According to a study by Adaptiva and the Ponemon Institute, companies are investing in protecting their endpoints. Nevertheless, they often find it difficult to reliably address every endpoint and to provide updates and patches. This increases the risk of cyberattacks and security breaches.
Adaptiva, provider of endpoint management and security solutions, has partnered with the Ponemon Institute to publish the study "Managing Risks and Costs at the Edge". In it, they show the difficulties many companies have in managing their endpoints, especially due to the distributed infrastructures that accompany the new world of work.
Missing patches on the endpoint increase the risk
According to the study, there are an average of 600 endpoints in the companies of the more than 135.000 IT and security specialists surveyed. Despite an annual budget of more than $4,25 million to protect these devices, 48 percent are at increased risk because IT departments can no longer reach the systems or the operating systems are outdated. In addition, 63 percent of those surveyed consider the lack of visibility of the end devices to be the biggest hurdle in the effort to create the highest possible level of security.
Further results of the study
- Unraveling centralized infrastructures: IT departments need an enormous number of distribution points to manage the endpoints that have been widely distributed since the beginning of the corona pandemic and to provide content such as software, updates and guidelines. 61 percent of those surveyed state that the number of their distribution points has increased in the past two years. In addition, there are now seven agents for remote management on an average endpoint, which makes managing the devices even more complex.
- Updates cause the most difficulties: For 62 percent of those surveyed, the biggest challenge is reliably distributing new versions of operating systems and applications to all endpoints. Patches and security updates cause problems for 59 percent of the respondents, and 50 percent struggle with network settings and connection problems.
- Lack of resources: 66 percent of respondents believe their organization lacks the resources to mitigate endpoint risk. Accordingly, they state that they could only stop 52 percent of attacks with the technologies currently in use and the current expertise.
"The world has changed at an unprecedented pace over the past two years, and yet there hasn't been any significant innovation in endpoint management for a decade since the advent of cloud computing," said Deepak Kumar, Adaptiva founder and CEO . “Unfortunately, most organizations struggle with endpoint management tools that aren't built for today's distributed, decentralized, and digital world. IT departments need tools that give them a complete overview of their endpoints and provide them with continuous and real-time updates - this is the only way to keep the devices healthy and secure. This cannot be achieved with the current leading endpoint management solutions, which still rely on bloated centralized infrastructures in the cloud and on-premises.”
Attacks are increasing in severity
As cyberattacks increase in number and severity, organizations are under increasing pressure to implement effective endpoint management solutions. 54 percent of those surveyed had experienced an average of five attacks in the past year, which cost a total of $1,8 million. The far-reaching impact of system failures and other IT disruptions on employee productivity is a key contributor to these high costs.
Fortunately, there are now ways for companies to continuously monitor their endpoints and fix problems automatically - without having to operate extensive infrastructures for this. In this way, IT departments save on their budgets, save on many repetitive activities and can reliably protect the devices at the edge of their network.
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About Adaptiva
Adaptiva provides serverless endpoint management that eliminates the need for extensive IT infrastructure. The system monitors itself by automating previously manual tasks. Leveraging innovative peer-to-peer protocols, the Adaptiva Edge Platform utilizes the excess capacity of devices already on the network - in the office or when working from home.