“Endpoint” is used in two overlapping senses. In networking and security, an endpoint is any device at the edge of the network that sends or receives traffic: a sensor node, a camera, a gateway. In API and messaging contexts it is the address a client talks to, such as an MQTT broker hostname or a REST URL. Both meanings describe where a conversation ends rather than what passes through in the middle.
For IoT the security sense matters most. Every endpoint is part of the attack surface, and a fleet of thousands of cheap devices with default passwords is exactly what the Mirai botnet exploited. Endpoint management therefore covers identity, patching and monitoring for each IoT device, not only for the servers behind it. The basics are covered in IoT security fundamentals.
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