5 Reasons Why Web Security Is As Important as Endpoint Security
Would you say that a company is secure if their employees are using laptops with no anti-malware installed at all? Most businesses would say that is an irresponsible approach. Then why would many businesses have websites and web applications with no protection at all and why would many MSSPs not offer their customers any kind of web application security services?
An “antivirus” (an anti-malware solution) is perceived as a standard element of a Windows installation – it’s rare to see a computer without one. However, strangely enough, many businesses feel completely secure just setting up a website or web application without paying any attention to whether it is secure and many MSSPs provide them with no security for their web assets at all. This is even more surprising because web-accessible databases usually contain more sensitive data than an average office machine, for example, customer personal information.
Here are five reasons why both you, the MSSP, and your customers should treat web security with as much attention as personal computer security and endpoint security in general.
Reason 1. The move to the cloud
Twenty years ago, websites were just simple, mostly static presentations – digital billboards in a way. Today, many of us are, for example, creating our documents online instead of using a desktop word processor – quite often the only software installed on our Windows machine is the browser. And even if there is some other software like Slack, it uses web interfaces to communicate with the servers. Companies are using their own servers less often. For many employees, desktop computers and laptops are basically thin clients that are there only to make it possible to access the web.
This means that anti-malware software basically protects an empty computer that has no special software on it, just a browser. The only major risk of such a computer being attacked is if the attack makes it possible to steal login credentials to web applications.
On the other hand, all the data, all the business support software, and everything else is on the web or will soon be there. And, unfortunately, quite often it is left completely…
