Best Practices for Securing Endpoints Across Hybrid IT Infrastructures

As organizations continue to modernize their IT environments, most now operate in hybrid infrastructures—a combination of on-premises systems, private clouds, public cloud services, and remote endpoints. For security teams, this creates one of the most difficult challenges today: how to consistently protect endpoints that live across multiple platforms, locations, and trust boundaries.

For enterprises adopting advanced detection and response platforms—such as those offered by Fidelis Security—endpoint protection must be tightly integrated into the wider network, cloud, and threat detection strategy.

This article outlines practical, field-tested best practices for securing endpoints across hybrid IT infrastructures.

Why Endpoint Security Is More Complex in Hybrid IT

In traditional on-premises environments, endpoints were protected inside a well-defined network perimeter. In a hybrid model:

• Users access applications from home and branch offices

• Workloads run in multiple public clouds

• Devices frequently connect from unmanaged or semi-trusted networks

• Security controls are distributed across vendors and platforms

Attackers increasingly exploit this complexity to:

• Move laterally between endpoints and cloud workloads

• Abuse identity-based access

• Bypass traditional perimeter-based controls

This is why endpoint protection can no longer operate in isolation.

1. Establish a Unified Endpoint Security Architecture

A common mistake in hybrid environments is deploying different endpoint solutions for:

• On-prem desktops

• Cloud-hosted virtual machines

• Remote laptops

Instead, organizations should aim for a single architectural model that delivers:

• Consistent agent deployment

• Unified policy enforcement

• Centralized telemetry and response

Modern endpoint security must integrate with:

• Network detection and response

• Identity systems

• Cloud security tools

• Security operations workflows

This unified approach is a core principle behind modern XDR platforms such as those from Microsoft and CrowdStrike.

2. Maintain Continuous and Accurate Endpoint Asset Visibility

You cannot secure what you cannot see.

In hybrid infrastructures, endpoint sprawl occurs quickly:

• New virtual machines spin up automatically

• Contractors bring personal devices

• Cloud desktops and VDI instances are created on demand

Best practice includes:

• Automatically discovering all endpoints across on-prem and cloud environments

• Classifying devices by operating system, owner, role, and risk level

• Detecting unmanaged or shadow IT endpoints

Asset discovery must be continuous, not periodic. Security teams should maintain a real-time inventory that includes:

• Physical endpoints

• Virtual endpoints

• Cloud-based endpoints

This inventory becomes the foundation for vulnerability management, policy enforcement, and incident response.

3. Apply Zero Trust Principles to All Endpoints

Hybrid IT environments demand a Zero Trust endpoint posture.

Instead of assuming devices inside the corporate network are trusted, organizations should:

• Verify every endpoint before granting access

• Continuously evaluate device health

• Enforce least-privileged access

Key best practices include:

• Device posture checks before application access

• Conditional access based on location, identity, and endpoint risk

• Automatic isolation of compromised endpoints

Endpoint trust should be dynamic and influenced by real-time threat intelligence and behavioral signals.

4. Standardize Endpoint Hardening and Configuration Baselines

Inconsistent configuration is one of the most common causes of endpoint compromise.

Organizations should define standardized baselines aligned with well-established security frameworks such as National Institute of Standards and Technology guidance.

Best practices include:

• Disabling unnecessary services and ports

• Enforcing strong authentication policies

• Enabling host-based firewalls

• Applying secure boot and disk encryption

Configuration baselines should be:

• Version-controlled

• Audited regularly

• Automatically enforced through endpoint management tools

5. Automate Patch and Vulnerability Management Across All Environments

Hybrid environments introduce multiple patching challenges:

• On-prem endpoints often follow traditional maintenance windows

• Cloud-hosted endpoints may be short-lived

• Remote devices may be offline for long periods

Best practices:

• Use automated patching tools that support both on-prem and cloud endpoints

• Prioritize vulnerabilities based on exploitability, not only CVSS scores

• Track patch compliance continuously

Security teams should integrate vulnerability intelligence with threat detection systems so that endpoints exposed to active exploitation are prioritized first.

6. Integrate Endpoint Telemetry with Network and Cloud Detection

Endpoint tools alone cannot always detect:

• Lateral movement

• Command-and-control traffic

• Data exfiltration over non-standard channels

In hybrid IT environments, true visibility is achieved when endpoint data is correlated with:

• Network traffic analysis

• Cloud activity logs

• Identity events

This is where combining endpoint detection with NDR and XDR becomes essential.

For example, Fidelis Security platforms correlate:

• Endpoint behavior

• Network flows

• Encrypted traffic metadata

This provides deeper visibility into how compromised endpoints interact with cloud and on-prem workloads.

7. Use Behavioral Detection Rather Than Signature-Only Controls

Modern attacks rarely rely on known malware signatures.

Instead, they focus on:

• Living-off-the-land techniques

• Legitimate tools and scripts

• Credential abuse

Behavior-based endpoint security should detect:

• Abnormal process chains

• Suspicious parent-child relationships

• Unusual access to sensitive files

• Privilege escalation attempts

To structure behavioral detection more effectively, many organizations align their detection strategy with the MITRE ATT&CK framework.

This helps security teams:

• Map endpoint detections to real attacker techniques

• Identify coverage gaps

• Improve threat-hunting efficiency

8. Secure Cloud-Based and Virtual Endpoints Separately from Physical Devices

Virtual endpoints—such as cloud desktops and virtual machines—have unique risk profiles:

• They are often exposed to management APIs

• They may inherit insecure base images

• They are frequently cloned and redeployed

Best practices include:

• Hardening golden images before deployment

• Scanning images for vulnerabilities and malware

• Enforcing endpoint security agents within base templates

• Monitoring instance creation and termination events

Security teams must treat cloud endpoints as first-class assets, not secondary infrastructure.

9. Strengthen Endpoint Identity and Credential Protection

In hybrid infrastructures, endpoints are deeply connected to identity services.

Attackers frequently compromise endpoints in order to:

• Steal cached credentials

• Extract tokens

• Abuse session cookies

Best practices include:

• Enabling credential protection technologies at the OS level

• Blocking credential dumping tools

• Monitoring for abnormal authentication patterns

• Integrating endpoint detections with identity threat detection platforms

This tight coupling between endpoint and identity monitoring significantly reduces the success of account takeover and privilege escalation attacks.

10. Enable Automated Containment and Remote Response

When an endpoint is compromised in a hybrid environment, response delays allow attackers to pivot rapidly into:

• Cloud services

• SaaS platforms

• On-prem servers

Best practices include:

• Automated host isolation

• Remote process termination

• Blocking malicious hashes and scripts across all endpoints

• Immediate network segmentation changes

Automated response should be:

• Policy-driven

• Auditable

• Reversible

Platforms such as those from Fidelis Security support coordinated response across endpoints and networks, enabling SOC teams to contain threats without waiting for manual intervention.

11. Centralize Endpoint Monitoring in the SOC

Hybrid endpoint security only scales when operations are centralized.

Security teams should:

• Stream endpoint telemetry into a central detection platform

• Correlate endpoint alerts with network and cloud events

• Use unified investigation timelines

This approach reduces alert fatigue and enables faster root-cause analysis.

Rather than triaging separate tools, analysts can investigate incidents that span:

• Endpoints

• Network infrastructure

• Cloud workloads

• User identities

12. Continuously Test and Validate Endpoint Defenses

Endpoint security programs should not be static.

Best practices include:

• Regular adversary simulations

• Endpoint-focused red team exercises

• Detection rule validation

• Response playbook testing

By continuously validating coverage against real-world attack techniques, organizations ensure their hybrid endpoint defenses remain effective as infrastructure evolves.

How Fidelis Security Enhances Endpoint Protection in Hybrid IT

While many vendors focus only on endpoint telemetry, Fidelis Security delivers deeper visibility by combining:

• Endpoint detection and response

• Network detection and response

• Deception and behavioral analytics

This allows organizations to:

• Detect stealthy attacks that bypass endpoint-only tools

• Correlate endpoint behavior with encrypted and lateral network activity

• Accelerate investigations across hybrid environments

For enterprises running complex hybrid infrastructures, this unified approach significantly improves detection accuracy and response speed.

Conclusion

Securing endpoints across hybrid IT infrastructures is no longer about deploying a single agent or product. It requires:

• Unified architecture

• Continuous visibility

• Behavioral detection

• Integrated network and cloud telemetry

• Automated, coordinated response

By applying these best practices—and by aligning endpoint security with broader XDR and NDR strategies—organizations can protect their most frequently targeted assets while maintaining agility in modern hybrid environments.