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Endpoint security: The weakest link

Mike Rothman, Contributor
08.31.2006
Rating: -3.93- (out of 5)

Technology news and tips for midmarket CIOs

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Remember the short-lived game show The Weakest Link? The weakest player was eliminated, much like we see in the real world.

But when you are thinking about security, you really do have to continually find and eliminate the weakest link, because that is the first thing the attackers will go after. If there is one thing that we know about hackers, it's that they don't give up easily. There is too much money at stake, so they are continually searching for the next weak link in the chain. And this time they've found a doozy.

Over the past year or so, we've increasingly seen the endpoints being specifically targeted on the consumer side and the corporate side. Once an endpoint is compromised, the bad guys have free rein on the internal network to steal information, compromise more machines, and/or turn these devices into zombies that are re

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ady-to-launch denial-of-service attacks, send spam and phishing messages.

The endpoint is a juicy target for a few reasons :

So how can a small or medium-size company defend against these increasingly common attacks? Here is a five-point plan to begin addressing the issue:

None of these techniques are overly hard or new. But you need to do them and be consistent about it. There are lots of more advanced techniques that can also make a difference (like network admission/access control, Secure Sockets Layer virtual private networks, strong authentication, etc.), but first things first. There will always be the next weakest link. Make sure your endpoints aren't it.

Mike Rothman is president and principal analyst of Security Incite, an industry analyst firm in Atlanta. Reach him via email at mike.rothman (at) securityincite (dot) com.

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