Ep. 19 More Devices than People: Managing the Madness

A simple Google search will tell you that we now have seven billion people and over twelve million active endpoints. These are devices that are moving on the ground and even in outer space.

It is unfortunate that the basis for managing endpoints on a network began as controlling individual desktop computers in a single building. Oh, for the simplicity of those days.

Today’s federal network has hundreds of endpoints to manage. Employees, contractors, phones, remote workers, identity management challenges – they all add to the complexity of understanding who is on your network. Many federal systems rely on “inherited” credentials for a person using the system, a sure recipe for failure in security.

“Non-Person Entities” sure sounds like it comes out of a science fiction movie. Managing devices on a system will have to incorporate understanding robotic process automation and its implications.

Malicious actors will treat each point as an opportunity to evaluate and attack. One of the most popular ways to attack today is with ransomware. Ivanti regularly releases its Ransomware Index. The report from 2022 indicated a rise I of 7.6% in ransomware. The war in Ukraine has increased wariness for all federal systems.

During the interview, Bill Harrod from Ivanti suggests that mobile end points could have high potential for allowing malicious code into a system. Systems called Unified Endpoint Management are becoming increasingly relevant for federal protection.

Bill Harrod explains that there is no perfect tool, best practices for containing this threat is to microsegment a system to control the “blast radius” of an attack. This resiliency should be based on a deep knowledge of what is on your network.