It\u2019s every working parent\u2019s nightmare. You\u2019re in a busy airport with your company laptop and a child who desperately needs a snack. You turn your head for just a minute to dig for a snack, but when you turn back, your laptop bag is gone.<\/p>\n
Luckily, you remember your recent cybersecurity training and call your company\u2019s service desk immediately. As soon as the service desk verifies your identity, they wipe all of your company\u2019s valuable information from every app on the device.<\/p>\n
You avoided this potential tragedy because your organization\u2019s Zero-Trust Security framework<\/a> has begun protecting endpoints, as well as online identities.<\/p>\n In a previous blog<\/a> in this series, I described how tools such as multifactor identification (MFA) protect online identities by adding an additional layer of security to your traditional username and password. Protecting endpoints \u2014 whether your desktop PC, Mac, smartphone, laptop or tablet, for example \u2014 means using tools like patches, updated antivirus software and group policies to safeguard every place you send or receive digital data.<\/strong><\/p>\n Historically, organizations secured endpoints by choosing vendors and installing their software on server infrastructure within the organization\u2019s data center. Back then, employees did not need to access company resources outside of that network. But today, vendor applications have moved outside of these \u201csafe\u201d organizational environments to all those remote endpoints.<\/p>\n The Software as a Service (SaaS) model smoothed the transition by making it easier to update vendor software. But with today\u2019s much greater need to access work data online \u2014 and the staggering growth in apps employees can easily access \u2014 organizations need to step up their endpoint security game.<\/p>\n The problem now is that you need to check every endpoint used by every employee, even if your organization has thousands, tens of thousands or more employees around the world. How can you do that? That\u2019s where endpoint protection tools such as Microsoft Intune<\/a> come in.<\/strong><\/p>\n Microsoft Intune is an endpoint management tool that checks each endpoint against an organization\u2019s list of approved apps, security policies and more automatically.<\/strong> Its goal is to determine if each endpoint is compliant with every factor on the list. Company policies guide those factors.<\/p>\n For example, Intune can be configured to verify if a device is encrypted with a tool like Bitlocker, that it meets minimum operating system requirements, that all passwords are sufficiently complex and recently changed, and that the user installed all required firewall, antivirus and antimalware software.<\/p>\n In other words, Intune can automate the process of identifying endpoints that are not compliant with your company\u2019s policies and notifying their owners what actions to take. Once owners have made the modifications, Intune can again automatically notify owners, mark the endpoints compliant and return them to service.<\/p>\n The result: secure endpoints that allow today\u2019s employees to work safely on any device wherever they go.<\/strong><\/p>\n In addition, Intune can do things like preventing endpoint users from copying and pasting information from company apps to personal apps installed on the endpoint. This feature allows businesses to stop buying company cell phones. Instead, Intune secures company apps on personal endpoints through policy metrics. If the employee\u2019s personal endpoint doesn\u2019t have the latest manufacturing security updates on the endpoint, Intune prevents them from installing or using company apps and data on their device.<\/p>\n Intune is included in most Microsoft licensing agreements, and you can use it on Microsoft<\/a>, Mac, Linux, iOS and Android platforms.<\/p>\n Endpoint management software is another important tool in the cybersecurity arsenal. In my next blog, I\u2019ll look at application security, which you use in conjunction with endpoint and identity security to powerfully protect your organization.<\/strong><\/p>\nWhat is Endpoint Protection?<\/h2>\n
How Intune Protects You<\/h2>\n
Conclusion<\/h2>\n