Today, up to 90% of cyberattacks originate from endpoints like mobile devices, laptops, or desktops, which means every device we use is a potential cybersecurity risk. A single security misstep, unknown vulnerability, or lost device can result in terabytes of sensitive information gone in an instant.
With IT environments now more complex and distributed than ever, endpoint security management is essential to safeguarding sensitive data, enforcing security policies, and maintaining business continuity.
Implementing the right endpoint security management practices and technologies can help your IT team stay ahead of threats, respond to incidents quickly, and maintain compliance. This guide outlines ten critical strategies to help you proactively mitigate risk, close security gaps, and keep your data protected.
Key takeaways
- With endpoints serving as the front line of most cyberattacks, gaining full visibility into every connected device is the first step in building a secure environment.
- Modern endpoint security management requires strict access control policies, including least privilege and multi-factor authentication, to reduce exposure from compromised credentials or unauthorized devices.
- Unpatched vulnerabilities remain a major risk factor. Automating software updates across operating systems and third-party apps reduces time for remediation and lowers the likelihood of successful exploits.
- Backup and encryption strategies play a critical role in endpoint resilience. Regular, encrypted backups protect sensitive data against ransomware, device loss, or tampering, keeping business operations running even during incidents.
- Because human error still drives the majority of breaches, regular employee training is essential to reduce risk across the organization.
- Bringing these strategies together under a unified RMM platform allows teams to monitor, enforce, and remediate threats across every endpoint from a centralized interface, improving security while reducing workload.
What is endpoint security management?
Endpoint security management involves overseeing and protecting every device (laptop, phone, server, IoT tools) connected to your organization’s network. The goal is to ensure that every endpoint is verified, compliant, and safe, minimizing the risk of data leakage or loss in the case of a security breach.
Essentially, endpoint security management combines the principles of endpoint management vs endpoint security, with the overarching goal of maintaining, configuring, and monitoring devices to ensure compliance and protect said devices from cyberthreats.
Today’s IT environments include laptops, mobile devices, IoT endpoints, and remote workstations, often outside the secured network perimeter. As the attack surface for malicious activity increases, so do the blind spots and policy gaps. This has created a growing need for IT teams to adopt more advanced endpoint security management processes and technologies to help detect suspicious activity and prevent breaches.
Endpoint security and management policies
Endpoint security management policies govern how employees and their devices will interact with the organization’s network and data. These policies create a web of protection over the most popular endpoints for cybercriminals. They also set expectations across the organization for what is acceptable and unacceptable use of remote devices, ensuring a uniform cybersecurity posture.
Some higher-level, administrative examples include:
- Bring your own device (BYOD): Create clear BYOD policies that detail how personal devices are accessed, which apps and data are monitored, and how policies will be enforced.
- Zero trust: Verify every user and device. Ensure only authorized entities have access to apps or data.
- Least privilege: Only allowing employees enough data and network access to perform the necessary tasks associated with their role.
More granular practices might be:
- Implementing strong passwords and frequent password changes.
- Blocking unauthorized websites or applications on employee devices.
- Relying on higher-level encryption configurations for sensitive data.
Common endpoint security challenges
New storage methods, cloud-based computing, work-from-home culture, and evolving cybersecurity threats all play a part in creating the level of data risk we see today. To help narrow things down, here are some primary endpoint security challenges to focus on.
Delayed patches
Software without the latest updates can be a cybercriminal's easiest access point into an organization. This threat becomes even worse in a BYOD environment. Your organization’s endpoints become your employees’ personal devices, creating a whole new set of BYOD security risks and entry points for malicious actors.
Implementing patch management software can automate patching across an organization’s decentralized network can help stop attackers from exploiting known vulnerabilities.
Limited device visibility
Employees work across various locations and devices, and the diversity of potential connection points alone is enough to obscure visibility. However, endpoint security gets even murkier when you pair traditional local network infrastructure access with cloud-based applications, and the continual growth of decentralized data storage. IT teams often deploy multiple solutions to help with clarity here, no matter where a device or data lives. Solutions that provide vulnerability scanning, remote control, asset management, data protection (BCDR/cloud backup) and security tools like security information and event management (SIEM) and managed detection and response (MDR) solutions help to mitigate this threat cost-efficiently, even with multiple platforms to manage.
Advanced persistent threats (APTs)
These are planned, multi-stage attacks that are more persistent threats over a long period of time. Cybercriminals will focus on a specific entry point to gain unauthorized access to your organization’s network. Once inside, they can stay longer (dwell time) and wreak havoc with data and operations leading to significant reputational damage and financial loss.
APTs typically occur in four stages: intelligence gathering, initial attack, foothold, and data exfiltration. Protection policies like deploying SIEM and MDR along with a strong RMM framework increase device and threat visibility which are great tactics to combat ATP threats, especially in the early stages.
Shadow IT
Shadow IT occurs when an unauthorized device or application is used within an organization’s infrastructure. Examples include employees using their own personal devices (as in a BYOD environment) and unapproved local or SaaS applications.
Often, employees will deploy productivity and communication apps which violate your company’s overarching cybersecurity policies. This becomes dangerous because unapproved applications may have the ability to leak information and could be malicious by nature along with the risk of having unpatched vulnerabilities. An RMM tool can help discover newly installed applications and solutions such as SIEM, MDR, and web filtering can help stop unauthorized use of cloud based, or cloud connected applications.
10 endpoint security management strategies
Strong endpoint security takes more than patched devices and responses to alerts. It is important to bring every endpoint into view and stay ahead of attackers with proactive defense. The 10 strategies below give your team a focused framework to strengthen endpoint management security.
1. Conduct an endpoint inventory
A detailed inventory of every device, including type, OS version, location, and ownership status, makes for easier device management and faster identification of unauthorized devices. Advanced endpoint security tools help by combining detection methods such as:
- Network traffic analysis to identify devices based on communication patterns.
- Agent-based reporting to capture detailed configuration and usage data.
- Certificate monitoring to detect devices using corporate credentials.
- Centralized dashboards in endpoint management software make spotting unauthorized devices and tracking compliance easier.
2. Evaluate access control
Data from Verizon's 2025 Data Breach Investigations Report shows that the human element was involved in roughly 60% of breaches. Enforcing least privilege access limits a user’s permissions to only what’s essential for their specific role, safeguarding data that is not relevant to them and minimizing the risk of accidental data leakage. Solutions like privileged access management (PAM) software can help IT regulate user access management and reinforce a zero-trust framework.
3. Run a vulnerability assessment
Vulnerability assessments systematically scan connected devices for weaknesses that attackers can exploit. With the number of endpoints growing, it's critical to find and fix these gaps before they’re targeted.
While not a replacement for a vulnerability management process, EDR tools can help catch active threats, spot unusual behavior, and identify compromised accounts in real time. By leveraging a ‘stack’ policy that includes both vulnerability assessments and endpoint security, these two tools can reduce the risk of zero-day vulnerabilities, giving IT teams a chance to stop attacks and remediate, before they cause significant damage.
4. Keep software patches and updates current
Unpatched software is a common entry point for attackers. Verizon’s report shows that half of the exploited vulnerabilities were patchable for over 55 days before being used in an attack. But not all patches carry equal risk. Risk-based patching prioritizes updates based on threat intelligence and vulnerability scoring rather than chronological release dates.
Remote monitoring and management (RMM) tools can be used to streamline patch management via automation and intelligent alerts. Deploying patches via RMM software help ensure consistency and control across operating systems and third-party applications.
5. Leverage encryption
Encryption can protect information when a device is lost or stolen. For endpoints, this means full-disk encryption for data at rest. In addition, encrypted VPN and secure access service edge (SASE) can help protect data in transit.
At scale, these controls can’t be left to manual configuration. Endpoint security tools can automatically apply drive-level encryption policies across all devices, verify compliance, and flag any endpoints without approved encryption. This ensures that every device meets the same baseline security standard.
6. Data backup
Data backup is often seen as a recovery measure, but it also plays a direct role in endpoint security management. If a laptop is lost, a mobile device is compromised, or ransomware locks down a system, a reliable backup can support business continuity by preventing data loss and reducing downtime.
Data backup is a critical piece of an organization’s business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) strategy. Some data backup best practices include:
- Ensure all endpoint data is included in regular backup routines, especially from remote or mobile users.
- Encrypt backups both during transfer and in storage to protect them from interception or unauthorized access.
- Regularly test your backup and recovery processes to confirm they work when needed.
When integrated with your broader endpoint management tools, backups add a layer of resilience that protects against data loss from both cyber threats and operational failures.
7. Establish a zero-trust network
Adopt a "trust but verify" mindset, where no user or device is trusted by default. Every user will need to verify every access request. Modern zero-trust implementations use machine learning to establish standard endpoint and user behavior baseline patterns, and any deviation from this baseline is automatically flagged for investigation. This approach transforms security from a reactive response to one that proactively prevents threats.
8. Appoint teams for endpoint security
It is not just the tech or IT team’s job to handle endpoint security. Proper endpoint security and management involves everyone in the organization.
If you haven’t already, consider assembling an endpoint security task force. This team ideally comprises of members from every department. HR, marketing, finance, and operations are all key business units and need to understand endpoint security just as much as your core IT team.
This team’s mission is to take endpoint security from policies on paper into everyday operation. This is accomplished through practices like:
- Running simulated phishing campaigns
- Holding targeted security briefings for high-risk roles
- Distributing timely threat alerts
- Working with IT to keep access controls and procedures up to date
The end goal is to make secure behavior second nature across every department.
9. Use multi‑factor authentication (MFA)
Modern MFA goes beyond basic SMS codes, as some MFA solutions are now capable of matching the authentication method to the level of perceived risk. For example, app-based codes or push notifications may suffice for low-risk accounts, where security must be balanced with convenience. Stronger authentication methods, like biometrics or hardware tokens, may be for accounts requiring access for user accounts requiring access to more sensitive or highly confidential data.
10. Train your team often
Regardless of job function or seniority, all employees share some accountability in an organization’s endpoint security management. Providing ongoing security education can help employees stay on top of practices like secure device handling and BYOD policies, while simulated training can provide hands-on experience with threats such as phishing attacks.
Software solutions to support endpoint security management
Manual processes, disjoined operations, and fragmented tools create network blind spots that can become low-hanging fruit for attackers to exploit. Managing and securing endpoints at scale requires a unified strategy that encompasses proactive monitoring, threat detection, and data protection in a centralized management pane.
ConnectWise’s endpoint management solutions provide IT teams with visibility across the entire network, enabling real-time visibility, automated issue remediation, and instant access from a single, scalable platform.
- ConnectWise RMM provides centralized control across endpoints, with robust features including automated patch management, remote support, and network monitoring and management.
- ConnectWise MDR delivers advanced threat detection, 24/7 monitoring, and expert-led incident response to help identify and contain attacks before they escalate.
- BCDR solutions ensures data can be recovered and restored quickly in the case of a security incident, reducing downtime and revenue loss.
Together, these solutions deliver a fully integrated approach to endpoint security management, helping IT reduce risk, improve operational efficiency, and maintain compliance. Start your free trial of ConnectWise RMM today to see our endpoint management software in action.
