10 Reasons Your Business Needs Endpoint Protection Software

Cyberattacks are a threat to every business, small and large. No business is immune from attack. However, most businesses aren’t protected. Since most cyberattacks are caused by user error, it’s not hard to protect your business once you understand how to do so.

This is part of an extensive series of guides about EDR Tools.

Here are 10 reasons endpoint protection software will help you mitigate and thwart cyberattacks.

1. Cyberattacks are unexpected

Security tools are only effective when they’re in place before you get attacked. Since cyberattacks are unexpected, you need endpoint protection software in place before anything happens.

You can’t predict when, if, or how cybercriminals will attack your business. Have your IT team install endpoint protection software in as many forms as possible.

2. Data theft can happen to anyone

No business is immune to data theft; it can happen to anyone, including entrepreneurs, small businesses, and large corporations. Even non-profit organizations are subject to data theft.

No matter how small your company is, get endpoint protection software to protect against data theft.

3. BYOD policies are not secure without endpoint protection software

Do you have a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policy in your workplace? Many employers do, and there are benefits. However, the security risks are immense. If you’re going to allow employees to use their own devices for work, you need to increase security measures.

To increase the security of a BYOD workplace, you need endpoint protection software installed on your employees’ computers. Yes, this requires installing software on their personal devices, but if they want the privilege of using their own device, they need to compromise.

4. A data privacy violation can bankrupt your business

Data breaches can lead to massive fines, depending on the severity, industry, and applicable data privacy laws. For example, TikTok was recently fined €530 million (approximately $600 million) by Ireland’s Data Protection Commission for transferring European user data to China without adequate safeguards—an alleged violation of the GDPR.

Whether you’re at fault or not, even being accused of a data privacy violation can threaten your business. Guilty or innocent, you may face staggering legal fees, reputational damage, and regulatory scrutiny that can drain resources and put your company’s future at risk.

5. A cyberattack can ruin your business’ reputation

One cyberattack can severely damage your reputation – especially if sensitive data is exposed. You may end up in the headlines, all over social media, and lose the trust of your customers, partners, or investors.

In business, perception matters. A strong reputation drives growth and loyalty. On the flip side, a tarnished reputation can lead to customer loss, declining sales, and long-term damage.

According to the World Economic Forum’s latest reporting, 57% of organizations impacted by a cyber incident suffered reputational damage, and 62% incurred financial losses.
These figures highlight how widespread and interconnected reputational and financial harm can be, even for companies that survive the initial breach.

6. Endpoint protection software protects your customers

Do you store or process customer data? If so, then endpoint protection software will protect your customers’ data and your company data.

Losing company data is bad enough; losing customer data is worse. You can figure out how to manage your own data theft, but customers won’t be forgiving. Especially when they have to deal with fraud, identity theft, and bad credit.

7. Your IT team may have missed some patches

Unpatched vulnerabilities are a ripe opportunity for hackers to exploit your system. The older the vulnerability, the more likely you are to be exploited.

Even the best IT teams can miss important patches. Sometimes email notifications go to spam, and not all developers provide email notifications.

Endpoint protection software can act as a backup when you’re missing important patches.

8. Malware is relentless

One piece of malware can create a backdoor on a device that will continue to infect additional machines, sometimes undetected. You might catch one instance of malware, but as soon as you get rid of it, another will pop up.

Some viruses and trojan horses are relentless. And, even with the most sophisticated antivirus software, those programs won’t catch new malware that hasn’t been around long.

Zero-day threats are especially dangerous because there’s no way to stop them right away. Without advanced software to identify these potential threats, you might not discover the problem until it’s too late.

Tips From Expert

Integrate EDR with your existing SIEM and SOAR systems
Combining your endpoint protection with Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) and Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR) platforms creates a more unified security strategy. This integration enables real-time threat detection, faster incident response, and better overall visibility into your security posture.
Prioritize endpoint isolation in your incident response plan
Enable automated endpoint isolation when critical threats are detected. This immediate action can contain malware, stop lateral movement, and prevent the spread of infections, giving your security team time to assess and remediate the threat.
Utilize deception technology for proactive threat hunting
Incorporate deception techniques, like planting decoy assets or fake credentials, as part of your endpoint protection. These traps can lure attackers into revealing their tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs), allowing you to gather valuable threat intelligence and respond accordingly.
Use application control to reduce your attack surface
Control which applications can run on your endpoints. By enforcing strict allowlists and blocking unauthorized applications, you prevent malicious software from executing, even if it somehow bypasses traditional defenses.
Leverage machine learning in NGAV for advanced threat detection
Ensure your endpoint protection includes Next-Generation Antivirus (NGAV) with machine learning capabilities. This allows your system to identify and block emerging threats, such as zero-day exploits and fileless attacks, without relying solely on signature databases.

Aviad Hasnis is the Chief Technology Officer at Cynet.
He brings a strong background in developing cutting edge technologies that have had a major impact on the security of the State of Israel. At Cynet, Aviad continues to lead extensive cybersecurity research projects and drive innovation forward.

9. Your employees might visit infected websites

Web browsers pose serious security risks – especially when employees unknowingly visit malicious or compromised websites. These sites can deliver malware, launch phishing attacks, or exploit browser vulnerabilities. Browser extensions can also introduce risk, especially if they’re outdated, poorly vetted, or designed with malicious intent.

To defend against these threats, cybersecurity experts recommend a combination of:

Web filtering – Blocks access to known malicious or inappropriate sites.
Secure web gateways (SWG) – Inspect and filter web traffic in real time.
Anti-exploit tools – Detect and block attempts to exploit browser or plugin vulnerabilities.

Many modern endpoint protection platforms (EPPs) bundle these capabilities together – helping organizations enforce safe browsing, prevent infections, and monitor web-based threats proactively.

10. Your equipment might get “bricked”

Many physical IoT devices – like routers, modems, printers, and even copy machines—are vulnerable to cyberattacks that can render them completely inoperable. This is known as being “bricked,” meaning the device is as useless as a brick.

A notorious example is BrickerBot, a malware strain that emerged several years ago and targeted unsecured IoT devices. BrickerBot used a technique called Permanent Denial of Service (PDoS) or “phlashing”, which involved corrupting a device’s firmware to make it permanently unusable.

It’s been rumored that BrickerBot was created to stop botnets by destroying devices before other malware could conscript them into distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. But whatever the intent, the result was the same—businesses and individuals lost their hardware permanently.

While BrickerBot itself is no longer active, new threats targeting IoT devices continue to emerge, often exploiting weak or default credentials, outdated firmware, or unpatched vulnerabilities.

Need protection? Get endpoint protection software from Cynet

Endpoint protection is a critical component in your IT security toolbox. Cynet’s endpoint protection solutions will help you secure your business from top to bottom. Our software services include:

URL filtering to restrict web traffic to only trusted websites
Application control to control what applications can and cannot do
Network access control to restrict and monitor network access
Browser isolation to isolate browsing sessions in containerized environments
Encryption to prevent stolen data from being read
Secure email gateways to monitor messages for suspicious activity
Sandboxing to isolate threats for observation
And more

Stop malware in its tracks with Cynet’s Managed Detection and Response (MDR) service. Sign up to get a free demo and see how our solution will keep your business – and your customers – protected.