Work from home is here to stay. By all accounts, even firms that plan to fully reopen their pandemic-closed offices need to maintain options to work from home—at least some of the time—just to compete for skilled labor. In other words, the hybrid work model of the future has become today’s reality.
That means companies need to extend their cyber resilience strategies from beyond the walls of their office buildings to secure all those endpoints connecting to their corporate network. An endpoint protection platform (EPP) does just that—delivering protection for all endpoints, including desktops, laptops, tablets and smartphones.
What Is Endpoint Protection, And Why Should Your Clients Care?
Endpoint security helps your clients protect their computers, laptops, tablets and smartphones against malware, phishing and other cyberattacks. EPP benefits include:
- Multi-threat protection - EPP delivers dynamic protection against the entire spectrum of cyberthreats, including viruses, Trojans, phishing, man-in-the-middle attacks, ransomware, spyware, browser-based attacks, cryptojacking, credential theft, script-based attacks, file-less attacks, domain spoofing and more.
- Multi-vector threat protection - EPP shields your company from threats that come in through USB ports, email and web browsing.
- Data loss prevention (DLP) - EPP encrypts vital data, including intellectual property, customer data and employee data. Robust EPP solutions can maintain this protection online and offline, and when devices are lost or stolen.
- Regulatory compliance - EPP ensures compliance with data loss prevention (DLP) and privacy standards, including PCI DSS and HIPAA.
- Continuously updated protection - EPP updates in real time, protecting endpoints from emerging threats.
What’s The Best Way To Discuss Endpoint Protection With Your SMB Clients?
Cybercrime has skyrocketed as business models have decentralized, and you can’t help your clients achieve cyber resilience without it. However, most SMBs lack adequate endpoint protection for simple and practical reasons. Here’s how to address the three most-common issues driving endpoint protection hesitancy:
Issue 1: Your clients don’t have a grasp on what comprises endpoint protection. Industry terminology is a factor here. Most people are not IT experts, and many business owners and managers don’t know what an “endpoint” is, never mind why it needs protection. Talking to your clients in plainer terms—devices connected to your network and applications—can help you cover a lot of ground fast. And it’s a simple step from there to discussing how every device connection is a potential source of compromise.
Issue 2: Your clients think they’re safe when they aren’t. This mistaken belief comes in two flavors—the persistent idea that only big businesses are at risk and overconfidence in off-the-shelf antivirus solutions. Cyber crooks no longer distinguish between a company of 10,000 and a company of 10; they’re all targets. And as for simple antivirus solutions—if they were effective, cybercrime would have been eliminated long ago. Instead, it’s more widespread and destructive than ever.
Issue #3: Your clients think endpoint protection is expensive. Many of today’s endpoint protection solutions were designed with SMBs in mind, delivering enterprise-level security in affordable, scalable packages.
What’s The Bottom Line On Endpoint Protection Platforms?
Like so many other aspects of cyber resilience, EPP presents an opportunity for MSPs. You can dramatically reduce the risk of your client experiencing a breach or outage with endpoint protection alone. More importantly, EPP is a vital component of a comprehensive approach to cyber resilience[CF2] that can help your clients stand toe-to-toe with today’s cyber threats.