CyberSolv

Find out why firewalls and endpoint security must work together to protect organizations from the most prevalent cyber threats.

This is a sponsored article brought to you by WatchGuard.

Firewalls have had a major influence on cybersecurity techniques on their way to becoming the basis of modern corporate network security – often acting as the first line of defense in an attempted attack. This is why some organizations ask whether they really need an endpoint security solution when they already have a firewall in place. Although the two solutions may seem similar, they offer different levels of protection — and deploying both is key to achieving optimal security. 

Historically, most cybersecurity threats have come through the network. However, the trend over the past decade has been for them to gain access directly through the endpoint. In fact, a recent study has revealed that 68% of organizations have experienced a targeted endpoint attack that compromised their data or IT infrastructure.¹

When the endpoint is not secured, malicious actors can easily target devices as an entry point to corporate networks and use simple lateral movement to gradually infect the network — typically by compromising a data center or cloud node via exploiting stolen credentials.

The top cybersecurity threats company endpoints face at the endpoint include: 

• Ransomware: In recent years, ransomware has become one of the most common security issues for organizations.
•  Phishing: Like ransomware, phishing attacks have become more popular because they are relatively simple to carry out and are often successful.

Endpoint solutions complement perimeter solutions by protecting against attacks within the network. They also continuously monitor the activity of applications running on computers and classify them as “trusted” or “malicious,” depending on how they behave. Other key benefits of combining both network and endpoint security include:

• They enhance each other: firewalls filter web traffic and defend the front end of the network, while endpoint solutions protect the internal network.
• Advanced cybersecurity: combining both technologies protects a corporate network against malware, phishing and zero-day or malware-free attacks, ransomware, and advanced persistent threats (APTs) — among others — whether the attacks come from, the network or endpoint devices.  
• Zero Trust Approach: multiple complementary layers of defense must be built up to achieve a zero trust security approach.

To learn more about how WatchGuard solutions can help you build both an endpoint and network security structure, contact our team at WatchGuard@tdsynnex.com.

^{1. Ponemon Institute. The Third Annual Study on the State of Endpoint Security Risk. Jan. 2020.}