Today, the cyber world is rampant with hackers, malware and malicious threats, all waiting to pounce on your systems and compromise your security. To keep your digital assets safe, you must deploy robust cyber defenses. This means implementing endpoint security software with an endpoint firewall to monitor, identify and prevent attacks, ensuring your organization’s safety.
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This article covers the following:
- What Is an Endpoint Firewall?
- Importance
- Primary Benefits
- Endpoint Security vs. Firewall
- Cloud Firewall vs. Endpoint Firewall
- Which Firewall To Use?
- FAQs
- Next Steps
What Is an Endpoint Firewall?
An endpoint firewall is a network security application that monitors and controls incoming and outgoing network traffic. It blocks suspicious or malicious traffic to protect against various threats, including malware, unauthorized access attempts and data leaks.
While endpoint firewalls are essential for protecting network traffic against cyber threats, they’re not specifically designed to defend web applications from web-based attacks. This is where a specialized variant of the endpoint firewall, known as the web application firewall (WAF), comes into play. It focuses on identifying web-based attacks like cross-site scripting (XSS) and SQL injections.
You can deploy an endpoint firewall either on the network or directly on individual endpoint devices or host computers.
Firewalls implemented on network hardware are known as network firewalls. They offer cloud-based installation on servers at the network’s perimeter.They can filter traffic from multiple networks, including the World Wide Web and your company’s website.
On the other hand, firewalls connected with your endpoints are host-based firewalls that filter traffic only from and to the devices that they’re installed on. These are connected to your device’s hardware and offer on-premise deployment.
What Is an Endpoint?
An endpoint is any remote computing device connected to an organization’s network. Common examples of endpoints include:
- Mobile phones
- Laptops
- Desktops
- Servers
- Tablets
- Workstations
- Internet of Things (IoT) devices
- Virtual environments
With the popularity of trends like IoT and BYOD, endpoint device adoption has increased worldwide to keep up with the ever-evolving technological landscape. However, these devices are increasingly vulnerable to cyber threats, making it important to implement security solutions and firewalls.
What Is Endpoint Security?
Endpoint security is the process of preventing, detecting and remedying cyber threats that can target your endpoints and steal digital assets from your network.
It protects your remote devices and network from an array of threats, including malware, ransomware, phishing attacks, advanced persistent threats (APTs) and insider threats. Endpoint security allows system administrators to control devices with adjustable policy settings depending on device type, risk level and employee need.
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Importance
Technological advancements have made protecting your digital assets more crucial than ever. To determine the best security for your endpoint devices, it’s important to ask a few key questions: Which solution can provide the best defense for your systems? Is an endpoint firewall sufficient for your needs? What kind of firewall should you use?
While there’s no simple answer to these questions, we suggest using both cloud and endpoint firewalls along with appropriate endpoint detection and response (EDR), endpoint monitoring and other next-generation endpoint security systems to achieve maximum protection. Multiple layers of security can help you prevent DDoS attacks, zero-day attacks and insider threats.
Primary Benefits
Endpoint firewalls are similar to endpoint protection platforms in terms of the security they provide. However, there are some distinct benefits of using an endpoint firewall.
Reduced False Positives
Endpoint firewalls provide sophisticated alert systems to identify potential threats and minimize false positives correctly. This can help mitigate the risk of alert fatigue by reducing the number of irrelevant notifications and allowing security personnel to focus on the most concerning threats.
Advanced Detection
You can gather data from specific applications and the network’s technical environment to identify unusual or malicious incidents. Capabilities like signature-based protection and behavioral analysis help detect advanced persistent threats. With several layered detection features, the firewall also works as an intrusion detection system (IDS).
Effective Blocking
Endpoint firewalls also serve as intrusion prevention systems (IPS) and offer highly effective threat-blocking capabilities to enhance cyber defense. Unlike cloud firewalls, they are connected directly to the website, and attackers cannot bypass them easily.
Enhanced Protection
You can protect your systems round-the-clock, even when the endpoint vendor’s service goes down. If the service outage persists for an extended period, a continuously active firewall ensures your devices aren’t affected.
Detailed Logging
Endpoint firewalls provide detailed information and logs on network traffic and its quality. This data can help you establish a standard behavioral pattern for regular incidents and quickly identify malicious attempts that deviate from it.
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Endpoint Security vs. Firewall
Now let’s look at some differences between endpoint security and endpoint firewall to understand why you need both for all-around protection:
| Endpoint Security | Endpoint Firewall |
|---|---|
| Protects endpoints from various threats and cyber attacks. | Safeguards devices specifically from network-based threats. |
| It can be integrated with other tools to boost efficiency and increase performance. | Usually, it doesn’t integrate with third-party solutions. |
| Managed with a centralized console across all endpoints in your system. | Managed through separate consoles on each device. |
| Machine learning and AI features help detect and prevent unknown threats. | Endpoint firewalls follow a predefined set of rules to identify and block malicious traffic and don’t offer AI and machine learning capabilities. |
| Offers several customizations and updates to keep up with the evolving threat landscape. | Standardized solutions offer fewer or no customizations and updates. |
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Cloud Firewall vs. Endpoint Firewall
A cloud firewall is a server located in a third–party company’s data center. It acts as a shield between visitors and your origin server. Think of it as a gatekeeper that filters people coming to your server. Unlike endpoint firewalls, it operates through a centrally managed console.
View cloud firewall users on a dashboard. Source
Let’s examine some key differences between cloud and endpoint firewalls:
| Cloud Firewall | Endpoint Firewall |
|---|---|
| Located in the cloud (in a remote data center). | Installed on endpoint devices like mobiles and personal computers. |
| Protects network-based applications and the entire network. | Protects individual devices. |
| Capable of handling huge volumes of network traffic and several applications simultaneously. | Not as scalable as cloud firewalls — typically handle less traffic related to a single device. |
| Requires less configuration and is manageable through centralized management. | Managed on an individual-device basis and requires more configuration. |
| Leverages cloud-based threat intelligence and machine learning to scan systems and provide advanced analytics. | Endpoint firewalls can’t scan devices and only protect them by blocking threats in real time. |
| Cloud firewalls run on the open internet, making it easy for attackers to bypass them. | It’s directly connected to the endpoint device or the origin server, so attackers can’t bypass it easily. |
| Since it runs from a third-party data center, data leak concerns are higher. | You can install it directly on your own device, so the risk of data leaks through the firewall is comparatively lesser. |
| Usually, it breaks end-to-end encryption to decrypt website traffic. | Doesn’t break end-to-end encryption. |
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Which Firewall Should You Use?
The answer is simple: both cloud and endpoint firewalls. Each type has its unique strengths and weaknesses. For instance, a cloud firewall can prevent DDoS attacks, while an endpoint firewall can protect the website from data breach attempts.
Therefore, to get the maximum protection for your company’s IT infrastructure and digital assets, consider implementing both firewalls in tandem.
FAQs
What are endpoints used for?
Endpoints are used in corporate network setups to facilitate communication between several technical components like application programming interfaces, network devices and web services. They enable data exchange with the main corporate network and grant access to remote employees. In short, endpoints bridge the gap between users and the digital interface.
How does endpoint security work?
Endpoint security works primarily by monitoring system activities and examining files, applications and network traffic to detect threats or malicious activities and generate responses. Besides endpoint monitoring and protection, it also allows administrators to define access levels, manage hierarchies, perform patch updates and investigate incidents.
Can routers be considered as endpoints?
Routers function as endpoints as they enable communication between the WAN or LAN and the broader network. Additionally, modems, bridges, switches or hubs can also be considered as endpoints as they all interact with the network.
What’s the difference between an endpoint and an IP address?
IP addresses are numerical labels assigned to each device that communicates with the network. On the other hand, endpoints refer to a variety of devices that allow users to access the network. Therefore, all IP addresses are endpoints, but endpoints include other forms of network communication as well.
Is a printer an endpoint device?
Any device that is at the end of communication of a network is an endpoint. As network printers receive data from other devices over the internet to perform tasks, they’re considered endpoint devices.
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Next Steps
Endpoint firewalls are well-equipped to handle cyber threats and block phishing attempts. However, they can’t protect your endpoint devices and network alone. You must implement them with endpoint security solutions and cloud firewalls to ensure the best possible protection.
If you need help selecting the best system for your organization, check out our free comparison report to easily compare feature scores of leading solutions in a side-by-side format..
What type of firewall do you use? Is it sufficient to protect your entire security infrastructure? Let us know in the comments below!