Threat management across your organization’s network has evolved considerably over the past few years. We have a plethora of smart tools designed to improve endpoint visibility and management, patching efficacy, vulnerability management, and much more.
Every device accessing the network can increase an organization’s attack surface. Because of this, significant steps are required to ensure that the attack surface remains as small as possible. What are the weaknesses, and what are the current solutions? How can an IT team in 2025 find an automated solution to assessing risks, uncovering exploits, and delivering mitigation?
And where does NinjaOne Endpoint Management fit into this?
The risks to your business network
Business networks are the perennial golden goose for bad actors, representing both a big payday and a notable scalp. Black hat hackers, criminal networks with automated tools, and digital scammers working to order have a wealth of targets to choose from, soft and digital.
Make no mistake, cyberattacks are becoming increasingly smarter, more common, indiscriminate, more sophisticated and therefore more complex to defend against.
User policies and training are useful for keeping soft targets – your colleagues – aware of their responsibilities, but user error, device loss, and duping (i.e., phishing attacks leveraging social engineering) all present significant risks.
Whether a fire-and-forget solution or an aspect of a targeted attack, digital (hard) targets might be considered victimless by attackers, but the financial risks are considerable.
The results of data breaches can be sold to the highest bidder, particularly if they include sensitive commercial data. Malware is an issue at every level, potentially devastating operating systems and user data, opening backdoors for unauthorized access to local and hard drives, and it is also one of the methods for introducing ransomware into a network.
Vulnerabilities should be patched, of course, and access controls hardened.
Endpoint management solutions can help with all of these risks, particularly with security, privacy, and device management tools.
Reducing the probability of a successful cyberattack with improved oversight of user devices and servers, regardless of operating system, can contribute to minimizing the attack surface.
Where the weaknesses can be exploited
Let’s consider where those risks actually are.
At ground level, companies, organizations, and other bodies are at risk from SMS, email, and social media messages, sometimes targeted, often not. These are invariably phishing attempts (WhatsApp phishing has also been detected in high-sensitivity roles), although spoofing can also be employed to force the installation of malware. There is also the risk posed by a subverted or disgruntled employee.
Every single device contributes to the concept of the attack surface. Current laptops, phones, and servers seem to be the most obvious pieces of hardware, along with various networking devices like switches.
But Internet of Things devices (cameras, security locks, sensors, etc.), networked printers and scanners, and older computers and phones are also part of the attack surface jigsaw. These are the shadow IT devices, which can be complicated with other bespoke setups (perhaps in a design department, or factory floor).
Diverse operating systems can also prove a challenge to managing your organization’s attack surface. While it might seem more straightforward to rely on single desktop operating systems, in practice it is barely less complicated than allowing a full spread of Windows, macOS, and Linux-based platforms once the complexities of hardware procurement and OS licensing are considered.
With Linux being the foundation of many IoT devices and servers, and the battle between iOS and Android ongoing, a diverse fabric of devices represents numerous opportunities for weaknesses to be exploited.
Reducing risk with Endpoint Management
Endpoint management solutions continue to improve, providing the tools you need to create and enforce policies at scale, ensure proper configuration, automate patching, and more for every device in the IT estate – including desktops, laptops, phones, servers, even virtual machines. Remote, automated patching means minimal hands-on attention is required.
IT teams can take advantage of these advanced tools, automating device policy enforcement at scale, collate real-time endpoint inventories, and ensure operating systems and applications alike are effectively patched.
Endpoint security management solutions can offer varying levels of simplicity and complexity, depending on your organization’s requirements. NinjaOne focuses on the core tasks of endpoint management including real-time visibility, hardening, software deployment, patching, backup, remote access, vulnerability mitigation, and more.
NinjaOne’s integrations with leading security solutions such as SentinelOne, CrowdStrike and Bitdefender help to strengthen overall security posture for the organization.
What that gives your organization is an exceptional user experience without sacrificing security.
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