Endpoint Security Evolves: Your Enterprise's Front Line of Defense
Michael Dortch
[Note: this is one of a series of blog posts inspired by the findings contained in The Forrester Wave™: Endpoint Security Suites, Q4 2016. Forrester Wave reports are based on primary research, vendor surveys, product demos, and customer reference calls conducted by Forrester analysts. You can download the complete report here.]
If your enterprise is still focused on protecting the perimeter of its IT environment, with all due respect, you’re doing it wrong. Your network endpoints should be your primary cybersecurity focus, because they are the focus of the hackers and attackers threatening your enterprise.
(Re-)focus on your endpoints
Forrester minces no words when describing the current state of enterprise cybersecurity and the importance of endpoint protection. “Endpoint security represents the frontline in your fight against cyberattackers. Breaches have become commonplace among enterprises, and your employee endpoints and servers are targeted more than any other type of asset.”
For its 2016 Global Business Technographics Security Survey, Forrester surveyed nearly 3,600 respondents from around the world. Those respondents all have “significant involvement in the planning, funding, and purchasing of business and technology products and services.” When asked to assign percentages of their security budgets to 10 specific areas, survey respondents assigned an average of 10 percent of their budgets to addressing client threats.
Among network security professionals at enterprises that had experienced a security breach in the 12 months preceding the survey, nearly half (48 percent) said corporate servers had been targeted. Corporate-owned and employee-owned devices were the next-most-cited targets, with company Web sites a distant fourth.
It’s about more than money
IT and cybersecurity leaders may be spending significant portions of their budgets on endpoint protection, but those expenditures are not always effective, Forrester found. “Now, more than ever, it’s critical to have the right endpoint protection in place. …Despite the available budget for new investments, security pros struggle to find the right tools to protect the expanding attack surface posed by employee devices.”
Ivanti: we get it
We at Ivanti couldn’t agree more with Forrester’s findings, which are also supported by the guidance we’ve gotten from our customers. It’s why LANDESK was named a “Strong Performer” among “The 15 Providers That Matter Most” in the Forrester Wave report. And this was before LANDESK offerings were enhanced by the addition of powerful endpoint protection solutions from AppSense, and before the merger with HEAT Software that begat Ivanti.
All of Ivanti’s management solutions incorporate solid security features. Our security management solutions offer proactive, multi-layered protection—defense in depth. Our reporting and analytics solutions give you the visibility you need to make the best possible endpoint protection decisions. And we’re working on more.
Download the complete Forrester Wave report on endpoint security, to read more about why protecting your endpoints is so critical. Then spend some time exploring Ivanti’s solutions online, or contact your Ivanti representative. See how Ivanti can help you ensure that your first line of defense is strong enough to protect your enterprise, and robust enough to recover quickly from even the most sophisticated successful threats.
Be sure to check out the other posts in this series:
