How to Ensure Endpoint Security and Compliance for Zero Trust

by Ashley Leonard, CEO at Syxsense

Cybersecurity professionals and hackers are in a constant tug-of-war, with endpoints serving as fertile battleground. According to the Ponemon Institute, the average organization has more than 135,000 endpoints, and more than 64,000 of them are at risk of attack due to lack of visibility or security. As organizations look for better approaches to endpoint security, many are embracing Zero Trust.

The goal of Zero Trust is to require the authentication, authorization, and continuous validation of all users and devices (both inside and outside the network) before being granted access to corporate assets such as applications or data. While it originally centered around networks and identity, it has quickly evolved to include unified endpoint management, threat intelligence and security automation. As more and more organizations develop Zero Trust strategies, many are facing implementation challenges. One of these is the ability to ensure endpoints accessing the network are legitimate, trustworthy and comply with set policies.

Today, Zero Trust initiatives require a hyper focus on endpoint protection, but traditional authentication solutions lack the ability to evaluate device health, ensure granular policy compliance, and automate risk remediation. Most endpoint security solutions focus on verifying the user, rather than the individual device. They simply accept or deny access without any understanding of a specific device’s security posture. Just because a user is who they claim to be, doesn’t mean that one of their several endpoint devices hasn’t been infected. What they really need is a trust evaluation engine for their endpoints.

To help overcome this endpoint visibility and authentication challenge, Syxsense recently released Syxsense Zero Trust, a new module in its flagship Unified Security and Endpoint Management platform, Syxsense Enterprise. Designed to vet, verify, and validate all endpoints on a network, the new module compliments existing Zero Trust initiatives by evaluating device health, ensuring granular policy compliance, and automating risk remediation. It gives organizations that “Trust Evaluation Engine” that is needed to ensure endpoint security for Zero Trust network access.

The true power of Syxsense Zero Trust lies in three key areas. First, the granularity of hundreds of parameters IT can use to report and act on device compliance. For example, is a laptop accessing your NetSuite server after hours and with an IP address from an unfamiliar location? If so, block it. Second, the power to enforce compliance with Zero Trust policies prior to granting access on an asset-by-asset basis. And third, the automated remediation of non-compliant endpoints, which could include patching the system, enabling an antivirus tool, and making sure it is up to date on patterns, emailing IT about unauthorized access, and much more.

With Syxsense Zero Trust organizations get complete visibility into all endpoint configurations and their state of compliance using a single agent. They can build sophisticated access policies based on a large array of configuration and security parameters, setting unique policies for each individual corporate asset. The module automates the immediate enforcement of access policy requirements and remediation of non-compliant endpoints using the Syxsense Cortex™ remediation engine. And it verifies trusted user authentication requests via the Syxsense console or optionally, it can be connected with external multi-factor authentication (MFA) tools to provide a “go, no-go” security status of devices. For example, if a customer uses Duo, Okta, or other MFA tools, simply connect those tools with the Syxsense API and it will report the specific device security posture on each endpoint looking to access corporate assets.

The security posture of endpoints consists of many critical factors that determine device health, such as required OS and third-party patches, security configurations, and encryption applications such as Bitlocker. Syxsense Zero Trust provides full visibility into the health of each endpoint communicating over the network to enable you to consistently discover, monitor, and manage the security posture of each device, quarantine devices that don’t meet security standards, and automatically remediate devices with open vulnerabilities.

With the rise in security incidents, more organizations are adopting a Zero Trust framework to protect their assets from attackers. Syxsense Zero Trust was built to guard each individual endpoint asset – whether a user, application, or device – by integrating them into a comprehensive strategy that constantly verifies trust. If you want to learn more or see the product in action, visit Syxsense here.

Ashley Leonard is the CEO and Founder of Syxsense. Leonard is a technology entrepreneur with 25 years of experience in enterprise software, sales, marketing, and operations; providing critical leadership during high-growth stages of well-known technology organizations.

Click here to view more IT Briefcase content!