How can you comprehensively monitor and analyze endpoint security?

1 Define your endpoint security objectives

Before you begin monitoring and analyzing your endpoint security, it is important to have a clear vision of your desired outcomes and how you will measure them. Align your endpoint security objectives with your business goals and risk appetite, such as preventing malware infections and data breaches, detecting and responding to suspicious or anomalous events, ensuring compliance with security policies and regulations, and optimizing endpoint performance and availability. Additionally, define specific metrics and indicators to track your progress and effectiveness.

2 Choose your endpoint security tools

To monitor and analyze your endpoint security, you need to use tools that can collect, process, and visualize data from your endpoints. Depending on your needs and budget, you can choose from different types of tools, such as Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR), Endpoint Management, and Endpoint Performance Monitoring (EPM). EDR tools provide continuous monitoring and analysis of endpoint activity, behavior, and threats, enabling automated or manual response actions. Endpoint management tools help you manage and configure your endpoints, such as installing patches or enforcing policies. EPM tools measure and optimize your endpoint performance, such as CPU, memory, disk, or network usage. When evaluating your endpoint security tools, consider their features, compatibility, scalability, cost, and integration with your existing security infrastructure and processes.

3 Establish your endpoint security baseline

In order to effectively monitor and analyze your endpoint security, it is essential to have a baseline of what is normal and expected for your endpoints. This reference point allows you to compare and contrast your current endpoint state with your desired endpoint state. The baseline should include information such as the number, type, location, and status of your endpoints; the settings, policies, and preferences of your endpoints; the processes, applications, and users of your endpoints; as well as the metrics and indicators of your endpoint health and efficiency. Establishing this baseline should be done using historical data from your endpoint security tools, and it should be updated regularly to reflect any changes or trends.

4 Monitor your endpoint security events

To ensure your endpoint security, it is essential to collect and analyze data from your endpoint security events. An event can be any occurrence or action that affects your endpoint security, for example, alerts from your security tools about potential or actual threats or incidents, confirmed cases of endpoint compromise, changes to your endpoint inventory or configuration, and issues that affect performance or availability. You should monitor these events using dashboards, reports, or notifications from your endpoint security tools and prioritize them based on severity, impact, and urgency.

5 Analyze your endpoint security data

To gain insight and intelligence from your endpoint security data, you should employ techniques and methods of analysis. Endpoint security correlation is the process of finding and linking related events or data points, such as the source, target, and timeline of an attack. Root cause analysis is the identification and understanding of the underlying cause or reason of an endpoint security incident or issue. Trend analysis observes and predicts patterns or changes in endpoint security data over time. Utilizing tools and frameworks that can support your endpoint security objectives and metrics will provide actionable and relevant information.