Top 3 Gains from Adopting Zero Trust Endpoint Management

Security leaders today are operating under a very different mandate than they were even five years ago. Cloud migration, hybrid work, third-party access, and accelerated digital transformation have permanently dissolved the traditional enterprise perimeter. At the same time, vulnerability volumes continue to grow at a pace that manual security operations cannot realistically contain.

Industry data shows that organizations now face an average of 55 new vulnerabilities every day, while carrying a backlog of more than 57,000 unresolved vulnerabilities^1,2. This is no longer a tooling challenge. It is an operational risk problem, one with direct implications for resilience, compliance, and business continuity.

For CISOs, CIOs, and risk leaders, Zero Trust has emerged as a practical way to regain control. Within that journey, endpoints have become the most decisive control point and your first line of defense.

Why Endpoints Sit at the Center of Zero Trust Execution

Zero Trust strategies are often discussed in terms of identity, access management, and network segmentation. While those components are foundational, they depend on one assumption being true: that the device requesting access can be trusted at that moment. 

In practice, that assumption is increasingly fragile.

Endpoints are where credentials are stolen, misconfigurations persist, and vulnerabilities are exploited. They are also the most diverse and operationally complex layer of the enterprise, spanning corporate-owned systems, BYOD devices, remote endpoints, cloud workloads, and intermittently connected assets.

This is also where Zero Trust’s philosophy of “never trust, always verify” can really make a difference.

NIST SP 800-207 explicitly identifies device visibility and monitoring as prerequisites for Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA). Without continuous insight into endpoint posture, organizations are forced to make access decisions based on outdated or incomplete data.

Endpoint management has evolved into an area of struggle for many organizations. Yet it’s crucial to resolve endpoint management challenges to achieve Zero Trust.

The Strategic Case for Zero Trust Endpoint Management

Zero Trust endpoint management is not about adding another security layer. It is about enabling continuous enforcement, where device posture directly informs access, remediation, and policy decisions.

When implemented effectively, this approach delivers three measurable gains that matter at an executive level.

Gain 1: Enterprise-Wide Endpoint Visibility That Reduces Blind Risk

*Almost 2/3rds of surveyed organizations say that a lack of visibility impacts their endpoint security most.*³

From a leadership perspective, incomplete endpoint visibility creates cascading risk:

• Inaccurate risk reporting to boards and regulators
• Delayed detection of compromised or unmanaged devices
• Inconsistent enforcement of security and compliance policies

Hybrid work and BYOD environments exacerbate this challenge. Devices may connect intermittently, operate outside the corporate network, or remain unmanaged for extended periods. Traditional perimeter-based tools are poorly suited to this reality.

Zero Trust endpoint management establishes continuous visibility across all owned and associated devices, regardless of location or ownership. This enables organizations to maintain an accurate, real-time understanding of:

• Which devices are accessing enterprise resources
• Their configuration, patch status, and security posture
• Whether they meet policy and compliance requirements

By replacing static inventories with live telemetry, security teams can identify unknown or non-compliant endpoints before they introduce material risk.

Gain 2: Real-Time Monitoring and Mitigation at Operational Scale

Every day, several dozen new vulnerabilities are being discovered, and they quickly add up. Vulnerability management has become one of the most expensive failure points in enterprise security operations. Research consistently shows that:

• 55% of organizations cannot keep up with required patch volumes
• 42% have experienced a data breach because an available patch was not applied²
• It takes an average of 50+ days to remediate critical vulnerabilities

For executives, this gap translates directly into exposure. The longer vulnerabilities persist, the greater the likelihood of exploitation and downstream business impact.

Zero Trust endpoint management addresses this by shifting remediation from periodic, manual cycles to continuous diagnostics and mitigation (CDM). Instead of relying on scheduled maintenance windows, endpoints are monitored in real time and remediated dynamically.

This capability is particularly critical in environments with:

• Remote or mobile workforces
• Multiple operating systems
• Cloud and hybrid infrastructure
• Limited tolerance for operational disruption

By reducing remediation latency, organizations materially shrink their attack surface without increasing operational overhead.

Gain 3: A Continuously Improving Security Posture Aligned to Regulation

One of the primary tenets of NIST 800-207 is to use the data collected on the state of your endpoints to improve your organization’s security posture.

Security posture is no longer assessed annually. Regulators, auditors, and boards increasingly expect ongoing evidence of control effectiveness, particularly in highly regulated industries.

Zero Trust endpoint management enables organizations to:

• Continuously evaluate device integrity
• Adjust access policies based on real-time risk
• Generate audit-ready compliance data
• Demonstrate sustained adherence to regulatory frameworks

By feeding endpoint telemetry into policy engines and trust algorithms, organizations move from reactive enforcement to adaptive, data-driven security. This approach improves resilience while supporting evolving regulatory requirements.

The Role of Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM)

NIST and CISA recommend CDM as a foundational capability within Zero Trust architectures.

A CDM system:

• Provides visibility into devices and monitors their state to help you identify vulnerabilities
• Collects, analyzes, and correlates endpoint, security, and operations data from various sources
• Allows you to handle compromised, unmanaged, or vulnerable devices differently than those in a secure state
• Simplifies data collection for regulatory compliance and audit reporting purposes

From an executive standpoint, CDM enables security leaders to confidently answer three critical questions:

1. What assets are accessing our environment right now?
2. What risk do they introduce at this moment?
3. How quickly can we contain and remediate that risk?

Without these answers, Zero Trust remains aspirational rather than operational.

How HCL BigFix Supports Zero Trust Endpoint Management

HCL BigFix enables Zero Trust endpoint management by providing a unified platform for visibility, remediation, and compliance enforcement. 

Zero Trust is addressed through a "Secure by Design" philosophy. This approach focuses on achieving Secure Resilient Operations (SRO) by moving away from traditional perimeter-based security toward continuous, automated enforcement at the endpoint itself.

Key elements of Zero Trust within the BigFix framework include:

1. Continuous Compliance and Self-Healing

BigFix operates on the principle that an endpoint must be in a perpetually compliant state to be trusted.

• Enforcement at the Edge: The BigFix agent continuously loops through assigned security policies and rules locally on the device.
• Real-Time Remediation: If a device drifts from its authorized configuration, the agent performs near real-time auto-remediation to return it to a secure state.
• Eliminating Scanning Gaps: Unlike tools that rely on periodic, time-based checks (which create "windows of exposure"), BigFix maintains an "always-on" security posture.

2. Management of Disconnected and Remote Assets

A core tenet of Zero Trust is securing the "borderless" attack surface created by hybrid work.

• Resilient Agent Architecture: The "Super Agent" can perform continuous compliance and remediation even when the device is disconnected from the core infrastructure or the internet.
• Total Visibility: BigFix ensures that no endpoint whether on-premises, in the cloud, or remote remains an unmanaged "blind spot" where threats can hide.

3. Verification through Strict Certifications

To support high-security and government environments, BigFix provides a trusted foundation through rigorous global security benchmarks.

• Compliance Validation: It is the only endpoint platform certified for both SCAP 1.3 and NIAP.
• Standardized Hardening: It includes over 38,000 out-of-the-box checks aligned with industry standards such as CIS, DISA STIG, and PCI DSS to ensure every device meets baseline security requirements.

4. Risk-Based Intelligence

Zero Trust requires understanding the specific risk profile of an asset before allowing it to operate within the environment.

• CyberFOCUS Analytics: This engine maps vulnerabilities to active exploits (using CISA KEV and MITRE ATT&CK data) to prioritize the remediation of threats that pose the greatest risk to the enterprise.

Zero-Touch Infrastructure Management

Intelligent automation modules, such as Runbook AI, use machine learning to comprehend infrastructure issues and initiate automatic resolutions.

• Preventing Outages: Automated runbooks resolve server and application incidents before they cause downtime, potentially slashing Mean Time to Resolution (MTTR) by up to 85%.
• The Disconnected Advantage: A resilient endpoint agent remains active even when devices are off-network or air-gapped, performing continuous compliance checks without a persistent connection to central servers.
• Legacy and Cloud Hybridization: Agencies can manage their entire IT estate from bare metal data centers to AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud workloads from a single control plane.

Build Your Zero Trust Security Plan

Zero Trust succeeds or fails at the point of execution. For most organizations, that point is the endpoint.

As enterprises navigate hybrid work, expanding attack surfaces, and increasing regulatory scrutiny, zero-trust endpoint management becomes a practical way to enforce security continuously rather than episodically. When visibility, remediation, and policy enforcement operate in real time, security teams are better positioned to contain risk without slowing the business.

Explore how HCL BigFix helps organizations operationalize Zero Trust across endpoints with continuous visibility, automated remediation, and compliance-ready enforcement. Contact us learn more about HCL BigFix.

1. What is the concept of Zero Trust?

Zero Trust is a cybersecurity model that assumes no user, device, or connection should be trusted by default, regardless of location. Access decisions are based on continuous verification of identity, device posture, and contextual risk rather than network perimeter or implicit trust. The goal is to reduce attack surfaces and limit the impact of breaches through continuous enforcement.

2. What is zero trust endpoint management, and how is it different from traditional endpoint security?

Zero trust endpoint management applies Zero Trust principles directly to endpoint devices by continuously monitoring device integrity, configuration, and vulnerability exposure. Traditional endpoint security often relies on periodic scans, static policies, and manual remediation. Zero trust endpoint management enables continuous enforcement, where access decisions and remediation actions adapt dynamically to the current state of each endpoint.

3. How does zero-trust endpoint management enable real-time monitoring and mitigation of vulnerabilities?

Zero trust endpoint management uses continuous diagnostics and mitigation (CDM) to collect real-time telemetry from endpoints and automatically respond to risk. Vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and compliance gaps are identified as they emerge and remediated without waiting for scheduled maintenance cycles. HCL BigFix supports this approach by enabling continuous visibility, automated patching, and configuration enforcement across diverse and distributed endpoint environments.

References

1. Trustwave, 2022 SpiderLabs Telemetry Report https://levelblue.com/blogs/spiderlabs-blog/2022-trustwave-spiderlabs-telemetry-report
2. Ponemon Institute & IBM X-Force, The State of Vulnerability Management in the Cloud and On-Premises, August 2020’ https://www.bankinfosecurity.com/whitepapers/state-vulnerability-management-in-cloud-on-premises-w-6809
3. Adaptiva, Managing Risks and Costs at the Edge, 2022 https://adaptiva.com/hubfs/Reports/Adaptiva-Ponemon-Report-2022.pdf