Enterprise Internet Security: The Complete Guide

Enterprise Internet Security

Enterprise internet security is the overall strategy, tools, and techniques that a business employs to keep its sensitive data and employees safe from cyber threats. Enterprise businesses have a larger attack surface than most companies, making effective internet security across every endpoint vital.

Importance of Enterprise Internet Security

In 2023, the average cost of a data breach across the globe was around $4.45 million USD.

  • Financial loss: Data breaches can lead to significant financial losses due to fines, legal fees, and lost business continuity.
  • Reputation damage: A data breach can tarnish a company’s reputation, leading to customer loss and decreased trust.

For enterprise businesses that have their reputation and thousands of customer profiles on the line, a data breach must be avoided at all costs. Enterprise settings often have employees from all over the world, necessitating large-scale remote access architecture that allows people to connect to business systems from wherever they are.

  • Remote access vulnerabilities: Remote access increases the risk of data breaches if not properly secured.
  • Increased attack surface: A geographically dispersed workforce expands the potential attack surface.

The scope of an enterprise’s attack surface reflects this worldwide spread of employees, with endpoint devices, servers, and systems creating an incredibly complex security challenge.

  • Diverse attack vectors: Enterprises face threats from various sources, including malware, ransomware, and phishing attacks.
  • Complex security landscape: The increasing number of devices and systems makes it difficult to manage security effectively.

Without effective enterprise internet security, any employee who is connected to your business systems could accidentally download malware, create a ransomware threat, or simply permit hackers to hijack their connections and exfiltrate data.

Internet security aims to prevent these potential breaches from happening by arming a business with leading cybersecurity tools and defense strategies.

  • Proactive protection: Enterprise internet security helps prevent breaches before they occur.
  • Comprehensive security: Effective security measures protect against a wide range of threats.

Architecture of Enterprise Internet Security

Here are the main architectural pillars that every enterprise internet security solution should leverage:

  • Network Perimeter Control: The principle of internet security is perimeter defenses that analyze incoming and outgoing traffic and monitor for malicious actors. Firewalls, WAF solutions, and secure web gateways will all help in stopping suspicious web traffic from impacting your business.
  • Endpoint Security: Endpoint security is vital in enterprise environments, as detection and response tools can identify suspicious activity on an employee’s mobile device and freeze it out of your network.
  • Access Controls: Rigorous access control systems will prevent hackers from being able to use any single compromised account to access wider parts of your enterprise system.
  • Application Security: Internet applications and other commonly used assets in your business should also have protective tools to keep them safe. For example, Runtime Application Self-Protection can help to identify irregularities and prevent zero-day threats from usurping your control of business systems.

Developing a Comprehensive Internet Security Strategy

Now that you understand the importance of developing an enterprise internet security strategy, here is how you can develop one in your organization:

  1. Create the Security Architecture: Your enterprise must first set up the required internet security tools and systems. 
  2. Refine Available Infrastructure: Once active, monitor the efficacy of these tools, running penetration tests to strengthen your defenses and locate vulnerabilities.
  3. Teach Employees: Employees are a constant point in enterprise internet security architecture. Running mandatory educational workshops that teach employees about how to stay safe online will help mitigate low-hanging threats like phishing attempts.
  4. Maintain Systems Continuously: Regularly pay attention to changing regulations, newly available system patches, and guidance from leading cybersecurity boards like the MITRE ATT&CK Framework.

Advanced Technologies in Internet Security

Here are the advanced cybersecurity technologies that your enterprise should employ:

Your organization should use these cybersecurity tools in conjunction with typical defenses with WAFs, RASPs, biometric employee logins, and other security architecture required in compliance frameworks.

Maximize Internet Security with Perimeter 81 

Developing, launching, and sustaining an effective enterprise internet security strategy and posture should be a top priority in any business. As company attack surfaces continue to grow, rigorous defenses are needed to help mitigate the rising threat like:

  • Malware
  • Ransomware
  • DDoS cyber attacks
  • Insider threat

Perimeter 81 offers a comprehensive enterprise internet security solution, providing extensive defense systems that cover against known threats and help secure internet traffic. Enterprises can leverage Perimeter 81 to provide robust security to endpoints across their organization and spearhead their cybersecurity defense posture.

Get started with Perimeter 81 by requesting a free demo. 

FAQs

What is enterprise internet security?
Enterprise internet security is a broad term that describes any effort an enterprise makes to secure its internet traffic and keep its employees and sensitive information safe from malicious threats. At the base level, this includes all of the security software an enterprise may deploy. At an advanced level, it also references strategies like educating employees on what various cyber threats may look like.
How does enterprise internet security compare to enterprise security?
Enterprise internet security is a subsection of general enterprise security. The latter refers to the overall efforts that a cybersecurity team will make to secure a company. Enterprise internet security mainly focuses on threats that are conveyed via web traffic, like malware or account phishing. Enterprise internet security is a vital part of general enterprise security.
What is enterprise security risk?
Enterprise security risk is the overall amount of risk that a company has. To assess this, cybersecurity teams would conduct extensive threat profiling and defense testing to determine how secure a company is and if there are any major vulnerabilities. 
What’s the difference between enterprise security and standard cybersecurity?
The main difference between cybersecurity and enterprise security is the scope of defenses. Cybersecurity could refer to any protection strategy, even to an individual installing a malware scanner on their local device. Enterprise security, on the other hand, always involves a much larger scope, with thousands of devices and distributed employees all across the world. 
Why are enterprises the targets of cybersecurity attacks?
When a hacker aims to break into a company system and exfiltrate their data, they do so because they can sell any data they steal. When targeting an enterprise, a successful attack would yield much larger quantities of data, meaning a hacker could sell it for more. Equally, enterprises usually store much more sensitive data, as they have the personal records of more customers than a smaller business would have.

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