What Is an 'Endpoint'?

While respondents to Dark Reading's "2020 Endpoint Security" survey are generally in agreement that end-user workstations and end-user laptops should be included in the definition of the term "endpoint device," a long list of other network-connected devices also passed the test.

Most respondents include corporate-issued smartphones (75%) and employee-owned bring-your-own-device (BYOD) smartphones (66%) in their endpoint definition, and 53% also include consumer Internet of Things (IoT) devices.

Respondents also extend the word "endpoint" beyond the end user. Point-of-sale systems (65%), corporate networked printers (63%), corporate servers (59%), industrial IoT devices (55%), medical IoT devices (49%), and routers (34%) made the cut. Nearly half (49%) also count remote workers’ networked devices (printers/routers).

Using these broad definitions, most respondents (56%) still say they manage fewer than 1,000 endpoints, but 5% of organizations estimate they have 100 or even 1,000 times as many.

Read the full report here.