What Is Endpoint Management? New Solutions and Practices

UPDATE: Originally published on November 18, 2020, this post has been updated to reflect the most recent information about endpoint management and its role in helping organizations address today’s threat landscape.

Endpoint management involves discovering, monitoring, configuring, and securing endpoint devices, such as computers, servers, and devices that connect to corporate or institutional networks.

Endpoint management helps organizations protect their data, infrastructure, assets, and users from cyberattacks while ensuring optimal endpoint performance and compliance with industry regulations by managing access rights, security policies, and vulnerabilities in a central solution.

In this blog post, we’ll define endpoint management and the benefits these solutions must provide. We’ll also discuss how endpoint management solutions have evolved over the years to address new and growing business challenges and explore the central components to look for in an effective endpoint management solution, including emerging advancements to keep organizations ahead of future threats.

• What is endpoint management?
• Benefits of endpoint management
• The evolution of endpoint management solutions
• Key components of effective endpoint management solutions
• The future of endpoint management
• Revolutionizing modern endpoint management through smart automation

What is endpoint management?

Endpoint management is the process of maintaining all devices that connect to a network, such as PCs, laptops, smartphones, tablets, and servers, as well as cloud-based and other on-premises devices that store corporate data. It is typically the responsibility of an organization’s IT department, but these device insights and management capabilities help inform many stakeholders, including security, SecOps, helpdesk, and compliance teams.

[Read also: What are endpoint devices? Examples and top security risks]

A primary goal of endpoint management is to provide real-time visibility into the status and health of all endpoint devices. This visibility allows IT teams to make informed decisions and quickly address any issues, vulnerabilities, or misconfigurations that may arise. For example, if a device is found to be non-compliant with security policies, endpoint management tools can automatically remediate the issue to ensure compliance and minimize risk.

As more organizations adopt remote work models and cyber threats expand, endpoint management has become a crucial aspect of their cybersecurity strategy to minimize risk and improve their defense. By providing visibility throughout a device’s lifecycle, endpoint management helps configure, patch, and monitor endpoints, providing data to help organizations identify and repel cyberattacks.

However, effective endpoint management isn’t just about security and compliance; it’s also closely linked to better business performance. Let’s explore how the benefits of endpoint management can positively impact your organization in unexpected ways.

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Benefits of endpoint management

Organizations can reap many benefits beyond mere device oversight by implementing effective endpoint management:

• Break organizational silos: When properly implemented, endpoint management can help break down organizational silos by providing a unified platform for IT operations, security, and compliance teams. This centralized approach ensures that all teams can access the same real-time data, enabling better collaboration and decision-making.
  
  Integrating various capabilities into a single platform eliminates the need for multiple-point solutions and reduces data fragmentation. This unified view allows teams to work together more effectively, share insights, and address issues promptly, ultimately leading to a more cohesive and efficient organization.
• Cost savings: Effective endpoint management can save costs in several ways, including reducing the need for multiple tools. Providing an accurate picture of devices employees can also help organizations avoid overpaying for software licenses and maintaining server capacity for invisible devices connecting to and potentially putting your environment at risk. Additionally, organizations can avoid the financial impact of security breaches and compliance violations by improving endpoint security.
  
  Endpoint management can also improve efficiency and costs by automating routine tasks. From ensuring proper Wi-Fi and VPN configurations to remotely provisioning new devices, reducing IT staff’s workload ensures teams better utilize their capacity on other, more complex efforts and minimizes the need for additional personnel.
• Enhance employee experience: A poorly configured laptop or tool often affects user experience by performing slowly or not providing the access employees need to do their jobs. That means more time calling and staffing help desks to solve problems that could have been dealt with automatically.
  
  Effective endpoint management eliminates these problems by allowing IT teams to proactively update endpoints with the latest releases to ensure performance and compliance with security and access policies, helping eliminate future issues.

But what about remote workers with devices that connect to corporate networks from other locations?

The process of measuring and improving how employees interact with endpoints, including business applications and the tools that run on them, is known as the digital employee experience.

From remote to in-office locations, improving digital employee experiences for any employee who connects to or uses endpoints that access corporate networks is critical to ensuring employee productivity and satisfaction with your organization.

• Ensure compliance: Effective endpoint management is crucial in supporting an organization’s ability to ensure compliance by providing comprehensive visibility and control over all endpoint devices.
  
  An endpoint management solution ensures that all endpoints adhere to organizational policies and security benchmarks by offering remote management capabilities and real-time monitoring. Continuous compliance is maintained through instant reporting and remediation of any compliance drifts, reducing security risks and potential fines.
• Improve IT hygiene: Cyber hygiene best practices can range from organizations enabling multi-factor authentication (MFA) to updating and patching systems.
  
  However, good cyber hygiene goes beyond security-specific operations.
  
  Endpoint management helps ensure that a device’s operating system is up-to-date and that end users aren’t running old, slow, or less functional versions of applications. Endpoint management provides the control, visibility, and management capabilities that IT needs to ensure a well-protected environment.
• Increase endpoint security: Effective endpoint management bolsters security and protection by identifying and properly managing all devices, reducing the risk of security breaches by monitoring their status and remediating vulnerabilities.
  
  Improving policy and patch management is essential to endpoint protection. This ensures that access and security policies are enforced on every endpoint and that all endpoints receive the software patches they need within a prescribed period to bolster their cyber defense.
• Speed threat response: While patching and enforcing security policies in real time can help prevent many hackers from exploiting weaknesses, when an attack does occur, an endpoint management solution must also support your ability to respond quickly to security incidents to minimize damage.
  
  When threats are identified, endpoint management allows teams to isolate endpoints that may have been infected with malware or otherwise compromised quickly to contain the risk and prevent lateral movement.
• Streamline operational efficiency: With tens or hundreds of thousands of devices running tens or hundreds of thousands of apps, IT teams can’t possibly configure and manage all these endpoints manually. Instead, they need a way of managing endpoints quickly and efficiently.

[Read also: What is endpoint security? Benefits, types, and best practices]

An endpoint management system should make it easy to deploy software on endpoints, update it quickly and reliably when new updates become available, and track devices for the entire lifespan of the device regardless of operating system. It should be able to perform these operations at scale without interfering with other network traffic.

You can’t secure what you can’t see. By providing complete visibility and control over devices, an endpoint management solution enables organizations to find all endpoints on the corporate network, know their configurations and associated risks, and support more effective threat hunting and identification.

Understanding what endpoint management entails is crucial, but it’s even more vital to recognize that the effectiveness depends on the type of solution an organization uses. The right endpoint management solution can significantly enhance security, streamline operations, and reduce costs. However, not all solutions are created equally, and the evolution of these tools has been driven by the need to address the shortcomings of their predecessors.

In the following section, we’ll guide you through the timeline of popular endpoint management solutions. We’ll explore how each has attempted to solve the pain points created by earlier technologies and the changing threat landscape. This overview will provide valuable insights into the advancements in endpoint management to help you make informed decisions for your organization regarding what needs your solution must be able to address.

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The evolution of endpoint management solutions

Over the past few decades, companies have invested in multiple systems to manage new generations of endpoint devices and combat changing cyber threats.

We’ll outline some of the most pivotal endpoint management solutions that have come onto the market and how each has attempted to address these specific challenges. You’ll see how our understanding of what effective endpoint management solutions must deliver has significantly changed and why.

In chronological order, the following systems have helped shape what endpoint management is today:

• Mobile device management (MDM) became popular in the late 2000s, allowing companies to create secure partitions on millions of employee-owned smartphones coming onto the network with the rise of Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) and other personal device policies.
  
  MDM software was developed to provide centralized control over mobile devices, allowing IT departments to enforce security policies, manage applications, and ensure compliance with corporate standards.
  
  However, while MDM can manage some endpoints, more is needed to provide the full extent of management capabilities organizations need from an endpoint management solution.
• Enterprise mobility management (EMM) was the answer to that pain point, adding the ability to track the hardware, apps, and data people use on mobile devices. EMM encompasses a broader range of management capabilities than MDM.
  
  For example, in addition to managing mobile devices, EMM also includes the ability to manage applications, content, and security across laptops, desktops, and tablets.
  
  Unfortunately, organizations were left looking for additional solutions to manage traditional endpoints, such as printers, servers, and Internet of Things (IoT) devices, that MDM or EMM cannot manage.
• Unified endpoint management (UEM) sought to address the need to integrate MDM and EMM functionalities into one view by providing a unified approach to managing and securing endpoints.
  
  While UEM allows organizations to gain visibility and control, it doesn’t offer the threat detection and response capabilities teams need to secure endpoints effectively.
• Endpoint detection and response (EDR) gained popularity around the same time as UEM as a solution to fill in threat detection and response gaps. It also addressed a security gap caused by traditional antivirus solutions, which could no longer keep up with sophisticated cyber threats.
  
  Termed by Gartner in 2013, EDR systems provide real-time detection, investigation, and response to threats on endpoints like computers and mobile devices. They use advanced analytics to spot suspicious behavior and help organizations quickly address security incidents, reducing the risk of data breaches.
  
  While EDR systems are designed to detect many attack scenarios, they cannot detect all threats. Skilled attackers who understand an EDR tool’s detection capabilities can sometimes bypass these defenses, even if only temporarily.
  
  If something slips past the EDR, it can’t provide comprehensive visibility or swift remediation, leaving organizations questioning how long it will take to identify the attack, understand its impact, and stop it.

[Read also: Three common misconceptions about EDR software and how Tanium can help]

• Extended detection and response (XDR) was the answer to achieving a broader view across the IT infrastructure, enabling organizations to detect threats more easily.
  
  With XDR, organizations could finally integrate data from multiple security layers, such as endpoints, networks, servers, and cloud environments, and stitch together more comprehensive visibility.
  
  However, this solution still needs more core functionality for quick identification, prioritization, and remediation efforts.
• Converged endpoint management (XEM) is the latest in endpoint management solutions. Unlike traditional solutions that rely on multiple vendor agents to combine management functionality and device insights, which leads to high complexity and costs, XEM successfully consolidates data and actions into a single pane of glass and platform.
  
  By unifying real-time device insights and providing the capabilities needed to achieve quick remediation and proactive efforts to improve defenses before issues occur, XEM allows organizations to make faster, more informed decisions that enhance overall security and operational efficiency.
  
  This approach also eliminates blind spots caused by missing endpoints and reduces barriers to collaboration between teams like IT management, security operations, and other key business stakeholders.

In this video, learn how Tanium XEM, a unified platform, offers real-time data to empower IT and security teams.

Now that you understand how endpoint management solutions have evolved from basic device management to comprehensive, integrated platforms to adapt to changing technology and security needs, we’ll delve into the features to look for in an endpoint management solution, including the necessary capabilities and future functionality required in modern solutions as threats evolve.

[Read also: Views from the C-suite: Why endpoint management is more critical than ever before eBook]

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Key components of effective endpoint management solutions

In today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, effective endpoint management solutions are essential for maintaining the security and efficiency of an organization’s IT infrastructure.

This section will review the key components of a robust endpoint management strategy, including finding all devices (asset discovery), quickly dealing with security threats (incident response), tracking all assets (inventory management), keeping systems updated (patch management), making sure rules are followed (policy enforcement), identifying and fixing vulnerabilities (risk management), and enhancing the overall functionality and interoperability of the endpoint management solution (third-party system integrations).

Let’s learn how each component is vital in safeguarding the organization’s digital assets and ensuring seamless operations.

Asset discovery

Effective endpoint management begins with discovering all the endpoints on an organization’s network or accessing its servers or data. However, endpoints constantly change: Devices join the network, then leave it. New software is installed. Old applications might be deleted. Permissions might change on endpoints or the servers and applications those endpoints are accessing to prevent unauthorized access. The sheer magnitude of these numbers makes scalability a requirement for any endpoint management system.

To combat this, an endpoint management system must be able to perform a comprehensive discovery process, regardless of device type and operating system, to ensure no device is overlooked — which is critical for maintaining a secure network.

Incident response

An endpoint management system must monitor and manage all the endpoints accessing a corporate network so organizations can effectively secure these devices using the latest endpoint data about the status and risk level.

When responding to security threats, teams can do so more effectively because they will work with real-time information, not stale data collected only periodically, which could be weeks or months earlier.

Inventory management

Once all endpoints are identified through asset discovery, an endpoint management system must be able to build an inventory of all these endpoints to begin collecting real-time data.

This inventory of software components — called a software bill of materials (SBOM) — includes a list of the applications an endpoint is running and the version levels of the components, such as software libraries, that make up those applications.

The resulting asset inventory should record each endpoint’s hardware configuration, its operating system, and the version level and patch status of all its software components so organizations can quickly discover which endpoints are running which applications or which have certain components, such as a specific type of printer driver, that has a security vulnerability.

Patch management

Patch management requires tracking all endpoints’ software and hardware configurations to enable organizations to install patches as quickly as possible when new software updates become available before attackers can take advantage of any vulnerabilities in older or outdated systems. The solution should also perform these operations reliably and report on their completion accurately.

While monitoring and patching endpoints might sound straightforward, many traditional endpoint management tools take days, weeks, or even months to collect information about endpoints and their configurations. By then, the data is stale and can no longer serve as a viable source of truth, leaving organizations questioning whether other endpoints have been infected with malware, if employees have installed new software, or if any new endpoints have gained network access.

This lack of real-time visibility halts efforts to effectively manage endpoints by keeping them patched, performing as expected, and proactively resilient against potentially devastating issues.

Policy enforcement

Managing compliance involves identifying compliance gaps across all endpoints in minutes rather than days or weeks. This rapid assessment allows organizations to address issues that could compromise security or violate regulatory requirements.

Endpoint management helps IT organizations ensure that security policies related to hardware, software, and access control privileges are always enforced on all endpoints. By monitoring every device in a single view to ensure compliance with industry regulations and company policies, organizations can remediate problems and perform routine tasks more easily.

To assist with these efforts, modern endpoint management solutions must offer features such as patching, deploying updates, and enforcing policy controls in minutes without pivoting between different tools to reduce the complexity and time required to maintain a secure and compliant IT environment.

Learn how Tanium supports Zero-Trust architecture

Risk management

Risk management prioritizes remediation by evaluating the potential impact of a vulnerability or compliance gap in the environment, whether it involves lateral movement or sensitive data exposure. This helps organizations focus on the most critical issues first.

Effective risk management helps organizations maintain a secure and resilient IT environment, reducing the likelihood of cyberattacks and minimizing the impact of any security incidents. This proactive approach enhances security, improves operational efficiency, and builds stakeholder trust.

Third-party integrations

A core component of modern endpoint management solutions is providing comprehensive visibility, control, and security using native connections that integrate with other IT management and security tools.

Examples of meaningful systems an endpoint management solution should integrate with to strengthen their combined insights include:

• EMM and MDM solutions: An endpoint management solution capable of providing real-time endpoint data can extend the reach of device discovery and improve monitoring efforts of EMM and MDM solutions like Microsoft Intune, helping ensure necessary security and IT operations checks are installed and properly configured.
• Identity and access management (IAM) tools: Reliable data from an endpoint management solution with real-time information about endpoints accessing the network can provide accurate device details to IAM solutions, which can help organizations verify identities, manage permissions, detect unauthorized access, and enforce security policies effectively.
• Security Incident and Event Management (SIEM) systems: An endpoint management solution that provides real-time performance can funnel insights into SIEM systems, such as ServiceNow, to ensure accurate endpoint data in their Configuration Management Databases (CMDBs). Up-to-date device data in CMDBs can allow organizations to make better decisions, improve processes, and reduce risks.
• Threat intelligence feeds: Organizations who combine endpoint management with threat intelligence can better assess endpoint vulnerabilities based on the latest information about attackers and forms of attack.
• Ticketing systems: When alerted about suspicious activity, ticketing systems can take advantage of all the capabilities of an endpoint management system with real-time device data to streamline operations, improve efficiency, and quickly identify and resolve issues through supporting automation workflows.

Learn about getting more out of your existing technology investments with Tanium partners

It’s clear that these elements are fundamental to how endpoint management helps organizations maintain a secure and efficient IT infrastructure. However, as technology evolves, so must our approach to endpoint management, including improving how organizations can proactively address potential issues and optimize their resources to improve their security resilience.

In the next section, we’ll explore what transformations are on the horizon for next-generation endpoint management solutions to support these efforts.

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The future of endpoint management

What lies ahead for endpoints can be summed up with one word: more. As device types become more varied and numerous, and cyber threats become stealthier and more adaptive, endpoint management systems will need to evolve to become more effective and comprehensive than they have ever been.

To address these needs, endpoint management systems must evolve to automate critical tasks, including automatically installing patches on endpoints as soon as new software updates become available and minimizing human error.

How will modern endpoint management systems achieve this? If forced to evolve using only technology available three or four years ago, endpoint management solutions would face significant challenges. Fortunately, they can now take advantage of a technology sweeping through and improving many areas of enterprise IT: artificial intelligence (AI).

AI is set to play an increasingly important role in endpoint management, such as analyzing endpoint telemetry data, detecting anomalies and vulnerabilities, and executing scripts or playbooks to remediate security threats faster than human operators.

When endpoint management is fast, thorough, and accurate, it improves operational efficiency for employees and the IT teams responsible for managing endpoints. These AI capabilities will make endpoint management more comprehensive and effective by making it more autonomous and capable of running many operations without supervision, freeing security analysts and IT managers to focus only on the tasks and situations that require human analysis and intervention.

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Revolutionizing modern endpoint management through smart automation

Autonomous endpoint management (AEM) is an emerging AI-based security automation framework that promises to be the next big data transformation for the digital workplace.

Tanium is at the forefront of this technology, delivering the industry’s only real-time cloud-based endpoint management and security offering. To ensure organizations remain resilient, secure, and efficient, Tanium’s Converged Endpoint Management (XEM) platform seeks to continually improve its capabilities, including introducing AEM features.

These capabilities will leverage the power of composite AI to process millions of actions, billions of real-time data points, and trillions of signals weekly across millions of endpoints to provide high-confidence recommendations and automation tailored to individual organizations.

This will allow organizations to optimize and secure their environments in previously impossible ways and is essential for addressing today’s endpoint management needs.
 

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