Many organizations are struggling to keep pace in the modern threat landscape. Hindered by disjointed point products and siloed teams, attackers are taking advantage of gaps between how endpoints are secured and identities are managed. By stealing identities and the privileged access credentials that go with them, adversaries can quickly gain access to networks undetected.
The gap between endpoint protection and identity security leaves organizations more vulnerable to sophisticated cyberattacks. CISOs are rethinking their cybersecurity strategies and are looking to adopt a more integrated approach.
Unifying endpoint and identity security as the starting point for a consolidated platform solution can increase protection, improve productivity, and reduce costs. Getting endpoint and identity security right and making it a solid, unified defense is essential for a robust and scalable security strategy now and into the future.
Leveraging cloud advantages for unified security
As EPPs tend to be cloud-native, they benefit from agile and scalable access to data from across an enterprise’s ecosystem. They lean on up-to-date information to inform the response to any threat or to prevent attacks before they pose a tangible threat altogether.
EPPs also help leaders maintain visibility across hybrid cloud environments, preventing security solutions from becoming ineffective and siloed. It’s this end-to-end approach that makes investing in an EPP a good route for organizations looking to streamline their cyber security estate while also strengthening their overall approach.
For example, endpoint detection and response (EDR) is one cornerstone of any EPP, to contain cyber attacks as and when they occur. At the same time, enterprise EPP solutions will also contain IDP solutions that work to stop attackers at the network perimeter.
The importance of strong identity protection can’t be overstated when it comes to keeping attacks from happening in the first place. Stolen and exposed credentials continue to pose a major threat to businesses in 2024, with attackers using illicitly obtained details to gain initial access to a victim’s systems and subsequently escalating their privileges. Consequently, identity management is a must when it comes to security investment.
As many as 75% of all cyber attacks are malware free and involve identity techniques such as login attempts using compromised credentials, according to Crowdstrike’s 2024 Global Threat Report.
Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is important for baseline protection against cyber attacks. It prevents attackers from simply accessing user accounts using stolen login details by prompting users to confirm their identity on another device, which can in itself be enough to deter threat actors. Of course, MFA is just one tool that security teams can use to deter threats and should be backed by a range of security solutions for better protection and prevent MFA fatigue.
Identity threat detection and response (ITDR) solutions work to defend against identity-based attacks through a zero trust approach. Grounded in standard identity protection measures such as single sign-on (SSO), more advanced IDP solutions can also automatically flag user accounts or machine identities as particularly suspicious and stop attackers from bypassing MFA.
Combining ITDR and endpoint protection can be very cost-effective as the contextual data gathered across the platform will increase the security efficacy—ultimately helping you detect and respond to threats faster and with less resources.
As one part of a wider endpoint protection strategy, businesses can use identity security to identify areas where their existing identity controls are lacking. For example, Crowdstrike’s Falcon Identity Protection can use the contextual data of which systems and devices a user would normally interact with. This can inform whether their current login attempt is suspicious, even if it appears to be normal based on other metrics.
From a central console, administrators can configure their ITDR to detect and block anomalous behavior across their environment, preventing threat actors from performing lateral attacks or remaining in certain environments undetected.
All of this helps reduce the burden on security teams, who can easily access identity security in tandem with antimalware or antivirus, EDR, or vulnerability assessment systems. Depending on the EPP an enterprise chooses, security teams will be given varying access to reports and patches against known vulnerabilities and zero-day exploits. This helps form a comprehensive picture of the threats the business faces.
An EPP solution may also contain optional features that act to further assist smaller businesses with security needs. For example, Crowdstrike Falcon comes with managed detection and response (MDR), in which a vendor provides security assistance for hunting threats or responding to a new-found vulnerability.
Future-proofing with unified endpoint security and identity protection
One of the chief benefits of EPP is its capacity to change over time using a business’ secure data. As any enterprise cloud environment expands and more time is spent generating data, security systems bundled within an EPP can become more effective and tailored to the needs and activities of a specific business.
This is especially relevant for IDP, as attackers continue to lean on identity-based attacks as an easy way to breach enterprise perimeter security.
AI threats such as the use of generative AI to create tailored phishing emails may help hackers steal passwords more easily, while deepfake attacks could allow the bypass of security measures such as facial recognition. A recent Gartner prediction stated that 30% of enterprises will find identity verification and authentication solutions unreliable in isolation.
Against this backdrop, your ITDR needs to be capable of flagging malicious access attempts using contextual user and device data will be key, especially if that links directly into an EPP that can escalate countermeasures through EDR or other services.
Discover why modern endpoint security is the only way to stop breaches
As AI threats become a reality, it will be more important than ever to have a security platform that’s able to respond in real time. Generalized security is also less useful in a world facing specialized threats and EPPs offer an effective route for ensuring future security products are rooted in as much unique enterprise data as possible.
CrowdStrike’s Falcon Platform uses application programming interfaces (APIs) to connect directly to the CrowdStrike Threat Graph, which helps it to identify threats in real time and sift through vast amounts of endpoint data to provide contexts for attacks using machine learning (ML).
It’s just one example of the tailored approach that will be necessary to fend off future attacks and ties back into the overall benefits of EPP and ITDR. The leaders who have a better chance of staying ahead are those who invest in their entire platform, rather than trying to split their focus across many siloed approaches to security.
It’s integral that organizations based in the cloud lean into its chief benefits and embrace platforms that allow their enterprise data to be put to good use and EPP is a clear route to success on this front.
