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- AlgoSec | Cloud security study reveals: over 50% of system failures are caused by human error and mismanagement
The past few years have witnessed a rapid surge in the use of SaaS applications across various industries. But with this growth comes a... Hybrid Cloud Security Management Cloud security study reveals: over 50% of system failures are caused by human error and mismanagement Malynnda Littky-Porath 2 min read Malynnda Littky-Porath Short bio about author here Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur. Vitae donec tincidunt elementum quam laoreet duis sit enim. Duis mattis velit sit leo diam. Tags Share this article 6/20/23 Published The past few years have witnessed a rapid surge in the use of SaaS applications across various industries. But with this growth comes a significant challenge: managing security and assessing risk in application connectivity. In this blog, I’ll explore the fascinating insights from a recent study conducted by the Cloud Security Alliance (CSA). The study delves into the complexities of managing security and assessing the risk of application connectivity in the rapidly growing world of SaaS applications and cloud environments. With responses from 1,551 IT and security professionals from organizations of all sizes and from all corners of the globe, this study provides valuable insights into the challenges of application security in cloud environments and how to best manage them. Insight # 1 – Human error is the leading cause of application outages With more than half of these outages linked to manual processes and the increasing complexity of the systems themselves, businesses are losing productivity, revenue, and even reputation due to downtime. In many cases, the root cause of these outages is traced back to configuration errors, software bugs, or human mistakes during deployments or maintenance activities. To combat these issues, investment in automation and machine learning technologies can mitigate the risk of human error and ensure the reliability and stability of their applications. Insight # 2 – 75% of organizations experienced application outages lasting an hour or more. The financial impact of outages has been significant, with an estimated cost of $300,000 or more per instance. These costs include lost productivity, revenue, and potential customer churn. While human error is the major contributor to downtime, outages are often caused by a combination of additional factors, including hardware or software failure and cyber-attacks. Comprehensive disaster recovery plans, backup systems, and application performance monitoring tools are necessary to minimize outages and ensure business continuity. Insight # 3 – A lack of visibility and compliance are the primary constraints to rolling out new applications . Visibility is essential to understanding how applications are used, where they are deployed, and how they integrate with other systems. Compliance gaps, on the other hand, can pose significant risks, resulting in issues such as data breaches, regulatory fines, or reputational damage. To ensure successful application rollout, organizations must have a clear view of their application environment and ensure compliance with relevant standards and regulations. Insight # 4 – The shift to the DevOps methodology has led to a shift-left movement where security is integrated into the application development process . Traditionally, application security teams have been responsible for securing applications in the public cloud. However, DevOps teams are becoming more involved in the security of applications in the public cloud. DevOps teams are now responsible for ensuring that applications are designed with security in mind, and they work with the application security teams to ensure that the necessary controls are in place. Involving the DevOps teams in the security process can reduce the risk of security breaches and ensure that security is integrated throughout the application lifecycle. Insight # 5 – Organizations are targeting unauthorized access to applications in the public cloud . Organizations can protect their applications by implementing strong authentication mechanisms, access controls, and encryption to protect sensitive data. Using the principle of least privilege can limit application access to only authorized personnel. cloud infrastructure is secure and that vulnerabilities are regularly identified and addressed. Organizations must review their security requirements, monitor the application environment, and regularly update their security controls to protect their data and applications in the public cloud. Insight # 6 – A rapidly evolving technology landscape has created skills gaps and staffing issues Specialized skills are not always readily available within organizations, which can result in a shortage of qualified personnel. This can overburden teams, resulting in burnout and increased staff turnover. Staffing shortages can also lead to knowledge silos, where critical skills and knowledge are concentrated in a few key individuals, leaving the rest of the team vulnerable to knowledge gaps. Organizations must invest in training and development programs to ensure that their teams have the skills and knowledge necessary to succeed in their roles. Successful cloud migrations require a comprehensive knowledge of cloud security controls and how they interconnect and collaborate with on-premise security systems. To make this happen, organizations need complete visibility across both cloud and on-premise environments, and must automate the network security management processes. To sum up, the rapidly evolving threat environment demands new ways to enhance security. Proactive risk detection, powerful automation capabilities, and enhanced visibility in the cloud and outside of it are just a few ways to strengthen your security posture. AlgoSec can do all that, and more, to help you stay ahead of emerging threats and protect your critical assets.. Even better, our solution is ideal for organizations that may lack in-house expertise and resources, complementing the existing security measures and helping to keep you one step ahead of attackers. Don’t miss out on the full insights and recommendations from the study. Click here to access the complete findings. Schedule a demo Related Articles Navigating Compliance in the Cloud AlgoSec Cloud Mar 19, 2023 · 2 min read 5 Multi-Cloud Environments Cloud Security Mar 19, 2023 · 2 min read Convergence didn’t fail, compliance did. Mar 19, 2023 · 2 min read Speak to one of our experts Speak to one of our experts Work email* First name* Last name* Company* country* Select country... Short answer* By submitting this form, I accept AlgoSec's privacy policy Schedule a call
- Firewall Rule Recertification - An Application-Centric Approach | AlgoSec
Webinars Firewall Rule Recertification - An Application-Centric Approach As part of your organization’s security policy management best practices, firewall rules must be reviewed and recertified regularly to ensure security, compliance and optimal firewall performance. Firewall rules which are out of date, unused or unnecessary should be removed, as firewall bloat creates gaps in your security posture, causes compliance violations, and impacts firewall performance. Manual firewall rule recertification, however, is an error-prone and time-consuming process. Please join our webinar by Asher Benbenisty, AlgoSec’s Director of Product Marketing, who will introduce an application-centric approach to firewall recertification, bringing a new, efficient, effective and automated method of recertifying firewall rules. The webinar will: Why it is important to regularly review and recertify your firewall rules The application-centric approach to firewall rule recertification How to automatically manage the rule-recertification process Want to find out more about the importance of ruleset hygiene? Watch this webinar today! Asher Benbenisty Director of product marketing Relevant resources Tips for Firewall Rule Recertification Watch Video Firewall Rule Recertification Read Document Choose a better way to manage your network Choose a better way to manage your network Work email* First name* Last name* Company* country* Select country... Short answer* By submitting this form, I accept AlgoSec's privacy policy Continue
- Measures that actually DO reduce your hacking risk | AlgoSec
Robert Bigman is uniquely equipped to share actionable tips for hardening your network security against vulnerabilities Don’t miss this opportunity to learn the latest threats and how to handle them Webinars Measures that actually DO reduce your hacking risk Learn from the best how to defeat hackers and ransomware As incidents of ransomware attacks become more common, the time has come to learn from the best how to defeat hackers. Join us as Robert Bigman, the former CISO of the CIA, presents his webinar Measures that Actually do Reduce your Hacking Risk. Robert Bigman is uniquely equipped to share actionable tips for hardening your network security against vulnerabilities. Don’t miss this opportunity to learn the latest threats and how to handle them. April 20, 2022 Robert Bigman Consultant; Former CISO of the CIA Relevant resources Ensuring critical applications stay available and secure while shifting to remote work Keep Reading Reducing risk of ransomware attacks - back to basics Keep Reading Ransomware Attack: Best practices to help organizations proactively prevent, contain and Keep Reading Choose a better way to manage your network Choose a better way to manage your network Work email* First name* Last name* Company* country* Select country... Short answer* By submitting this form, I accept AlgoSec's privacy policy Continue
- AlgoSec | Why Microsegmentation is Still a Go-To Network Security Strategy
Prof. Avishai Wool, AlgoSec co-founder and CTO, breaks down the truths and myths about micro-segmentation and how organizations can... Micro-segmentation Why Microsegmentation is Still a Go-To Network Security Strategy Prof. Avishai Wool 2 min read Prof. Avishai Wool Short bio about author here Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur. Vitae donec tincidunt elementum quam laoreet duis sit enim. Duis mattis velit sit leo diam. Tags Share this article 5/3/22 Published Prof. Avishai Wool, AlgoSec co-founder and CTO, breaks down the truths and myths about micro-segmentation and how organizations can better secure their network before their next cyberattack Network segmentation isn’t a new concept. For years it’s been the go-to recommendation for CISOs and other security leaders as a means of securing expansive networks and breaking large attack surface areas down into more manageable chunks. Just as we separate areas of a ship with secure doors to prevent flooding in the event of a hull breach, network segmentation allows us to seal off areas of our network to prevent breaches such as ransomware attacks, which tend to self-propagate and spread laterally from machine to machine. Network segmentation tends to work best in controlling north-south traffic in an organization. Its main purpose is to segregate and protect key company data and limit lateral movement by attackers across the network. Micro-segmentation takes this one step further and offers more granular control to help contain lateral east-west movement. It is a technique designed to create secure zones in networks, allowing companies to isolate workloads from one another and introduce tight controls over internal access to sensitive data. Put simply, if network segmentation makes up the floors, ceilings and protective outer hull, micro-segmentation makes up the steel doors and corridors that allow or restrict access to individual areas of the ship. Both methods can be used in combination to fortify cybersecurity posture and reduce risk vulnerability across the security network. How does micro-segmentation help defend against ransomware? The number of ransomware attacks on corporate networks seems to reach record levels with each passing year. Ransomware has become so appealing to cybercriminals that it’s given way to a whole Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) sub-industry, plying would-be attackers with the tools to orchestrate their own attacks. When deploying micro-segmentation across your security network, you can contain ransomware at the onset of an attack. When a breach occurs and malware takes over a machine on a given network, the policy embedded in the micro-segmented network should block the malware’s ability to propagate to an adjacent micro-segment, which in turn can protect businesses from a system-wide shutdown and save them a great financial loss. What does Zero Trust have to do with micro-segmentation? Zero trust is a manifestation of the principle of “least privilege” security credentialing. It is a mindset that guides security teams to not assume that people, or machines, are to be trusted by default. From a network perspective, zero-trust implies that “internal” networks should not be assumed to be more trustworthy than “external” networks – quotation marks are intentional. Therefore, micro-segmentation is the way to achieve zero trust at the network level: by deploying restrictive filtering policy inside the internal network to control east-west traffic. Just as individuals in an organization should only be granted access to data on a need-to-know basis, traffic should only be allowed to travel from one area of the business to another only if the supporting applications require access to those areas. Can a business using a public cloud solution still use micro-segmentation? Prior to the advent of micro-segmentation, it was very difficult to segment networks into zones and sub-zones because it required the physical deployment of equipment. Routing had to be changed, firewalls had to be locally installed, and the segmentation process would have to be carefully monitored and managed by a team of individuals. Fortunately for SecOps teams, this is no longer the case, thanks to the rapid adoption of cloud technology. There seems to be a misconception associated with micro-segmentation where it might be thought of as a strictly private cloud environment network security solution, whereas in reality, micro-segmentation can be deployed in a hybrid cloud environment – public cloud, private cloud and on-premise. In fact, all public cloud networks, including those offered by the likes of Azure and AWS, offer “baked in” filtering capabilities that make controlling traffic much easier. This lends itself well to the concept of micro-segmentation, so even those businesses that use a hybrid cloud setup can still benefit enormously. The Bottom Line Micro-segmentation presents a viable and scalable solution to tighten network security policies, despite its inherent implementation challenges. While many businesses may find it hard to manage this new method of security, it’s nevertheless a worthwhile endeavor. By utilizing a micro-segmentation method as part of its network security strategy, an organization can immediately bolster its network security against possible hackers and potential data breaches. To help you navigate through your micro-segmentation fact-finding journey, watch this webcast or read more in our resource hub . Schedule a demo Related Articles Navigating Compliance in the Cloud AlgoSec Cloud Mar 19, 2023 · 2 min read 5 Multi-Cloud Environments Cloud Security Mar 19, 2023 · 2 min read Convergence didn’t fail, compliance did. Mar 19, 2023 · 2 min read Speak to one of our experts Speak to one of our experts Work email* First name* Last name* Company* country* Select country... Short answer* By submitting this form, I accept AlgoSec's privacy policy Schedule a call
- Financial Institutions: Best Practices for Security & Compliance in the Era of Digital Transformation | AlgoSec
Explore best practices for security and compliance in financial institutions, ensuring robust protection and adherence to regulations amid digital transformation. Financial Institutions: Best Practices for Security & Compliance in the Era of Digital Transformation Overview Financial institutions face two major network security related challenges while working to serve their customers: the constant demand to improve in order to successfully compete in the market and regulatory compliance. Yet, when it comes to security, the InfoSec team often uses slow, manual (and error prone) processes to make the necessary network security changes – thereby delaying the release of a new competitive application or feature to market. To overcome these challenges, financial institutions must implement a network security policy management solution that will: Process the frequent security policy change requests automatically, with zero touch Simplify and automate regulatory compliance management Document all changes, providing a full audit trail Want to find out more? Download our whitepaper: Financial Institutions: Best Practices for Security and Compliance in the Era of Transformation It’s time to discover how automation can help transform your InfoSec team from business inhibitor to business enabler. Schedule a Demo Introduction In order to maintain a competitive advantage, information security teams at financial institutions must be able to support business transformation initiatives and deploy new applications or updated functionality to market quickly and securely. Most IT departments use automation tools to assist them with many aspects of their work – including managing software changes or provisioning storage. Automation allows them to support the fast pace required, ensure quality and maintain compliance with industry regulations. However, when it comes to security, oftentimes the InfoSec team still makes the necessary network security changes using manual processes. This is mostly due to the perceived complexity of the segmented network infrastructure; the large number of firewalls and network security devices (from multiple vendors) that are typically deployed across a financial institute’s network, as well as the extensive compliance requirements to which financial institutions are subject. As a result, the InfoSec team is often perceived as a bottleneck to progress – holding back the release of a new competitive application or feature to market. This white paper will discuss the challenges facing InfoSec teams today. It will then explain how a network security management solution delivers critical automation that will help transform the InfoSec team from a business inhibitor to a business enabler. Schedule a Demo Network security challenges for financial institutions Financial institutions face two key network security related challenges in their mission to serve their customers: regulatory compliance and a continual demand for changes in order to compete in the market. The number of regulations that financial institutions are required to uphold has significantly increased over the years. They include GLBA, GDPR, BASEL II, SOX, Dodd-Frank, PCI-DSS and many others. While these regulations aim to provide best practices that will help both the financial institutions and their customers, they require considerable effort to maintain, particularly with regards to network security. The second challenge that impacts network security in financial services, is the constant demand for changes. In recent years, the demand for innovation coupled with competition from agile and disruptive fintech companies is putting considerable pressure on financial institutions. As a result, financial institutions are constantly seeking ways to improve the way they interact with their customers while becoming more efficient. This means that there is now an ever-present need for change in a typically conservative industry that has previously been slow and reluctant to embrace change! Managing network security changes efficiently and effectively across today’s complex network environments requires automation. Yet, while IT organizations have embraced automation to handle many of its tasks, the InfoSec team has not. In the following section, we will discuss ways to utilize automation to manage security changes and manage the ever-increasing demands of industry regulations. Schedule a Demo Automated network security policy management To tackle these challenges, the InfoSec team needs automation to effectively manage the demands of regulatory compliance as well as keep up with the volume of network security policy changes. Managing compliance with industry regulations As part of compliance requirements most regulations require full visibility into the security posture, regular audits, and documentation of any changes. Visibility of the security posture: The first step to achieving visibility is to identify all the applications that support customer transactions and manage customer information. Next they should be classified based on the relevant regulations, such as PCI for applications that manage cardholder information. There are tools that can handle this process automatically, including the discovery process, which save considerable time. Moreover, automation tools can help document the entire environment, including the network security device configurations and security policies – which is a key part of regulatory compliance. In addition to supporting compliance requirements, this visibility and transparency will expose any gaps and risks in your network security, and thus help in making your network secure. Streamlined audits: Whether internal or external, audits eat up considerable resources. The InfoSec team currently needs to spend significant time and effort generating reports that document their security posture and prove compliance with every regulation – time that could be better spent focusing on securing the network or responding to business requests. Automation can handle all these processes, and generate self-documenting, audit-ready reports out of the box. Documenting compliance: Most network security management solutions review all changes during design and deployment to ensure that they comply with the industry regulations. As part of this process they document and provide a full audit trail of the change, thereby automating the requirement for change documentation. Managing the constant barrage of change requests An automation solution is paramount to tackling the frequent change requests that are typically required in the financial industry. An automation solution will enable the InfoSec team to focus on the impact and risk of the change as well as ensure that all changes are necessary (typically around 30% of change requests are unnecessary). An automation solution must: Ensure that the network security policy change request will not breach the compliance posture Automatically map the network route for any planned changes and identify the firewall, routers and switches along that route that need to be changed Assess all the risks of a security change. These include regulatory compliance risks as well as internal risks Understand the details of each firewall rule change request and determine whether a change is really needed, whether a change to an existing rule will be sufficient or if there is a need to create a new rule as part of the change request. This process will reduce the overall number of rules and help optimize the security ruleset Can automatically deploy changes directly onto firewalls Schedule a Demo Summary Financial institutions are constantly seeking to better serve their customers and maintain a competitive edge through new technology innovations. Yet often these organizations fall behind on delivering these new innovations into production. Their network and security operations team are hampered by manual and error-prone security change management processes coupled with the ever-increasing demands of industry regulations, which impact time-to-market. Automated network security management solutions help streamline the auditing process, ensure continuous compliance, as well as significantly simplify and speed up the process of managing network security changes. Schedule a Demo About AlgoSec The leading provider of business-driven security management solutions, AlgoSec helps the world’s largest organizations align security with their business processes. With AlgoSec, users can discover, map and migrate business application connectivity, proactively analyze risk from the business perspective, tie cyber-attacks to business processes and intelligently automate network security changes with zero touch – across their cloud, SDN and on-premise networks. Over 1,800 enterprises, including twenty Fortune 50 companies, have utilized AlgoSec’s solutions to make their organizations more agile, more secure and more compliant – all the time. Since its inception, AlgoSec has provided the industry’s only money-back guarantee. Let's start your journey to our business-centric network security. Schedule a Demo Select a size Overview Introduction Network security challenges for financial institutions Automated network security policy management Summary About AlgoSec Get the latest insights from the experts Choose a better way to manage your network
- AlgoSec | 10 Best Firewall Monitoring Software for Network Security
Firewall monitoring is an important part of maintaining strict network security. Every firewall device has an important role to play... Firewall Policy Management 10 Best Firewall Monitoring Software for Network Security Asher Benbenisty 2 min read Asher Benbenisty Short bio about author here Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur. Vitae donec tincidunt elementum quam laoreet duis sit enim. Duis mattis velit sit leo diam. Tags Share this article 10/24/23 Published Firewall monitoring is an important part of maintaining strict network security. Every firewall device has an important role to play protecting the network, and unexpected flaws or downtime can put the entire network at risk. Firewall monitoring solutions provide much-needed visibility into the status and behavior of your network firewall setup. They make the security of your IT infrastructure observable, enabling you to efficiently deploy resources towards managing and securing traffic flows. This is especially important in environments with multiple firewall hardware providers, where you may need to verify firewalls, routers, load balancers, and more from a central interface. What is the role of Firewall Monitoring Software? Every firewall in your network is a checkpoint that verifies traffic according to your security policy. Firewall monitoring software assesses the performance and reports the status of each firewall in the network. This is important because a flawed or defective firewall can’t do its job properly. In a complex enterprise IT environment, dedicating valuable resources to manually verifying firewalls isn’t feasible. The organization may have hardware firewalls from Juniper or Cisco, software firewalls from Check Point, and additional built-in operating system firewalls included with Microsoft Windows. Manually verifying each one would be a costly and time-consuming workflow that prevents limited security talent from taking on more critical tasks. Additionally, admins would have to wait for individual results from each firewall in the network. In the meantime, the network would be exposed to vulnerabilities that exploit faulty firewall configurations. Firewall monitoring software solves this problem using automation . By compressing all the relevant data from every firewall in the network into a single interface, analysts and admins can immediately detect security threats that compromise firewall security. The Top 10 Firewall Monitoring Tools Right Now 1. AlgoSec AlgoSec enables security teams to visualize and manage complex hybrid networks . It uses a holistic approach to provide instant visibility to the entire network’s security configuration, including cloud and on-premises infrastructure. This provides a single pane of glass that lets security administrators preview policies before enacting them and troubleshoot issues in real-time. 2. Wireshark Wireshark is a widely used network protocol analyzer. It can capture and display the data traveling back and forth on a network in real-time. While it’s not a firewall-specific tool, it’s invaluable for diagnosing network issues and understanding traffic patterns. As an open-source tool, anyone can download WireShark for free and immediately start using it to analyze data packets. 3. PRTG Network Monitor PRTG is known for its user-friendly interface and comprehensive monitoring capabilities. It supports SNMP and other monitoring methods, making it suitable for firewall monitoring. Although it is an extensible and customizable solution, it requires purchasing a dedicated on-premises server. 4. SolarWinds Firewall Security Manager SolarWinds offers a suite of network management tools, and their Firewall Security Manager is specifically designed for firewall monitoring and management. It helps with firewall rule analysis, change management, and security policy optimization. It is a highly configurable enterprise technology that provides centralized incident management features. However, deploying SolarWinds can be complex, and the solution requires specific on-premises hardware to function. 5. FireMon FireMon is a firewall management and analysis platform. It provides real-time visibility into firewall rules and configurations, helping organizations ensure that their firewall policies are compliant and effective. FireMon minimizes security risks related to policy misconfigurations, extending policy management to include multiple security tools, including firewalls. 6. ManageEngine ManageEngine’s OpManager offers IT infrastructure management solutions, including firewall log analysis and reporting. It can help you track and analyze traffic patterns, detect anomalies, and generate compliance reports. It is intuitive and easy to use, but only supports monitoring devices across multiple networks with its higher-tier Enterprise Edition. It also requires the installation of on-premises hardware. 7. Tufin Tufin SecureTrack is a comprehensive firewall monitoring and management solution. It provides real-time monitoring, change tracking, and compliance reporting for firewalls and other network devices. It can automatically discover network assets and provide comprehensive information on network assets, but may require additional configuration to effectively monitor complex enterprise networks. 8. Cisco Firepower Management Center If you’re using Cisco firewalls, the Firepower Management Center offers centralized management and monitoring capabilities. It provides insights into network traffic, threats, and policy enforcement. Cisco simplifies network management and firewall monitoring by offering an intuitive centralized interface that lets admins control Cisco firewall devices directly. 9. Symantec Symantec (now part of Broadcom) offers firewall appliances with built-in monitoring and reporting features. These appliances are known for providing comprehensive coverage to endpoints like desktop workstations, laptops, and mobile devices. Symantec also provides some visibility into firewall configurations, but it is not a dedicated service built for this purpose. 10. Fortinet Fortinet’s FortiAnalyzer is designed to work with Fortinet’s FortiGate firewalls. It provides centralized logging, reporting, and analysis of network traffic and security events. This provides customers with end-to-end visibility into emerging threats on their networks and even includes useful security automation tools. It’s relatively easy to deploy, but integrating it with a complex set of firewalls may take some time. Benefits of Firewall Monitoring Software Enhanced Security Your firewalls are your first line of defense against cyberattacks, preventing malicious entities from infiltrating your network. Threat actors know this, and many sophisticated attacks start with attempts to disable firewalls or overload them with distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. Without a firewall monitoring solution in place, you may not be aware such an attack is happening until it’s too late. Even if your firewalls are successfully defending against the attack, your detection and response team should be ready to start mitigating risk the moment the attack is launched. Traffic Control Firewalls can add strain and latency to network traffic. This is especially true of software firewalls, which have to draw computing resources from the servers they protect. Over time, network congestion can become an expensive obstacle to growth, creating bottlenecks that reduce the efficiency of every device on the network. Improperly implemented firewalls can play a major role in these bottlenecks because they have to verify every data packet transferred through them. With firewall monitoring, system administrators can assess the impact of firewall performance on network traffic and use that data to more effectively balance network loads. Organizations can reduce overhead by rerouting data flows and finding low-cost storage options for data they don’t constantly need access to. Real-time Alerts If attackers manage to break through your defenses and disable your firewall, you will want to know immediately. Part of having a strong security posture is building a multi-layered security strategy. Your detection and response team will need real-time updates on the progress of active cyberattacks. They will use this information to free the resources necessary to protect the organization and mitigate risk. Organizations that don’t have real-time firewall monitoring in place won’t know if their firewalls fail against an ongoing attack. This can lead to a situation where the CSIRT team is forced to act without clear knowledge about what they’re facing. Performance Monitoring Poor network performance can have a profound impact on the profitability of an enterprise-sized organization. Drops in network quality cost organizations more than half a million dollars per year , on average. Misconfigured firewalls can contribute to poor network performance if left unaddressed while the organization grows and expands its network. Properly monitoring the performance of the network requires also monitoring the performance of the firewalls that protect it. System administrators should know if overly restrictive firewall policies prevent legitimate users from accessing the data they need. Policy Enforcement Firewall monitoring helps ensure security policies are implemented and enforced in a standardized way throughout the organization. They can help discover the threat of shadow IT networks made by users communicating outside company-approved devices and applications. This helps prevent costly security breaches caused by negligence. Advanced firewall monitoring solutions can also help security leaders create, save, and update policies using templates. The best of these solutions enable security teams to preview policy changes and research elaborate “what-if” scenarios, and update their core templates accordingly. Selecting the Right Network Monitoring Software When considering a firewall monitoring service, enterprise security leaders should evaluate their choice based on the following features: Scalability Ensure the software can grow with your network to accommodate future needs. Ideally, both your firewall setup and the monitoring service responsible for it can grow at the same pace as your organization. Pay close attention to the way the organization itself is likely to grow over time. A large government agency may require a different approach to scalability than an acquisition-oriented enterprise with many separate businesses under its umbrella. Customizability Look for software that allows you to tailor security rules to your specific requirements. Every organization is unique. The appropriate firewall configuration for your organization may be completely different than the one your closest competitor needs. Copying configurations and templates between organizations won’t always work. Your network monitoring solution should be able to deliver performance insights fine-tuned to your organization’s real needs. If there are gaps in your monitoring capabilities, there are probably going to be gaps in your security posture as well. Integration Compatibility with your existing network infrastructure is essential for seamless operation. This is another area where every organization is unique. It’s very rare for two organizations to use the same hardware and software tools, and even then there may be process-related differences that can become obstacles to easy integration. Your organization’s ideal firewall monitoring solution should provide built-in support for the majority of the security tools the organization uses. If there are additional tools or services that aren’t supported, you should feel comfortable with the process of creating a custom integration without too much difficulty. Reporting Comprehensive reporting features provide insights into network activity and threats. It should generate reports that fit the formats your analysts are used to working with. If the learning curve for adopting a new technology is too high, achieving buy-in will be difficult. The best network monitoring solutions provide a wide range of reports into every aspect of network and firewall performance. Observability is one of the main drivers of value in this kind of implementation, and security leaders have no reason to accept compromises here. AlgoSec for Real-time Network Traffic Analysis Real-time network traffic monitoring reduces security risks and enables faster, more significant performance improvements at enterprise scale. Security professionals and network engineers need access to clear, high-quality insight on data flows and network performance, and AlgoSec delivers. One way AlgoSec deepens the value of network monitoring is through the ability to connect applications directly to security policy rules . When combined with real-time alerts, this provides deep visibility into the entire network while reducing the need to conduct time-consuming manual queries when suspicious behaviors or sub-optimal traffic flows are detected. Firewall Monitoring Software: FAQs How Does Firewall Monitoring Software Work? These software solutions manage firewalls so they can identify malicious traffic flows more effectively. They connect multiple hardware and software firewalls to one another through a centralized interface. Administrators can gather information on firewall performance, preview or change policies, and generate comprehensive reports directly. This enables firewalls to detect more sophisticated malware threats without requiring the deployment of additional hardware. How often should I update my firewall monitoring software? Regular updates are vital to stay protected against evolving threats. When your firewall vendor releases an update, it often includes critical security data on the latest emerging threats as well as patches for known vulnerabilities. Without these updates, your firewalls may become vulnerable to exploits that are otherwise entirely preventable. The same is true for all software, but it’s especially important for firewalls. Can firewall monitoring software prevent all cyberattacks? While highly effective, no single security solution is infallible. Organizations should focus on combining firewall monitoring software with other security measures to create a multi-layered security posture. If threat actors successfully disable or bypass your firewalls, your detection and response team should receive a real-time notification and immediately begin mitigating cyberattack risk. Is open-source firewall monitoring software a good choice? Open-source options can be cost-effective, but they may require more technical expertise to configure and maintain. This is especially true for firewall deployments that rely on highly customized configurations. Open-source architecture can make sense in some cases, but may present challenges to scalability and the affordability of hiring specialist talent later on. How do I ensure my firewall doesn’t block legitimate traffic? Regularly review and adjust your firewall rules to avoid false positives. Sophisticated firewall solutions include features for reducing false positives, while simpler firewalls are often unable to distinguish genuine traffic from malicious traffic. Advanced firewall monitoring services can help you optimize your firewall deployment to reduce false positives without compromising security. How does firewall monitoring enhance overall network security? Firewalls can address many security threats, from distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks to highly technical cross-site scripting attacks. The most sophisticated firewalls can even block credential-based attacks by examining outgoing content for signs of data exfiltration. Firewall monitoring allows security leaders to see these processes in action and collect data on them, paving the way towards continuous security improvement and compliance. What is the role of VPN audits in network security? Advanced firewalls are capable of identifying VPN connections and enforcing rules specific to VPN traffic. However, firewalls are not generally capable of decrypting VPN traffic, which means they must look for evidence of malicious behavior outside the data packet itself. Firewall monitoring tools can audit VPN connections to determine if they are harmless or malicious in nature, and enforce rules for protecting enterprise assets against cybercriminals equipped with secure VPNs . What are network device management best practices? Centralizing the management of network devices is the best way to ensure optimal network performance in a rapid, precise way. Organizations that neglect to centralize firewall and network device management have to manually interact with increasingly complex fleets of network hardware, software applications, and endpoint devices. This makes it incredibly difficult to make changes when needed, and increases the risks associated with poor change management when they happen. What are the metrics and notifications that matter most for firewall monitoring? Some of the important parameters to pay attention to include the volume of connections from new or unknown IP addresses, the amount of bandwidth used by the organization’s firewalls, and the number of active sessions on at any given time. Port information is especially relevant because so many firewall rules specify actions based on the destination port of incoming traffic. Additionally, network administrators will want to know how quickly they receive notifications about firewall issues and how long it takes to resolve those issues. What is the role of bandwidth and vulnerability monitoring? Bandwidth monitoring allows system administrators to find out which users and hosts consume the most bandwidth, and how network bandwidth is shared among various protocols. This helps track network performance and provides visibility into security threats that exploit bandwidth issues. Denial of service (DoS) attacks are a common cyberattack that weaponizes network bandwidth. What’s the difference between on-premises vs. cloud-based firewall monitoring? Cloud-based firewall monitoring uses software applications deployed as cloud-enabled services while on-premises solutions are physical hardware solutions. Physical solutions must be manually connected to every device on the network, while cloud-based firewall monitoring solutions can automatically discover assets and IT infrastructure immediately after being deployed. What is the role of configuration management? Updating firewall configurations is an important part of maintaining a resilient security posture. Organizations that fail to systematically execute configuration changes on all assets on the network run the risk of forgetting updates or losing track of complex policies and rules. Automated firewall monitoring solutions allow admins to manage configurations more effectively while optimizing change management. What are some best practices for troubleshooting network issues? Monitoring tools offer much-needed visibility to IT professionals who need to address network problems. These tools help IT teams narrow down the potential issues and focus their time and effort on the most likely issues first. Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) monitoring uses a client-server application model to collect information running on network devices. This provides comprehensive data about network devices and allows for automatic discovery of assets on the network. What’s the role of firewall monitoring in Windows environments? Microsoft Windows includes simple firewall functionality in its operating system platform, but it is best-suited to personal use cases on individual endpoints. Organizations need a more robust solution for configuring and enforcing strict security rules, and a more comprehensive way to monitor Windows-based networks as a whole. Platforms like AlgoSec help provide in-depth visibility into the security posture of Windows environments. How do firewall monitoring tools integrate with cloud services? Firewall monitoring tools provide observability to cloud-based storage and computing services like AWS and Azure. Cloud-native monitoring solutions can ingest network traffic coming to and from public cloud providers and make that data available for security analysts. Enterprise security teams achieve this by leveraging APIs to automate the transfer of network performance data from the cloud provider’s infrastructure to their own monitoring platform. What are some common security threats and cyberattacks that firewalls can help mitigate? Since firewalls inspect every packet of data traveling through the network perimeter, they play a critical role detecting and mitigating many different threats and attacks. Simple firewalls can block unsophisticated denial-of-service (DoS) attacks and detect known malware variants. Next-generation firewalls can prevent data breaches by conducting deep packet analysis, identifying compromised applications and user accounts, and even blocking sensitive data from leaving the network altogether. What is the importance of network segmentation and IP address management? Network segmentation protects organizations from catastrophic data breaches by ensuring that even successful cyberattacks are limited in scope. If attackers compromise one part of the network, they will not necessarily have access to every other part. Security teams achieve segmentation in part by effectively managing network IP addresses according to a robust security policy and verifying the effects of policy changes using monitoring software. Schedule a demo Related Articles Navigating Compliance in the Cloud AlgoSec Cloud Mar 19, 2023 · 2 min read 5 Multi-Cloud Environments Cloud Security Mar 19, 2023 · 2 min read Convergence didn’t fail, compliance did. Mar 19, 2023 · 2 min read Speak to one of our experts Speak to one of our experts Work email* First name* Last name* Company* country* Select country... Short answer* By submitting this form, I accept AlgoSec's privacy policy Schedule a call
- Deloitte and AlgoSec Partner to Establish a Joint Network Protection Transformation Solution for Enterprises
The joint offering helps enterprises tighten their security posture, effectively mitigate Ransomware and other Cyberattacks and ensure long-term sustainability Deloitte and AlgoSec Partner to Establish a Joint Network Protection Transformation Solution for Enterprises The joint offering helps enterprises tighten their security posture, effectively mitigate Ransomware and other Cyberattacks and ensure long-term sustainability November 9, 2020 Speak to one of our experts RIDGEFIELD PARK, N.J., November 9, 2020 – The EMEA Telecom Engineering Centre of Excellence (TEE) of Deloitte (located in Portugal) and AlgoSec , the leading provider of business-driven network security management solutions, have entered into an alliance to establish a network protection transformation offer to safeguard clients against complex threats and attacks. The combined team will deliver, operate, and maintain a network protection offer with joint functions managed between Deloitte and AlgoSec. Deloitte TEE will focus on delivering business process transformation capabilities, business and technical advisory and project management to ensure reliability and sustainability on the proposed capabilities, while AlgoSec will provide technical support to customize, deploy and operate the tool to accelerate and automate the network security management, and ensure the offer is aligned with the business’ requirements. The Deloitte and AlgoSec joint offering provides a business-centric approach to network security management across the entire hybrid and multi-vendor environment. The solution offers comprehensive visibility across the network security environment and business applications, agile and secure policy change management via zero touch automation, and continuous compliance assurance. The offering also includes a Network Security Hardening Service, which begins to understand the Client’s network level of exposure, current vulnerabilities and the potential impact of network threats, before performing a transformation strategy to strengthen current capabilities and remediate network risks and vulnerabilities, followed by a Network Security Managed Service to monitor and guarantee long-term sustainability. Deloitte TEE will also become a reselling partner to support AlgoSec in the global market, using a structured offer model with advantages for the partnership and the client. Jade Kahn, AlgoSec CMO said: “Network protection should be a priority for companies to mitigate the damage caused by an increasing number of complex cyber threats. With an appropriate strategy in place, they can identify and contain threats before they are able to move freely across the network. We look forward to working alongside Deloitte and delivering value to its clients.” Pedro Tavares, Partner of Deloitte Portugal and responsible for the EMEA Telecom Engineering Centre of Excellence (TEE): “TEE focus is on delivering high value telecoms engineering consultancy services towards our customers, and under the ongoing digitalization wave and in the advent of 5G, setting up a Network Protection offer to ensure that this improvement in the connectivity, communication and user experience do not bring substantial business risks is a key stepping stone towards this strategy. We expect with this combined offer to support our clients in improving their network security, mitigating their network risks and enhancing their key Capabilities to ensure a sustainable transformation of their business”. About AlgoSec The leading provider of business-driven network security management solutions, AlgoSec helps the world’s largest organizations align security with their mission-critical business processes. With AlgoSec, users can discover, map and migrate business application connectivity, proactively analyze risk from the business perspective, tie cyber-attacks to business processes and intelligently automate network security changes with zero touch – across their cloud, SDN and on-premise networks. Over 1,800 enterprises, including 20 of the Fortune 50, have utilized AlgoSec’s solutions to make their organizations more agile, more secure and more compliant – all the time. Since 2005, AlgoSec has shown its commitment to customer satisfaction with the industry’s only money-back guarantee . All product and company names herein may be trademarks of their registered owners. Media Contacts:Tsippi Dach [email protected] Craig Coward Context Public [email protected] +44 (0)1625 511 966 Olga Neves Media Relations & External CommunicationsDeloitte PortugalTlm: (+351) 918 985 [email protected] About Deloitte Deloitte, us, we and our refer to one or more of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (“DTTL”), its global network of member firms, and their related entities (collectively, the “Deloitte organization”). DTTL (also referred to as “Deloitte Global”) and each of its member firms and related entities are legally separate and independent entities, which cannot obligate or bind each other in respect of third parties. DTTL and each DTTL member firm and related entity is liable only for its own acts and omissions, and not those of each other. DTTL does not provide services to clients. Please see www.deloitte.com/about to learn more.Deloitte is a leading global provider of audit and assurance, consulting, financial advisory, risk advisory, tax and related services. Our global network of member firms and related entities in more than 150 countries and territories (collectively, the “Deloitte organization”) serves four out of five Fortune Global 500® companies. Learn how Deloitte’s more than 330,000 people make an impact that matters at www.deloitte.com . About EMEA Telecom Engineering Centre of Excellence (TEE) The EMEA Telecom Engineering Centre of Excellence (TEE) is an operational area specialized in telecom engineering services, managed by Deloitte Portugal, that offers engineering services for mobile, fixed and convergent telecom networks, service platforms and operating support systems (“OSS”) for the Europe, Middle East, Africa region (“EMEA”).
- AlgoSec | CSPM vs. CNAPP: Which Solution to Choose?
Protecting cloud-based applications and workloads requires robust security solutions such as CSPM, CIEM and CWPP. CNAPP tries to answer... Cloud Security CSPM vs. CNAPP: Which Solution to Choose? Rony Moshkovich 2 min read Rony Moshkovich Short bio about author here Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur. Vitae donec tincidunt elementum quam laoreet duis sit enim. Duis mattis velit sit leo diam. Tags Share this article 11/24/22 Published Protecting cloud-based applications and workloads requires robust security solutions such as CSPM, CIEM and CWPP. CNAPP tries to answer all 3 but how do you know which solution is right for your specific organization? Ava Chawla, AlgoSec’s Global Head of Cloud Security unravels the differences between them and shares her expert opinion on the solution that offers the most value for organizations. What is Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)? A CSPM tool monitors the logs and configuration files of the services you use in your cloud environment. It will scan the entire cloud environment to detect and prevent misconfiguration errors. This is important because configurations in the cloud happen quickly and just as quickly introduce new threats into the environment. For robust ongoing protection, you need to monitor the environment continuously and automatically. Here’s where CSPM comes in. The best CSPM solutions implement configuration best practices and automatically initiate corrective actions to remove risks, thus improving cloud security, ensuring adherence to compliance policies, and reducing the likelihood of breaches. Additionally, they are agentless, do not require long configuration, and don’t add to your cloud bills by utilizing additional cloud resources. What is Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM)? In cloud environments, identity goes beyond users and groups. It also plays a vital role in managing all the resources and services that need to access data. All these accesses happen very quickly and constitute a complex web of interactions. It’s crucial to know when and between whom these interactions occur to ensure that only legitimate resources can access or modify data. But as your cloud resources increase, the complexity of entitlements also grows. It’s not easy to keep track of these entitlements or to maintain the security-focused principle of least privilege (PoLP). CIEM tools are specialized identity-centric solutions to manage cloud access risk and govern entitlements in hybrid and multi-cloud environments. With CIEM, you can manage entitlements across all your cloud resources and maintain PoLP to mitigate the risk created by granting excessive permissions to cloud resources. What is a Cloud Workload Protection Platform (CWPP)? CWPP solutions manage cloud applications and workloads. They can reach back into on- prem environments and thus effectively detect and prevent security problems like malware and vulnerabilities across the entire hybrid landscape. CWPP solutions can scale automatically and support your organization as your cloud environment grows or changes. What is a Cloud Native Application Protection Platform (CNAPP)? Each of these solutions are geared towards a specific area of cloud security. CSPM prevents misconfiguration errors, CIEM platforms manage cloud access risks, and CWPP protects your assets and workloads. But what if you want a single solution that can completely manage the security of your cloud environment? Try a Cloud Native Application Protection Platform . CNAPP solutions combine security posture management, workload protection, and entitlement management into one single platform to provide comprehensive, holistic security across multi-cloud environments. Thus, you can protect your entire cloud estate with one solution instead of having to implement and manage multiple point solutions. Another advantage of a CNAPP tool is that it will enable you to “shift left”. Thus, you can not only secure applications in production environments, but also manage the runtime and DevOps aspects of security. For this reason, these platforms are aimed at both security professionals and DevOps practitioners. Conclusion and Next Steps A CNAPP solution is the most comprehensive solution. However, in today’s market there is no one tool that truly covers all the functionalities that CNAPP promises. Therefore, each organization should choose the solution that fits its immediate needs, including taking other considerations into account such as the skill level and the maturity of its cloud adoption. One important thing to remember: Regardless of the solution you choose, make sure it’s agentless. Agentless is important in today’s cloud security because agent-based solutions are hard to manage, expensive, and intrusive. If you’re looking for a modern agentless CSPM with container protection to safeguard your cloud-based application and workload data, then Prevasio might be the best option for you. Schedule a demo Related Articles Navigating Compliance in the Cloud AlgoSec Cloud Mar 19, 2023 · 2 min read 5 Multi-Cloud Environments Cloud Security Mar 19, 2023 · 2 min read Convergence didn’t fail, compliance did. Mar 19, 2023 · 2 min read Speak to one of our experts Speak to one of our experts Work email* First name* Last name* Company* country* Select country... Short answer* By submitting this form, I accept AlgoSec's privacy policy Schedule a call
- AlgoSec | How to Use Decoy Deception for Network Protection
A Decoy Network The strategy behind Sun Tzu’s ‘Art of War’ has been used by the military, sports teams, and pretty much anyone looking... Cyber Attacks & Incident Response How to Use Decoy Deception for Network Protection Matthew Pascucci 2 min read Matthew Pascucci Short bio about author here Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur. Vitae donec tincidunt elementum quam laoreet duis sit enim. Duis mattis velit sit leo diam. Tags Share this article 6/30/15 Published A Decoy Network The strategy behind Sun Tzu’s ‘Art of War’ has been used by the military, sports teams, and pretty much anyone looking for a strategic edge against their foes. As Sun Tzu says “All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.” Sun Tzu understood that to gain an advantage on your opponent you need to catch him off guard, make him believe you’re something you’re not, so that you can leverage this opportunity to your advantage. As security practitioners we should all supplement our security practices with this timed and tested decoy technique against cyber attackers. There are a few technologies that can be used as decoys, and two of the most common are honeypots and false decoy accounts: A honeypot is a specially designed piece of software that mimics another system, normally with vulnerable services that aren’t really vulnerable, in order to attract the attention of an attacker as they’re sneaking through your network. Decoy accounts are created in order to check if someone is attempting to log into them. When an attempt is made security experts can then investigate the attackers’ techniques and strategies, without being detected or any data being compromised. Design the right decoy But before actually setting up either of these two techniques you first need to think about how to design the decoy in a way that will be believable. These decoy systems shouldn’t be overtly obvious, yet they need to entice the hacker so that he can’t pass up the opportunity. So think like an attacker: What would an attacker do first when gaining access to a network? How would he exploit a system? Will they install malware? Will they perform a recon scan looking for pivot points? Figuring out what your opponent will do once they’ve gained access to your network is the key to building attractive decoy systems and effective preventive measures. Place it in plain sight You also need to figure out the right place for your decoys. You want to install decoys into your network around areas of high value, as well as systems that are not properly monitored with other security technologies. They should be hiding in plain sight and mimicking the systems or accounts that they’re living next to. This means running similar services, have hostnames that fall in line with your syntax, running on the same operating systems (one exception is decoys running a few exploitable services to entice the attacker). The goes the same for accounts that you’ve seeded in applications or authentication services. We decided that in addition to family photos, it was time to focus on couples photoshoot ! Last fall we aired our popular City Photoshoot Tips & Ideas and as a result, gave you TONS of ideas and inspiration. And last but not least, you need to find a way to discretely publicize your applications or accounts in order to attract the attacker. Then, when an attacker tries to log in to the decoy applications or accounts (which should be disabled) you should immediately and automatically start tracking and investigating the attack path. Watch and learn Another important point to make is that once a breach attempt has been made you shouldn’t immediately cut off the account. You might want to watch the hacker for a period of time to see what else that he might access on the network. Many times tracking their actions over a period of time will give you a lot more actionable information that will ultimately help you create a far more secure perimeter. Think of it as a plainclothes police officer following a known criminal. Many times the police will follow a criminal to see if he will lead them toward more information about their activities before making an arrest. Use the same techniques. If an attacker trips over a few of carefully laid traps, it’s possible that he’s just starting to poke around your network. It’s up to you, while you have the upper hand, to determine if you start remediation or continue to guide them under your watchful eye. Schedule a demo Related Articles Navigating Compliance in the Cloud AlgoSec Cloud Mar 19, 2023 · 2 min read 5 Multi-Cloud Environments Cloud Security Mar 19, 2023 · 2 min read Convergence didn’t fail, compliance did. Mar 19, 2023 · 2 min read Speak to one of our experts Speak to one of our experts Work email* First name* Last name* Company* country* Select country... Short answer* By submitting this form, I accept AlgoSec's privacy policy Schedule a call
- AlgoSec | Why organizations need to embrace new thinking in how they tackle hybrid cloud security challenges
Hybrid cloud computing enables organizations to deploy sensitive workloads on-premise or in a private cloud, while hosting less... DevSecOps Why organizations need to embrace new thinking in how they tackle hybrid cloud security challenges Prof. Avishai Wool 2 min read Prof. Avishai Wool Short bio about author here Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur. Vitae donec tincidunt elementum quam laoreet duis sit enim. Duis mattis velit sit leo diam. Tags Share this article 10/9/22 Published Hybrid cloud computing enables organizations to deploy sensitive workloads on-premise or in a private cloud, while hosting less business-critical resources on public clouds. But despite its many benefits, the hybrid environment also creates security concerns. AlgoSec’s co-founder and CTO, Prof. Avishai Wool shares his expert insights on these concerns and offers best practices to boost hybrid cloud security. Hybrid cloud computing combines on-premises infrastructure, private cloud services, and one or more public clouds. Going hybrid provides businesses with enhanced flexibility, agility, cost savings, and scalability to innovate, grow, and gain a competitive advantage. So, how can you simplify and strengthen security operations in the hybrid cloud? It all starts with visibility – you still can’t protect what you can’t see To protect their entire hybrid infrastructure, applications, workloads, and data, security teams need to know what these assets are and where they reside. They also need to see the entire hybrid estate and not just the individual elements. However, complete visibility is a serious hybrid cloud security challenge. Hybrid environments are highly complex, which can create security blind spots, which then prevent teams from identifying, evaluating, and most importantly, mitigating risk. Another hybrid cloud security concern is that you cannot implement a fragmented security approach to control the entire network. With thousands of integrated and inter-dependent resources and data flowing between them, vulnerabilities crop up, increasing the risk of cyberattacks or breaches. For complete hybrid cloud security, you need a holistic approach that can help you control the entire network. Is DevSecOps the panacea? Not quite In many organizations, DevSecOps teams manage cloud security because they have visibility into what’s happening inside the cloud. However, in the hybrid cloud, many applications have servers or clients existing outside the cloud, which DevSecOps may not have visibility into. Also, the protection of data flowing into and out of the cloud is not always under their remit. To make up for these gaps, other teams are required to manage security operations and minimize hybrid cloud risks. These additional processes and team members must be coordinated to ensure continuous security across the entire hybrid network environment. But this is easier said than done. Using IaC to balance automation with oversight is key, but here’s why you shouldn’t solely rely on it Infrastructure as code (IaC) will help you automatically deploy security controls in the hybrid cloud to prevent misconfiguration errors, non-compliance, and violations while in the production stage and pre application testing. With IaC-based security, you can define security best practices in template files, which will minimize risks and enhance your security posture. But there’s an inherent risk in putting all your eggs in the automation and IaC basket. Due to the fact that all the controls are on the operational side, it can create serious hybrid cloud security issues. And without human attention and action, vulnerabilities may remain unaddressed and open the door to cyberattacks. Since security professionals who are not on the operational side must oversee the cloud environment, it could easily open the door to miscommunication and human errors – a very costly proposition for organizations. For this very reason, you should also implement a process to regularly deploy automatic updates without requiring time-consuming approvals that slow down workflows and weaken security. Strive for 95% automated changes and only involve a person for the remaining 5% that requires human input. Hybrid cloud security best practices – start early, start strong When migrating from on-prem to the cloud, you can choose a greenfield migration or a lift-and-shift migration. Greenfield means rolling out a brand-new application. In this case, ensure that security considerations are “baked in” from the beginning and across all processes. This “shift left” approach helps build an environment that’s secure from the get-go. This ensures that all team members adhere to a unified set of security policy rules to minimize vulnerabilities and reduce security risks within the hybrid cloud environment. If you lift-and-shift on-prem applications to the cloud, note any security assumptions made when they were designed. This is important because they were not built for the cloud and may incorporate protocols that increase security risks. Next, implement appropriate measures during migration planning. For example, implement an Application Load Balancer if applications leverage plaintext protocols, and use sidecars to encrypt applications without having to modify the original codebase. You can also leverage hybrid cloud security solutions to detect and mitigate security problems in real-time. Matching your cloud security with application structure is no longer optional Before moving to a hybrid cloud, map the business logic, application structure, and application ownership into the hybrid cloud estate’s networking structure. To simplify this process, here are some tried and proven ways to consider. Break up your environment into a virtual private cloud (VPC) or virtual network. With the VPC, you can monitor connections, screen traffic, create multiple subnets, and also restrict instance access to improve security posture. Use networking constructs to segregate applications into different functional and networking areas in the cloud. This way, you can deploy network controls to segment your cloud estate and ensure that only authorized users can access sensitive data and resources. Tag all resources based on their operating system, business unit, and geographical area. Tags with descriptive metadata can help to identify resources. They also establish ownership and accountability, provide visibility into cloud consumption, and help with the deployment of security policies. Conclusion In today’s fast-paced business environment, hybrid cloud computing can benefit your organization in many ways. But to capture these benefits, you should make an effort to boost hybrid cloud security. Incorporate the best practices discussed here to improve security and take full advantage of your hybrid environment. To learn more about hybrid cloud security, listen to our Lessons in Cybersecurity podcast episode or head to our hybrid cloud resource hub here . Schedule a demo Related Articles Navigating Compliance in the Cloud AlgoSec Cloud Mar 19, 2023 · 2 min read 5 Multi-Cloud Environments Cloud Security Mar 19, 2023 · 2 min read Convergence didn’t fail, compliance did. Mar 19, 2023 · 2 min read Speak to one of our experts Speak to one of our experts Work email* First name* Last name* Company* country* Select country... Short answer* By submitting this form, I accept AlgoSec's privacy policy Schedule a call
- Increasing Cisco ACI adoption with AlgoSec | AlgoSec
Boost Cisco ACI adoption with AlgoSec. Simplify security management, enhance visibility, and streamline policy automation for your ACI environment. Increasing Cisco ACI adoption with AlgoSec ---- ------- Schedule a Demo Select a size ----- Get the latest insights from the experts Choose a better way to manage your network







