Cyberattacks are growing more sophisticated, automated, and indiscriminate. Even a single data breach can lead to major financial and reputational damage for your business. However, with the right mix of tools and staff training, you can build a strong, privacy-respecting security foundation that scales as your business grows.

Network security tools are software or hardware solutions that protect your organization’s data, systems, and users from cyber threats. They help prevent unauthorized access, detect and stop attacks, enforce security policies, and maintain compliance.

Crucially, these systems are most effective when built around several complementary layers, each addressing a different class of threats and providing visibility, control, and response capabilities.

• Endpoint detection and response tools
• Antivirus software
• Password manager
• Cybersecurity awareness training

1. Endpoint detection and response tools

An endpoint is any device that connects to your company’s network and can send or receive data. This includes laptops, servers, mobile devices, network printers, and IoT devices, virtual machines, and more. Endpoints are the most common attack surface, and modern attacks rarely stay confined to one device

While traditional antivirus software remains a cornerstone of any security stack (see below), it can miss sophisticated threats. Endpoint detection & response (EDR) tools help fill this gap by continuously monitoring, recording, and analyzing activity on your endpoint devices to detect malicious behavior, investigate incidents, and automate or guide your response when potential threats arise.

If something unusual happens (such as a program suddenly tries to encrypt files or contact an unknown external server), the EDR system flags it, isolates the affected device, and alerts your security teams. While antivirus focuses mainly on preventing known malware, EDR therefore goes further by providing real-time visibility and response capabilities for suspicious behavior — even if it’s from a new or unknown threat.

Closely related to EDR tools that are managed by your own IT or security staff, are managed detection and response (MDR) solutions. These are basically fully managed services that include EDR technologies and provides a team of external third-party cybersecurity experts to 24/7 monitor, investigate, and respond to threats on your behalf.

Recommendations

CrowdStrike Falcon

Primarily an EDR solution, CrowdStrike Falcon installs a lightweight cloud‑native agent on every endpoint, streams telemetry to the Falcon console, and gives you the ability to create detection rules, investigate incidents, and automate containment yourself. A managed MDR solution (Falcon Complete) is available as an add-on.

Huntress

Huntress, on the other hand, is primarily an MDM platform. Like Crowdstrike Falcon, Huntress runs its own lightweight agent on your endpoint. Customers have some limited access to the data this collects, and to some basic remediation controls, but the heavy lifting (continuous monitoring, threat‑hunt investigations, and response actions) is performed by Huntress’s team of security analysts.

2. Antivirus software

While EDR and MDR tools are designed to handle more sophisticated or targeted attacks, more traditional antivirus (AV) software remains a valuable first line of defense, stopping the everyday threats that employees are most likely to encounter (for example, infected email attachments or malicious downloads).

Most malware attacks still rely on previously seen attack patterns or code. Antivirus databases contain signatures of millions of known threats, allowing the software to block them instantly before they can even execute. Modern business-grade antivirus tools also go beyond simple signature matching. They use:

• Heuristic and behavioral analysis to detect new or mutated threats.
• Cloud-based scanning for faster, up-to-date protection.
• Machine learning to identify unusual patterns or processes that indicate malware.

In a modern business environment, AV tools should no longer be seen as a standalone solution, but as part of a layered security strategy that handles known threats automatically. This will help ensure your more advanced systems don’t waste resources on low-level, easily blocked malware, freeing them to focus on high-impact threats.

Recommendations

Note that the following solutions all include some EDR functionality, but their primary focus is on more traditional AV detection and mitigation techniques.

Microsoft Defender for Business (paid version)

At Proton, we’re not big fans of Microsoft. However, it does have the resources necessary to keep on top of the ever-evolving malware landscape, and Defender’s deep integration with Microsoft 365 environments means it scales well and is cost‑effective for existing Microsoft customers.

Bitdefender GravityZone

Notable for its strong multi‑layered protection, low performance impact, and a unified console that manages Windows, macOS, Linux, and virtual environments, Bitdefender GravityZone’s advanced ransomware mitigation and machine‑learning engine provides strong antivirus protection with centralized management.

Trend Micro Worry-Free Business Security

Designed specifically for SMBs, this (primarily) antivirus solution offers cloud-based protection, strong malware detection, URL and web threat filtering, unified endpoint visibility and minimal impact on performance. While it does offer some EDR functionality, Trend Micro Worry-Free Business Security isn’t as comprehensive in this area as top-tier enterprise EDR solutions.

Avast Business Antivirus Pro Plus

Avast Business Antivirus Pro Plus focuses on providing straightforward, reliable antivirus protection. Its feature set is a little less enterprise-focused (e.g., fewer advanced policy controls or deep EDR capabilities) but affordable pricing and easy deployment make it an attractive option for smaller businesses wishing to scale quickly.

3. Business VPN

The days of securing your corporate intranet with expensive and high-maintenance self-hosted virtual private network (VPN) solutions are gone. With a modern cloud-based business VPN, you can easily secure remote access to company resources, so that only authorized personnel can access your systems.

Whether working from home, traveling, or on-site at a client’s office, your staff can establish a VPN connection to your corporate network, effectively extending your company’s private network to their device.

A business VPN also eases your company’s compliance journey, bypasses censorship and geo-restrictions, and adds a layer of defense against denial-of-service (DoS) attacks(new window) by obscuring the actual IP addresses of your company’s resources.

Learn more about how a VPN for business can help protect your organization

Recommendations

Proton VPN for Business

Proton VPN for Business is a fully-audited, open source, Swiss-based VPN solution that protects your remote workforce and ensures safe access to company resources from around the world. Our dedicated IP addresses and Gateways (logical grouping of dedicated IPs) allow you to restrict logins so only approved devices and networks using private gateways.

Assign and segment permissions so employees only see what they need, making it easy to comply with security frameworks like ISO 27001, SOC 2 Type II, GDPR, and HIPAA. With support for single sign-on (SSO) and mobile device management (MDM), it’s easy to deploy and scale across your company.

Learn more about Proton VPN for Business

4. Password manager

Human error remains one of the biggest causes of data breaches, and password reuse is a major culprit. A business password manager enforces good password hygiene by generating and storing strong, unique credentials for each account.

Recommendations

Proton Pass for Business

With Proton Pass, you can ensure your staff secure their access to precious company resources using strong passwords (with built-in 2FA and passkeys support). Login credentials are stored using end-to-end encryption, and can be easily and securely shared among team members.

As an administrator, you can deploy Proton Pass across your organization with ease, and quickly onboard new hires or revoke access for departing employees with one click. A management console with detailed logs and customizable policies ensures you can keep an eye on activity within your business and enforce team security at scale.

Proton Pass for Business offers dark web monitoring to protect your business from third-party data breaches, and our Sentinel high-security program ensures your account is actively monitored 24/7 by software but also by teams of security analysts who detect infiltration and account takeover attempts.

Learn more about Proton Pass for Business

5. Cybersecurity awareness training

Although not strictly-speaking a “tool”, you should regard regular security awareness training for your staff as an essential part of keeping your company secure. This helps to build a security-first culture, where staff are trained to staff recognize and report threats before they cause damage.

Recommendations

SoSafe

SoSafe is a data-driven learning platform that offers phishing simulations and behavior analytics. It uses “gamified microlearning” to help your staff learn good security practices without suffering from learner fatigue.

KnowBe4

KnowBe4 offers comprehensive cybersecurity training with phishing simulations, interactive modules, compliance tracking.

Final thoughts on network security management

Network security isn’t a one‑size‑fits‑all checklist; it’s a living program that evolves with your business. By starting with solid basics (EDR, AV, a VPN, and a password manager) and layering on detection, response, and human training as you grow, you can keep your company’s spending proportional to the risk, while building a resilient security posture. And with Proton for Business tools at the heart of your cybersecurity strategy, you can create a security environment that’s both resilient and ethical.