An End point is an individual device of computer system which is connected to your corporate network. The device could be a desktop PC, laptop, smart phone, tablets or more specialised equipment. The device will run a operating system which could include Microsoft Windows, Apple OS, Linux, Andriod, iOS or a customised system.
End point Protection is a generic term that refers to securing an individual device in a number of ways. End point clients combine a range of solutions to secure the device which can include antivirus/anti-spyware, personal firewall, personal web content filter and anti-spam, VPN client, device control and device encryption. You may find one client that offers all the solutions you need or you may run multiple clients to address individual security requirements.
Q. Do you do anything to protect your company or organisation from data loss?
Data can be lost in a number of ways, be it malicious or not. Examples of data loss could include laptop theft or by someone copying the data to a USB drive / CD and passing it to a third party. If that data included your customer database and price lists which were then passed to your competitor, the potential impact to your business could be devastating. It's not hard to find various high profile stories on government departments and contractors losing personal details, including medical records, of thousands of employees and the general public. How would your business deal with the negative publicity of losing the personal and credit card details of your customers?
Device encryption for both hard drives and USB drives can minimise the impact from a lost device, stopping anyone accessing the device without the decryption password.
Centrally managing removable devices, such as USB drives, MP3 players, CDs/DVDs restricts who can copy data from the network and how that data is controlled once removed. It also provides an organisation with an audit trails to allow the cause of data loss to be investigated.
Shield IT Solutions can help you design and deploy a suitable end point solution to help protect your company or organisation from the potential impact caused by data loss.
Q. Are you in control of what do your staff do with their laptops when they are not connected to the corporate network?
With an increasingly mobile work force and flexible working patterns, more and more staff are given portable devices to work on away from the office. But what do they do with these devices when they are not working? How often are they attached to the corporate network for patching and anti-virus updates?
Without controlling how portable devices can be used away from the corporate network then employees are free to use the devices to do what they want with despite what corporate policies might say. Innocently browsing the Internet from a hotel to catch up with their friends could result in them downloading malware or spyware and then transferring it to the corporate network. Having a look at photos on a friends USB drive could result in a virus being transferred to the device and then the network.
Q. Is your anti-virus update to date and running properly?
Most people understand the need to have an anti-virus product installed to help protect them. Unfortunately for organisations it's not enough to just have anti-virus installed, you need to know if it's running and updating properly across every machine and users haven’t changed the settings. Centrally managed solutions, either via an internal management server or using a cloud based solution, ensure that all devices are updated and have the correct settings applied. This is particularly important when you have a mobile workforce where the machines don't regularly seen by your IT support team. The management solution can also report on viruses detected to allow you to educate any users who get infected by viruses frequently.
Anti-virus only goes so far, making sure machines are properly patched with all appropriate vendors updates is an important way of maintaining the security of an organisation.
Why Shield IT Solutions?
Shield IT Solutions has extensive experience of various Endpoint solutions so are ideally placed to help design and deploy an end point solution that will help protect your company or organisation from the dangers of infection. We can guide you through the process of selecting the right solution for your business, based on your needs, rather than just forcing a solution upon you. Contact us if you like to discuss Endpoint solutions in further detail.
