Although endpoint protection and antivirus software share similarities, they are quite different regarding the needs they meet. Antivirus is essentially designed to prevent malware such as viruses, ransomware and spyware. Attacks of this nature pose a significant risk to businesses. As such, antivirus software first identifies and blocks malware from penetrating individual devices.

Yet, antivirus software alone often isn’t enough to protect your business from modern-style signature-less threats and attacks. As digital threats become increasingly sophisticated and malicious, more businesses are turning to endpoint protection solutions for extra layers of security. Here are some key differences between antivirus and endpoint protection:

• Endpoint protection solutions protect against many different types of attacks, including malware. Antivirus software simply identifies and blocks malicious files.
• Endpoint security covers the entire IT infrastructure by protecting the endpoints as potential gateways to the network. Antivirus software covers single endpoints only.
• Endpoint protection solutions automatically detect new endpoint devices when they are added to the network. Antivirus software needs to be installed on each individual device.
• Endpoint security provides a central point to keep track of all endpoints, including remote endpoints, to monitor suspicious data traffic movements and other problem areas. Antivirus software does not have these capabilities.

At Jim’s I.T, we understand that choosing an endpoint protection solution for your business can be tricky. Many different companies offer solutions, with some providing a higher level of protection than others. We offer only the highest quality solutions from reputable malware expert vendors.

Our affordable endpoint protection suite of products is from ESET Security. ESET is a leader in the cybersecurity technology space, with its products providing comprehensive endpoint, network and data protection. An ESET endpoint protection solution from Jim’s I.T will provide your business with:

• Managed antivirus protection against malware, viruses, ransomware, and other threats.
• Patch management, device health checks and web filtering.
• Additional advanced features for enterprise plans include threat intelligence feeds (TIF), user behaviour analytics (UBA), and more.

Our solutions come with no long-term contracts for our small business plans, which also include handy 24/7 tech support via phone or chat.

When it comes to endpoint protection for Windows, it’s hard to go past ESET’s endpoint protection solution from Jim’s I.T. ESET has been developing world-class IT security software for over thirty years and is now considered a leader in the space.

Apart from advanced protection against malware threats, our ESET solution provides device health checks, patch management and web filtering, and additional features, including threat intelligence feeds (TIF) and user behaviour analytics (UBA) for enterprise plans.

Antivirus software is still effective — high-quality antivirus software can play an important role in protecting devices from known malware threats. The problem with many legacy antivirus software solutions is that they are signature-based. They scan for virus signatures and run these against a threat database to see if they match a known threat.

Unfortunately, modern malware is unpredictable, sophisticated and ultimately designed to evade protection. Signature-based software is simply no match for increasingly signature-less threats. With the malware landscape continually changing, complete protection from antivirus software is not always possible.

While no antivirus software will provide 100% protection, choosing an antivirus that provides more than just signature-based protection is possible. Some modern antivirus solutions come with advanced malware detection capabilities, which is critical when identifying unknown malware.

A successful malware attack can be catastrophic for businesses — prevention is always better than a cure! Therefore, it’s vitally important that your business has some layer of network or device protection.

A modern antivirus software solution should suffice if your business is relatively small, with no network architecture in place. However, an endpoint protection solution must be considered if you have several connected machines or workstations and have difficulty monitoring new devices as they are added to your network.