Year: 2025

Customer experience and vendor trust are key drivers for provider selection due to the maturity and mainstream adoption of EPPs. Buyers should assess solutions in the context of a broader integrated workspace security strategy as part of their cybersecurity technology optimization efforts.

Strategic Planning Assumptions

By 2029, 30% of midsize organizations will converge workspace, data security and identity security capabilities into a workspace security platform, enabling holistic protection and centralized policy management.

By 2030, 25% of enterprises will adopt a continuous assessment and optimization process to assess and remediate workspace security controls in a targeted fashion to reduce the attack surface.

Market Definition/Description

Gartner defines an endpoint protection platform (EPP) as security software designed to protect managed endpoints — including desktop PCs, laptop PCs, virtual desktops, mobile devices and, in some cases, servers — against known and unknown malicious attacks. EPPs provide capabilities for security teams to investigate and remediate incidents that evade prevention controls. EPP products are delivered as software agents, deployed to endpoints, and connected to centralized security analytics and management consoles.

EPPs provide a defensive security control to protect end-user endpoints against known and unknown malware infections and file-less attacks using a combination of security techniques (such as static and behavioral analysis) and attack surface reduction capabilities (such as device control, host firewall management and application control). EPP prevention and protection capabilities are deployed as a part of a defense-in-depth strategy to help reduce the endpoint attack surface and minimize the risk of compromise. EPP detection and response capabilities are used to uncover, investigate and respond to endpoint threats that evade security protection, often as a part of broader threat detection, investigation and response (TDIR) capable products.

Mandatory Features

– Protection against malware and file-less attacks using endpoint real-time scanning and anti-malware techniques
– Endpoint attack surface reduction capabilities, such as device control, host firewall, exploit protection or application control
– Detection and blocking of endpoint threats using behavioral analysis of endpoint, application and end-user activity

Common Features

– Integrated endpoint detection and response (EDR) functionality enabling real-time telemetry collection, detection customization, postincident investigation and response
– Assessment of endpoints for software and OS vulnerabilities and misconfigurations, as well as built-in or integrated patch management and virtual patching capabilities
– Capabilities for continuous assessment and optimization of EPP policies and settings against configuration best practices and emerging threats
– Workspace security platform integrations with email security, security service edge, identity protection, data security controls and endpoint management tools
– Integrations with native and third-party TDIR capable products enabling telemetry collection, correlation, investigation and remediation across multiple security controls
– Extended support for end-of-life, uncommon operating systems or legacy server workloads
– Partner- and vendor-delivered service wrappers, such as managed detection and response (MDR) and co-managed security monitoring services

Read the full report: https://www.gartner.com/doc/reprints?id=1-2LFIK3DH&ct=250711&st=sb