party patching with peer-to-peer patch distribution and real-time vulnerability assessment with no VPN needed, it enables autonomous endpoint management that preempts ransomware and security risks, all while eliminating costly routine labor. Trusted by thousands of enterprises managing millions of endpoints globally, Action1 is certified for SOC 2 and ISO 27001.
The company is founder-led by industry veterans Alex Vovk and Mike Walters, who founded Netwrix, which has grown into a multi-billion-dollar industry-leading cybersecurity company
