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Enterprise cybersecurity must constantly evolve to meet the threat posed by new malware variants and increasingly sophisticated hacker... Uncategorized Network Security vs. Application Security: The Complete Guide Tsippi Dach 2 min read Tsippi Dach 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 1/25/24 Published Enterprise cybersecurity must constantly evolve to meet the threat posed by new malware variants and increasingly sophisticated hacker tactics, techniques, and procedures. This need drives the way security professionals categorize different technologies and approaches. The difference between network security and application security is an excellent example. These two components of the enterprise IT environment must be treated separately in any modern cybersecurity framework. This is because they operate on different levels of the network and they are exposed to different types of threats and security issues. To understand why, we need to cover what each category includes and how they contribute to an organization’s overall information security posture. IT leaders and professionals can use this information to their organization’s security posture, boost performance, and improve event outcomes. What is Network Security? Network security focuses on protecting assets located within the network perimeter. These assets include data, devices, systems, and other facilities that enable the organization to pursue its interests — just about anything that has value to the organization can be an asset. This security model worked well in the past, when organizations had a clearly defined network perimeter. Since the attack surface was well understood, security professionals could deploy firewalls, intrusion prevention systems, and secure web gateways directly at the point of connection between the internal network and the public internet. Since most users, devices and applications were located on-site, security leaders had visibility and control over the entire network. This started to change when organizations shifted to cloud computing and remote work, supported by increasingly powerful mobile devices. Now most organizations do not have a clear network perimeter, so the castle-and-moat approach to network security is no longer effective. However, the network security approach isn’t obsolete. It is simply undergoing a process of change, adjusting to smaller, more segmented networks governed by Zero Trust principles and influenced by developments in application security. Key Concepts of Network Security Network security traditionally adopts a castle-and-moat approach, where all security controls exist at the network perimeter. Users who attempt to access the network must authenticate and verify themselves before being allowed to enter. Once they enter, they can freely move between assets, applications, and systems without the need to re-authenticate themselves. In modern, cloud-enabled networks, the approach is less like a castle and more like a university campus. There may be multiple different subnetworks working together, with different security controls based on the value of the assets under protection. In these environments, network security is just one part of a larger, multi-layered security deployment. This approach focuses on protecting IT infrastructure, like routers, firewalls, and network traffic. Each of these components has a unique role to play securing assets inside the network: Firewalls act as filters for network traffic , deciding what traffic is allowed to pass through and denying the rest. Well-configured firewall deployments don’t just protect internal assets from incoming traffic, they also protect against data from leaking outside the network as well. Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS) are security tools that continuously monitor the network for malicious activity and take action to block unauthorized processes. They may search for known threat signatures, monitor for abnormal network activity, or enforce custom security policies. Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) encrypt traffic between networks and hide users’ IP addresses from the public internet. This is useful for maintaining operational security in a complex network environment because it prevents threat actors from intercepting data in transit. Access control tools allow security leaders to manage who is authorized to access data and resources on the network. Secure access control policies determine which users have permission to access sensitive assets, and the conditions under which that access might be revoked. Why is Network Security Important? Network security tools protect organizations against cyberattacks that target their network infrastructure, and prevent hackers from conducting lateral movement. Many modern network security solutions focus on providing deep visibility into network traffic, so that security teams can identify threat actors who have successfully breached the network perimeter and gained unauthorized access. Network Security Technologies and Strategies Firewalls : These tools guard the perimeters of network infrastructure. Firewalls filter incoming and outgoing traffic to prevent malicious activity. They also play an important role in establishing boundaries between network zones, allowing security teams to carefully monitor users who move between different parts of the network. These devices must be continuously monitored and periodically reconfigured to meet the organization’s changing security needs. VPNs : Secure remote access and IP address confidentiality is an important part of network security. VPNs ensure users do not leak IP data outside the network when connecting to external sources. They also allow remote users to access sensitive assets inside the network even when using unsecured connections, like public Wi-Fi. Zero Trust Models : Access control and network security tools provide validation for network endpoints, including IoT and mobile devices. This allows security teams to re-authenticate network users even when they have already verified their identities and quickly disconnect users who fail these authentication checks. What is Application Security? Application security addresses security threats to public-facing applications, including APIs. These threats may include security misconfigurations, known vulnerabilities, and threat actor exploits. Since these network assets have public-facing connections, they are technically part of the network perimeter — but they do not typically share the same characteristics as traditional network perimeter assets. Unlike network security, application security extends to the development and engineering process that produces individual apps. It governs many of the workflows that developers use when writing code for business contexts. One of the challenges to web application security is the fact that there is no clear and universal definition for what counts as an application. Most user-interactive tools and systems count, especially ones that can process data automatically through API access. However, the broad range of possibilities leads to an enormous number of potential security vulnerabilities and exposures, all of which must be accounted for. Several frameworks and methods exist for achieving this: The OWASP Top Ten is a cybersecurity awareness document that gives developers a broad overview of the most common application vulnerabilities . Organizations that adopt the document give software engineers clear guidance on the kinds of security controls they need to build into the development lifecycle. The Common Weakness Enumeration (CWE) is a long list of software weaknesses known to lead to security issues. The CWE list is prioritized by severity, giving organizations a good starting point for improving application security. Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) codes contain extensive information on publicly disclosed security vulnerabilities, including application vulnerabilities. Every vulnerability has its own unique CVE code, which gives developers and security professionals the ability to clearly distinguish them from one another. Key Concepts of Application Security The main focus of application security is maintaining secure environments inside applications and their use cases. It is especially concerned with the security vulnerabilities that arise when web applications are made available for public use. When public internet users can interact with a web application directly, the security risks associated with that application rise significantly. As a result, developers must adopt security best practices into their workflows early in the development process. The core elements of application security include: Source code security, which describes a framework for ensuring the security of the source code that powers web-connected applications. Code reviews and security approvals are a vital part of this process, ensuring that vulnerable code does not get released to the public. Securing the application development lifecycle by creating secure coding guidelines, providing developers with the appropriate resources and training, and creating remediation service-level agreements (SLAs) for application security violations. Web application firewalls, which operate separately from traditional firewalls and exclusively protect public-facing web applications and APIs. Web application firewalls monitor and filter traffic to and from a web source, protecting web applications from security threats wherever they happen to be located. Why is Application Security Important? Application security plays a major role ensuring the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of sensitive data processed by applications. Since public-facing applications often collect and process end-user data, they make easy targets for opportunistic hackers. At the same time, robust application security controls must exist within applications to address security vulnerabilities when they emerge and prevent data breaches. Application Security Technologies Web Application Firewalls. These firewalls provide protection specific to web applications, preventing attackers from conducting SQL injection, cross-site scripting, and denial-of-service attacks, among others. These technical attacks can lead to application instability and leak sensitive information to attackers. Application Security Testing. This important step includes penetration testing, vulnerability scanning, and the use of CWE frameworks. Pentesters and application security teams work together to ensure public-facing web applications and APIs hold up against emerging threats and increasingly sophisticated attacks. App Development Security. Organizations need to incorporate security measures into their application development processes. DevOps security best practices include creating modular, containerized applications uniquely secured against threats regardless of future changes to the IT environment or device operating systems. Integrating Network and Application Security Network and application security are not mutually exclusive areas of expertise. They are two distinct parts of your organization’s overall security posture. Identifying areas where they overlap and finding solutions to common problems will help you optimize your organization’s security capabilities through a unified security approach. Overlapping Areas Network and application security solutions protect distinct areas of the enterprise IT environment, but they do overlap in certain areas. Security leaders should be aware of the risk of over-implementation, or deploying redundant security solutions that do not efficiently improve security outcomes. Security Solutions : Both areas use security tools like intrusion prevention systems, authentication, and encryption. Network security solutions may treat web applications as network entry points, but many hosted web applications are located outside the network perimeter. This makes it difficult to integrate the same tools, policies, and controls uniformly across web application toolsets. Cybersecurity Strategy : Your strategy is an integral part of your organization’s security program, guiding your response to different security threats. Security architects must configure network and application security solutions to work together in use case scenarios where one can meaningfully contribute to the other’s operations. Unique Challenges Successful technology implementations of any kind come with challenges, and security implementations are no different. Both application and network security deployments will present issues that security leaders must be prepared to address. Application security challenges include: Maintaining usability. End users will not appreciate security implementations that make apps harder to use. Security teams need to pay close attention to how new features impact user interfaces and workflows. Detecting vulnerabilities in code. Ensuring all code is 100% free of vulnerabilities is rarely feasible. Instead, organizations need to adopt a proactive approach to detecting vulnerabilities in code and maintaining source code security. Managing source code versioning. Implementing DevSecOps processes can make it hard for organizations to keep track of continuously deployed security updates and integrations. This may require investing in additional toolsets and versioning capabilities. Network security challenges include: Addressing network infrastructure misconfigurations. Many network risks stem from misconfigured firewalls and other security tools. One of the main challenges in network security is proactively identifying these misconfigurations and resolving them before they lead to security incidents. Monitoring network traffic efficiently. Monitoring network traffic can make extensive use of limited resources, leading to performance issues or driving up network-related costs. Security leaders must find ways to gain insight into security issues without raising costs beyond what the organization can afford. Managing network-based security risks effectively. Translating network activity insights into incident response playbooks is not always easy. Simply knowing that unauthorized activity might be happening is not enough. Security teams must also be equipped to address those risks and mitigate potential damage. Integrating Network and Application Security for Unified Protection A robust security posture must contain elements of both network and application security. Public-facing applications must be able to filter out malicious traffic and resist technical attacks, and security teams need comprehensive visibility into network activity and detecting insider threats . This is especially important in cloud-enabled hybrid environments. If your organization uses cloud computing through a variety of public and private cloud vendors, you will need to extend network visibility throughout the hybrid network. Maintaining cloud security requires a combination of network and web application security capable of producing results in a cost-effective way. Highly automated security platforms can help organizations implement proactive security measures that reduce the need to hire specialist internal talent for every configuration and policy change. Enterprise-ready cloud security solutions leverage automation and machine learning to reduce operating costs and improve security performance across the board. Unify Network and Application Security with AlgoSec No organization can adequately protect itself from a wide range of cyber threats without investing in both network and application security. Technology continues to evolve and threat actors will adapt their tactics to exploit new vulnerabilities as they are discovered. Integrating network and application security into a single, unified approach gives security teams the ability to create security policies and incident response plans that address real-world threats more effectively. Network visibility and streamlined change management are vital to achieving this goal. AlgoSec is a security policy management and application connectivity platform that provides in-depth information on both aspects of your security posture. Find out how AlgoSec can help you centralize policy and change management in your network. Schedule a demo Related Articles 2025 in review: What innovations and milestones defined AlgoSec’s transformative year in 2025? AlgoSec Reviews Mar 19, 2023 · 2 min read 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 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

Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) Security Issues You’re in no doubt familiar with Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) technology and its... Information Security Are VLANs secure? VLAN security best practices Kevin Beaver 2 min read Kevin Beaver 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 9/23/14 Published Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) Security Issues You’re in no doubt familiar with Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) technology and its ability to segment traffic within your network. It’s one of those decades-old technologies that businesses have come to rely on to reduce costs, minimize network broadcast domains, and protect certain systems from others. It sounds good on paper but it’s rare to see a VLAN environment that’s truly configured in the right way in order to realize its intended benefits. For example, I’ve seen some networks segmented by physical switches rather than using logical VLANs configured within each managed switch. This means that anyone on the same physical switch/broadcast domain can see every host on that segment. And if they want to see all traffic, it’s often just a matter of using Cain & Abel’s ARP Poison Routing feature . This is not an effective way to manage network devices and there’s no way to prevent inadvertent connections to the wrong segment during network upgrades, troubleshooting, and the like. It becomes a jumbled mess that negates any perceived switching or VLAN benefits. Furthermore, many “virtual” networks allow anyone to hop between segments if they know the IP addressing scheme. For example, say a user is on the 10.10.10.x network and he wants to get onto the production network of 10.0.0.x. No problem… he just points his Web browser, his vulnerability scanner, or whatever to 10.0.0.x and he’s good to go. Worst case, he might have to configure his system with a static IP address on that network, but that’s simple enough to do. This configuration may be considered a “VLAN” that’s managing broadcast traffic but there are no real ACLs, firewall rules, or packet tagging to prevent unauthorized access by internal attackers, malware, and the like. The network is basically flat with no policies and little to no security between any of the network segments and systems. Another thing to remember is that many VLANs are used to partition networks into distinctive segments to separate business units and their unique data sets. Even if the technical aspects of the VLAN configuration are spot on, these environments are often defined at a very high level without involving the actual business unit managers or information owners, therefore there are often security gaps in the segmentation. This means that information specific to a business unit and believed to be isolated is often anything but – it may well be scattered across numerous other VLANs and network hosts within those segments. How does this happen? Convenience and mobility and general carelessness. Users copy information to places where they can work on it and end up copying it to systems outside of the intended VLAN domain or to different hosts on other VLANs. IT may even copy information for backup or test purposes. Either way, confidential information often ends up on unprotected “islands” that no one knows about until it’s too late. Network security based on VLAN technology can work if it’s done properly. And while it’s not perfect, it can add another layer of security to your environment, one that can make the difference between breach and no breach. Schedule a demo Related Articles 2025 in review: What innovations and milestones defined AlgoSec’s transformative year in 2025? AlgoSec Reviews Mar 19, 2023 · 2 min read 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 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

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Previous Part of the analysis is available here. Next Part of the analysis is available here. Update from 19 December 2020: ‍Prevasio... Cloud Security Sunburst Backdoor, Part II: DGA & The List of Victims 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 12/17/20 Published Previous Part of the analysis is available here . Next Part of the analysis is available here . Update from 19 December 2020: Prevasio would like to thank Zetalytics for providing us with an updated (larger) list of passive (historic) DNS queries for the domains generated by the malware. As described in the first part of our analysis, the DGA (Domain Generation Algorithm) of the Sunburst backdoor produces a domain name that may look like: fivu4vjamve5vfrtn2huov[.]appsync-api.us-west-2[.]avsvmcloud[.]com The first part of the domain name (before the first dot) consists of a 16-character random string, appended with an encoded computer’s domain name. This is the domain in which the local computer is registered. From the example string above, we can conclude that the encoded computer’s domain starts from the 17th character and up until the dot (highlighted in yellow): fivu4vjamve5vfrt n2huov In order to encode a local computer’s domain name, the malware uses one of 2 simple methods: Method 1 : a substitution table, if the domain name consists of small letters, digits, or special characters ‘-‘, ‘_’, ‘.’ Method 2 : base64 with a custom alphabet, in case of capital letters present in the domain name Method 1 In our example, the encoded domain name is “n2huov” . As it does not have any capital letters, the malware encodes it with a substitution table “rq3gsalt6u1iyfzop572d49bnx8cvmkewhj” . For each character in the domain name, the encoder replaces it with a character located in the substitution table four characters right from the original character. In order to decode the name back, all we have to do is to replace each encoded character with another character, located in the substitution table four characters left from the original character. To illustrate this method, imagine that the original substitution table is printed on a paper strip and then covered with a card with 6 perforated windows. Above each window, there is a sticker note with a number on it, to reflect the order of characters in the word “n2huov” , where ‘n’ is #1, ‘2’ is #2, ‘h’ is #3 and so on: Once the paper strip is pulled by 4 characters right, the perforated windows will reveal a different word underneath the card: “domain” , where ‘d’ is #1, ‘o’ is #2, ‘m’ is #3, etc.: A special case is reserved for such characters as ‘0’ , ‘-‘ , ‘_’ , ‘.’ . These characters are encoded with ‘0’ , followed with a character from the substitution table. An index of that character in the substitution table, divided by 4, provides an index within the string “0_-.” . The following snippet in C# illustrates how an encoded string can be decoded: static string decode_domain( string s) { string table = "rq3gsalt6u1iyfzop572d49bnx8cvmkewhj" ; string result = "" ; for ( int i = 0 ; i < s.Length; i++) { if (s[i] != '0' ) { result += table[(table.IndexOf(s[i]) + table.Length - 4 ) % table.Length]; } else { if (i < s.Length - 1 ) { if (table.Contains(s[i + 1 ])) { result += "0_-." [table.IndexOf(s[i + 1 ]) % 4 ]; } else { break ; } } i++; } } return result; } Method 2 This method is a standard base64 encoder with a custom alphabet “ph2eifo3n5utg1j8d94qrvbmk0sal76c” . Here is a snippet in C# that provides a decoder: public static string FromBase32String( string str) { string table = "ph2eifo3n5utg1j8d94qrvbmk0sal76c" ; int numBytes = str.Length * 5 / 8 ; byte [] bytes = new Byte[numBytes]; int bit_buffer; int currentCharIndex; int bits_in_buffer; if (str.Length < 3 ) { bytes[ 0 ] = ( byte )(table.IndexOf(str[ 0 ]) | table.IndexOf(str[ 1 ]) << 5 ); return System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetString(bytes); } bit_buffer = (table.IndexOf(str[ 0 ]) | table.IndexOf(str[ 1 ]) << 5 ); bits_in_buffer = 10 ; currentCharIndex = 2 ; for ( int i = 0 ; i < bytes.Length; i++) { bytes[i] = ( byte )bit_buffer; bit_buffer >>= 8 ; bits_in_buffer -= 8 ; while (bits_in_buffer < 8 && currentCharIndex < str.Length) { bit_buffer |= table.IndexOf(str[currentCharIndex++]) << bits_in_buffer; bits_in_buffer += 5 ; } } return System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetString(bytes); } When the malware encodes a domain using Method 2, it prepends the encrypted string with a double zero character: “00” . Following that, extracting a domain part of an encoded domain name (long form) is as simple as: static string get_domain_part( string s) { int i = s.IndexOf( ".appsync-api" ); if (i > 0 ) { s = s.Substring( 0 , i); if (s.Length > 16 ) { return s.Substring( 16 ); } } return "" ; } Once the domain part is extracted, the decoded domain name can be obtained by using Method 1 or Method 2, as explained above: if (domain.StartsWith( "00" )) { decoded = FromBase32String(domain.Substring( 2 )); } else { decoded = decode_domain(domain); } Decrypting the Victims’ Domain Names To see the decoder in action, let’s select 2 lists: List #1 Bambenek Consulting has provided a list of observed hostnames for the DGA domain. List #2 The second list has surfaced in a Paste bin paste , allegedly sourced from Zetalytics / Zonecruncher . NOTE: This list is fairly ‘noisy’, as it has non-decodable domain names. By feeding both lists to our decoder, we can now obtain a list of decoded domains, that could have been generated by the victims of the Sunburst backdoor. DISCLAIMER: It is not clear if the provided lists contain valid domain names that indeed belong to the victims. It is quite possible that the encoded domain names were produced by third-party tools, sandboxes, or by researchers that investigated and analysed the backdoor. The decoded domain names are provided purely as a reverse engineering exercise. The resulting list was manually processed to eliminate noise, and to exclude duplicate entries. Following that, we have made an attempt to map the obtained domain names to the company names, using Google search. Reader’s discretion is advised as such mappings could be inaccurate. Decoded Domain Mapping (Could Be Inaccurate) hgvc.com Hilton Grand Vacations Amerisaf AMERISAFE, Inc. kcpl.com Kansas City Power and Light Company SFBALLET San Francisco Ballet scif.com State Compensation Insurance Fund LOGOSTEC Logostec Ventilação Industrial ARYZTA.C ARYZTA Food Solutions bmrn.com BioMarin Pharmaceutical Inc. AHCCCS.S Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System nnge.org Next Generation Global Education cree.com Cree, Inc (semiconductor products) calsb.org The State Bar of California rbe.sk.ca Regina Public Schools cisco.com Cisco Systems pcsco.com Professional Computer Systems barrie.ca City of Barrie ripta.com Rhode Island Public Transit Authority uncity.dk UN City (Building in Denmark) bisco.int Boambee Industrial Supplies (Bisco) haifa.edu University of Haifa smsnet.pl SMSNET, Poland fcmat.org Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team wiley.com Wiley (publishing) ciena.com Ciena (networking systems) belkin.com Belkin spsd.sk.ca Saskatoon Public Schools pqcorp.com PQ Corporation ftfcu.corp First Tech Federal Credit Union bop.com.pk The Bank of Punjab nvidia.com NVidia insead.org INSEAD (non-profit, private university) usd373.org Newton Public Schools agloan.ads American AgCredit pageaz.gov City of Page jarvis.lab Erich Jarvis Lab ch2news.tv Channel 2 (Israeli TV channel) bgeltd.com Bradford / Hammacher Remote Support Software dsh.ca.gov California Department of State Hospitals dotcomm.org Douglas Omaha Technology Commission sc.pima.gov Arizona Superior Court in Pima County itps.uk.net IT Professional Services, UK moncton.loc City of Moncton acmedctr.ad Alameda Health System csci-va.com Computer Systems Center Incorporated keyano.local Keyano College uis.kent.edu Kent State University alm.brand.dk Sydbank Group (Banking, Denmark) ironform.com Ironform (metal fabrication) corp.ncr.com NCR Corporation ap.serco.com Serco Asia Pacific int.sap.corp SAP mmhs-fla.org Cleveland Clinic Martin Health nswhealth.net NSW Health mixonhill.com Mixon Hill (intelligent transportation systems) bcofsa.com.ar Banco de Formosa ci.dublin.ca. Dublin, City in California siskiyous.edu College of the Siskiyous weioffice.com Walton Family Foundation ecobank.group Ecobank Group (Africa) corp.sana.com Sana Biotechnology med.ds.osd.mi US Gov Information System wz.hasbro.com Hasbro (Toy company) its.iastate.ed Iowa State University amr.corp.intel Intel cds.capilanou. Capilano University e-idsolutions. IDSolutions (video conferencing) helixwater.org Helix Water District detmir-group.r Detsky Mir (Russian children’s retailer) int.lukoil-int LUKOIL (Oil and gas company, Russia) ad.azarthritis Arizona Arthritis and Rheumatology Associates net.vestfor.dk Vestforbrænding allegronet.co. Allegronet (Cloud based services, Israel) us.deloitte.co Deloitte central.pima.g Pima County Government city.kingston. City of Kingston staff.technion Technion – Israel Institute of Technology airquality.org Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District phabahamas.org Public Hospitals Authority, Caribbean parametrix.com Parametrix (Engineering) ad.checkpoint. Check Point corp.riotinto. Rio Tinto (Mining company, Australia) intra.rakuten. Rakuten us.rwbaird.com Robert W. Baird & Co. (Financial services) ville.terrebonn Ville de Terrebonne woodruff-sawyer Woodruff-Sawyer & Co., Inc. fisherbartoninc Fisher Barton Group banccentral.com BancCentral Financial Services Corp. taylorfarms.com Taylor Fresh Foods neophotonics.co NeoPhotonics (optoelectronic devices) gloucesterva.ne Gloucester County magnoliaisd.loc Magnolia Independent School District zippertubing.co Zippertubing (Manufacturing) milledgeville.l Milledgeville (City in Georgia) digitalreachinc Digital Reach, Inc. deniz.denizbank DenizBank thoughtspot.int ThoughtSpot (Business intelligence) lufkintexas.net Lufkin (City in Texas) digitalsense.co Digital Sense (Cloud Services) wrbaustralia.ad W. R. Berkley Insurance Australia christieclinic. Christie Clinic Telehealth signaturebank.l Signature Bank dufferincounty. Dufferin County mountsinai.hosp Mount Sinai Hospital securview.local Securview Victory (Video Interface technology) weber-kunststof Weber Kunststoftechniek parentpay.local ParentPay (Cashless Payments) europapier.inte Europapier International AG molsoncoors.com Molson Coors Beverage Company fujitsugeneral. Fujitsu General cityofsacramento City of Sacramento ninewellshospita Ninewells Hospital fortsmithlibrary Fort Smith Public Library dokkenengineerin Dokken Engineering vantagedatacente Vantage Data Centers friendshipstateb Friendship State Bank clinicasierravis Clinica Sierra Vista ftsillapachecasi Apache Casino Hotel voceracommunicat Vocera (clinical communications) mutualofomahabanMutual of Omaha Bank Schedule a demo Related Articles 2025 in review: What innovations and milestones defined AlgoSec’s transformative year in 2025? AlgoSec Reviews Mar 19, 2023 · 2 min read 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 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

NAT Network Security I came across some discussions regarding Network Address Translation (NAT) and its impact on security and the... Firewall Change Management To NAT or not to NAT – It’s not really a question 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 11/26/13 Published NAT Network Security I came across some discussions regarding Network Address Translation (NAT) and its impact on security and the network. Specifically the premise that “ NAT does not add any real security to a network while it breaks almost any good concepts of a structured network design ” is what I’d like to address. When it comes to security, yes, NAT is a very poor protection mechanism and can be circumvented in many ways. It causes headaches to network administrators. So now that we’ve quickly summarized all that’s bad about NAT, let’s address the realization that most organizations use NAT because they HAVE to, not because it’s so wonderful. The alternative to using NAT has a prohibitive cost and is possibly impossible. To dig into what I mean, let’s walk through the following scenario… Imagine you have N devices in your network that need an IP address (every computer, printer, tablet, smartphone, IP phone, etc. that belongs to your organization and its guests). Without NAT you would have to purchase N routable IP addresses from your ISP. The costs would skyrocket! At AlgoSec we run a 120+ employee company in numerous countries around the globe. We probably use 1000 IP addresses. We pay for maybe 3 routable IP addresses and NAT away the rest. Without NAT the operational cost of our IP infrastructure would go up by a factor of x300. NAT Security With regards to NAT’s impact on security, just because NAT is no replacement for a proper firewall doesn’t mean it’s useless. Locking your front door also provides very low-grade security – people still do it, since it’s a lot better than not locking your front door. Schedule a demo Related Articles 2025 in review: What innovations and milestones defined AlgoSec’s transformative year in 2025? AlgoSec Reviews Mar 19, 2023 · 2 min read 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 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

In this guest blog, Jeff Yager from IT Central Station (soon to be PeerSpot), discusses how actual AlgoSec users have been able to... Security Policy Management Securely accelerating application delivery Jeff Yeger 2 min read Jeff Yeger 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 11/15/21 Published In this guest blog, Jeff Yager from IT Central Station (soon to be PeerSpot), discusses how actual AlgoSec users have been able to securely accelerate their app delivery. These days, it is more important than ever for business owners, application owners, and information security professionals to speak the same language. That way, their organizations can deliver business applications more rapidly while achieving a heightened security posture. AlgoSec’s patented platform enables the world’s most complex organizations to gain visibility and process changes at zero-touch across the hybrid network. IT Central Station members discussed these benefits of AlgoSec , along with related issues, in their reviews on the site. Application Visibility AlgoSec allows users to discover, identify, map, and analyze business applications and security policies across their entire networks. For instance, Jacob S., an IT security analyst at a retailer, reported that the overall visibility that AlgoSec gives into his network security policies is high. He said, “It’s very clever in the logic it uses to provide insights, especially into risks and cleanup tasks . It’s very valuable. It saved a lot of hours on the cleanup tasks for sure. It has saved us days to weeks.” “AlgoSec absolutely provides us with full visibility into the risk involved in firewall change requests,” said Aaron Z. a senior network and security administrator at an insurance company that deals with patient health information that must be kept secure. He added, “There is a risk analysis piece of it that allows us to go in and run that risk analysis against it, figuring out what rules we need to be able to change, then make our environment a little more secure. This is incredibly important for compliance and security of our clients .” Also impressed with AlgoSec’s overall visibility into network security policies was Christopher W., a vice president – head of information security at a financial services firm, who said, “ What AlgoSec does is give me the ability to see everything about the firewall : its rules, configurations and usage patterns.” AlgoSec gives his team all the visibility they need to make sure they can keep the firewall tight. As he put it, “There is no perimeter anymore. We have to be very careful what we are letting in and out, and Firewall Analyzer helps us to do that.” For a cyber security architect at a tech services company, the platform helps him gain visibility into application connectivity flows. He remarked, “We have Splunk, so we need a firewall/security expert view on top of it. AlgoSec gives us that information and it’s a valuable contributor to our security environment.” Application Changes and Requesting Connectivity AlgoSec accelerates application delivery and security policy changes with intelligent application connectivity and change automation. A case in point is Vitas S., a lead infrastructure engineer at a financial services firm who appreciates the full visibility into the risk involved in firewall change requests. He said, “[AlgoSec] definitely allows us to drill down to the level where we can see the actual policy rule that’s affecting the risk ratings. If there are any changes in ratings, it’ll show you exactly how to determine what’s changed in the network that will affect it. It’s been very clear and intuitive.” A senior technical analyst at a maritime company has been equally pleased with the full visibility. He explained, “That feature is important to us because we’re a heavily risk-averse organization when it comes to IT control and changes. It allows us to verify, for the most part, that the controls that IT security is putting in place are being maintained and tracked at the security boundaries .” A financial services firm with more than 10 cluster firewalls deployed AlgoSec to check the compliance status of their devices and reduce the number of rules in each of the policies. According to Mustafa K. their network security engineer, “Now, we can easily track the changes in policies. With every change, AlgoSec automatically sends an email to the IT audit team. It increases our visibility of changes in every policy .” Speed and Automation The AlgoSec platform automates application connectivity and security policy across a hybrid network so clients can move quickly and stay secure. For Ilya K., a deputy information security department director at a computer software company, utilizing AlgoSec translates into an increase in security and accuracy of firewall rules. He said, “ AlgoSec ASMS brings a holistic view of network firewall policy and automates firewall security management in very large-sized environments. Additionally, it speeds up the changes in firewall rules with a vendor-agnostic approach.” “The user receives the information if his request is within the policies and can continue the request,” said Paulo A., a senior information technology security analyst at an integrator. He then noted, “Or, if it is denied, the applicant must adjust their request to stay within the policies. The time spent for this without AlgoSec is up to one week, whereas with AlgoSec, in a maximum of 15 minutes we have the request analyzed .” The results of this capability include greater security, a faster request process and the ability to automate the implementation of rules. Srdjan, a senior technical and integration designer at a large retailer, concurred when he said, “ By automating some parts of the work, business pressure is reduced since we now deliver much faster . I received feedback from our security department that their FCR approval process is now much easier. The network team is also now able to process FCRs much faster and with more accuracy.” To learn more about what IT Central Station members think about AlgoSec, visit https://www.itcentralstation.com/products/algosec-reviews Schedule a demo Related Articles 2025 in review: What innovations and milestones defined AlgoSec’s transformative year in 2025? AlgoSec Reviews Mar 19, 2023 · 2 min read 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 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

Cisco and AlgoSec Partner solution brief- Better together for risk management and audit Download PDF Schedule time with one of our experts Schedule time with 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 Continue

Azure Security Best Practices: Don't Get Caught with Your Cloud Pants Down   Executive Summary   The cloud isn't some futuristic fantasy... Cloud Security Azure Security Best Practices 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 11/25/24 Published Azure Security Best Practices: Don't Get Caught with Your Cloud Pants Down Executive Summary The cloud isn't some futuristic fantasy anymore, folks. It's the backbone of modern business, and Azure is charging hard, fueled by AI, to potentially dethrone AWS by 2026. But with this breakneck adoption comes a harsh reality: security can't be an afterthought. This article dives deep into why robust security practices are non-negotiable in Azure and how tools like Microsoft Sentinel and Defender XDR can be your digital bodyguards. Introduction Let's face it, organizations are flocking to the cloud like moths to a digital flame. Why? Cost savings, streamlined operations, and the ability to scale at warp speed. We're talking serious money here – a projected $805 billion spent on public cloud services in 2024! The cloud's not just disrupting the game; it is the game. And the playing field is shifting. AWS might be the king of the hill right now, but Azure's hot on its heels, thanks to some serious AI muscle. ( As of 2024, they hold market shares of 31%, 24%, and 11%, respectively .) Forbes even predicts an Azure takeover by 2026. Exciting times, right? Hold your horses. This rapid cloud adoption has a dark side. Security threats are lurking around every corner, and sticking to best practices is more crucial than ever. Cloud service managers, listen up: you need to wrap your heads around the shared responsibility model (Figure 1). Think of it like this: you and Azure are partners in crime prevention. You're both responsible for keeping your digital assets safe, but you need to know who's holding which piece of the security puzzle. Don't assume security is built-in – it's a team effort, and you need to pull your weight. Figure 1: The shared responsibility model Azure's Security Architecture: A Fortress in the Cloud Okay, I get it. The shared responsibility model can feel like navigating a maze blindfolded. But here's the deal: whether you're dabbling in IaaS, PaaS, or SaaS, Azure's got your infrastructure covered. Their global network of data centers is built like Fort Knox, meeting industry standards like ISO/IEC 27001:2022 , HIPAA , and NIST SP 800-53 . But remember your part of the bargain! Azure provides a killer arsenal of security products to protect your workloads, both in Azure and beyond. Figure 2: Azure’s security architecture Take Microsoft Sentinel, for example. This superhero of a tool automatically sniffs out threats, investigates them, and neutralizes them before they can wreak havoc. It's like having a 24/7 security team with superhuman senses. And don't forget about Microsoft Defender XDR. This comprehensive security suite is like a digital Swiss Army knife, protecting your identities, endpoints, applications, email, and cloud apps. It's got your back, no matter where you turn. With Sentinel and Defender XDR in your corner, you're well-equipped to tackle the security challenges that come with cloud adoption. But don't get complacent! Let's dive into some core security best practices that will make your Azure environment an impenetrable fortress. Core Security Best Practices: Lock Down Your Secrets Protecting Secrets: Best Practices Using Azure Key Vault We all have secrets, right? In the digital world, those secrets are things like passwords, API keys, and encryption keys. You can't just leave them lying around for any cybercriminal to snatch. That's where Azure Key Vault comes in. This secure vault is like a digital safe deposit box for your sensitive data. It uses hardware security modules (HSMs) to keep your secrets locked down tight, even if someone manages to breach your defenses. Big names like Victoria's Secret & Co , Evup, and Sage trust Key Vault to keep their secrets safe. Figure 3: A new Key Vault named “algosec-kv” Here's a pro tip: once you've stashed your secrets in Key Vault, use a managed identity to access them. This eliminates the need to hardcode credentials in your code, minimizing the risk of exposure. var client = new SecretClient(new Uri("https://. vault.azure.net/ "), new DefaultAzureCredential(),options); KeyVaultSecret secret = client.GetSecret(""); string secretValue = secret.Value; Key Vault is a fantastic tool, but it's not a silver bullet. Download our checklist of additional best practices to keep your secrets safe: Database and Data Security: More Than Just Locking the Door Azure offers a smorgasbord of data storage solutions, from Azure SQL Database to Azure Blob Storage. But securing your data isn't just about protecting it at rest. You need to think about data in use and data in transit, too. Download our checklist for a full action plan: Identity Management: Who Are You, and What Are You Doing Here? Encryption is great, but it's only half the battle. You need to know who's accessing your resources and what they're doing. That's where identity access management (IAM) comes in. Think of IAM as a digital bouncer, controlling access to your network resources. It's all about verifying identities and granting the right level of access – no more, no less. Zero-trust network access (ZTNA) is your secret weapon here. It's like having a security checkpoint at every corner of your network, ensuring that only authorized users can access your resources. Figure 4: Zero-trust security architecture Remember the Capital One breach? A misconfigured firewall and overly broad permissions led to a massive data leak. Don't let that be you! Follow Azure's IAM documentation to build a robust and secure identity management system. Network Security: Building a Digital Moat Your network architecture is the foundation of your security posture. Choose wisely, my friends! The hub-spoke model is a popular choice in Azure, centralizing common services in a secure hub and isolating workloads in separate spokes. Figure 5: Hub-spoke network architecture in Azure (Source: Azure documentation ) For a checklist of how the hub-spoke model can boosts your security, download our checklist here. Digital Realty , a real estate investment giant, uses the hub-spoke model to secure its global portal and REST APIs. It's a testament to the power of this architecture for both security and performance. Figure 6: Digital Realty’s use of hub-spoke architecture (Adapted from Microsoft Customer Stories ) Operational Security: Stay Vigilant, Stay Secure (Continued) When a security incident strikes, your response time is critical. Think of operational security as your digital first aid kit. It's about minimizing human error and automating processes to speed up threat detection and response. We've already talked about MFA, password management, and the dynamic duo of Defender XDR and Sentinel. Download our checklist for a few more operational security essentials to add to your arsenal. Figure 7: Build-deploy workflow automation (Source: Azure documentation ) Think of these best practices as guardrails, guiding you toward secure decisions. But remember, flexibility is key. Adapt these practices to your specific environment and architecture. Conclusion As Azure's popularity skyrockets, so do the stakes. The shared responsibility model means you're not off the hook when it comes to security. Azure provides powerful tools like Sentinel and Defender XDR, but it's up to you to use them wisely and follow best practices. Protect your secrets like they're buried treasure, secure your data with Fort Knox-level encryption, implement identity management that would make a border patrol agent proud, and build a network architecture that's a digital fortress. And don't forget about operational security – it's the glue that holds it all together. But let's be real, managing security policies across multiple clouds can be a nightmare. That's where tools like AlgoSec CloudFlow come in. They provide a clear view of your security landscape, helping you identify vulnerabilities and streamline policy management. It's like having a security command center for your entire cloud infrastructure. So, what are you waiting for? Request a demo today and let AlgoSec help you build an Azure environment that's so secure, even the most determined cybercriminals will be left scratching their heads. Schedule a demo Related Articles 2025 in review: What innovations and milestones defined AlgoSec’s transformative year in 2025? AlgoSec Reviews Mar 19, 2023 · 2 min read 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 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

Kyle Wickert explains how organizations can balance the need to modernize their networks without compromising security For businesses of... Digital Transformation Modernizing your infrastructure without neglecting security Kyle Wickert 2 min read Kyle Wickert 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 8/19/21 Published Kyle Wickert explains how organizations can balance the need to modernize their networks without compromising security For businesses of all shapes and sizes, the inherent value in moving enterprise applications into the cloud is beyond question. The ability to control computing capability at a more granular level can lead to significant cost savings, not to mention the speed at which new applications can be provisioned. Having a modern cloud-based infrastructure makes businesses more agile, allowing them to capitalize on market forces and other new opportunities much quicker than if they depended on on-premises, monolithic architecture alone. However, there is a very real risk that during the goldrush to modernized infrastructures, particularly during the pandemic when the pressure to migrate was accelerated rapidly, businesses might be overlooking the potential blind spot that threatens all businesses indiscriminately, and that is security. One of the biggest challenges for business leaders over the past decade has been managing the delicate balance between infrastructure upgrades and security. Our recent survey found that half of organizations who took part now run over 41% of workloads in the public cloud, and 11% reported a cloud security incident in the last twelve months. If businesses are to succeed and thrive in 2021 and beyond, they must learn how to walk this tightrope effectively. Let’s consider the highs and lows of modernizing legacy infrastructures, and the ways to make it a more productive experience. What are the risks in moving to the cloud? With cloud migration comes risk. Businesses that move into the cloud actually stand to lose a great deal if the process isn’t managed effectively. Moreover, they have some important decisions to make in terms of how they handle application migration. Do they simply move their applications and data into the cloud as they are as a ‘lift and shift’, or do they seek to take a more cloud-native approach and rebuild applications in the cloud to take full advantage of its myriad benefits? Once a business has started this move toward the cloud, it’s very difficult to rewind the process and unpick mistakes that may have been made, so planning really is critical. Then there’s the issue of attack surface area. Legacy on-premises applications might not be the leanest or most efficient, but they are relatively secure by default due to their limited exposure to external environments. Moving said applications onto the cloud has countless benefits to agility, efficiency, and cost, but it also increases the attack surface area for potential hackers. In other words, it gives bots and bad actors a larger target to hit. One of the many traps that businesses fall into is thinking that just because an application is in the cloud, it must be automatically secure. In fact, the reverse is true unless proper due diligence is paid to security during the migration process. The benefits of an app-centric approach One of the ways in which AlgoSec helps its customer master security in the cloud is by approaching it from an app-centric perspective. By understanding how a business uses its applications, including its connectivity paths through the cloud, data centers and SDN fabrics, we can build an application model that generates actionable insights such as the ability to create policy-based risks instead of leaning squarely on firewall controls. This is of particular importance when moving legacy applications onto the cloud. The inherent challenge here is that a business is typically taking a vulnerable application and making it even more vulnerable by moving it off-premise, relying solely on the cloud infrastructure to secure it. To address this, businesses should rank applications in order of sensitivity and vulnerability. In doing so, they may find some quick wins in terms of moving modern applications into the cloud that have less sensitive data. Once these short-term gains are dealt with, NetSecOps can focus on the legacy applications that contain more sensitive data which may require more diligence, time, and focus to move or rebuild securely. Migrating applications to the cloud is no easy feat and it can be a complex process even for the most technically minded NetSecOps. Automation takes a large proportion of the hard work away and enables teams to manage cloud environments efficiently while orchestrating changes across an array of security controls. It brings speed and accuracy to managing security changes and accelerates audit preparation for continuous compliance. Automation also helps organizations overcome skills gaps and staffing limitations. We are likely to see conflict between modernization and security for some time. On one hand, we want to remove the constraints of on-premises infrastructure as quickly as possible to leverage the endless possibilities of cloud. On the other hand, we have to safeguard against the opportunistic hackers waiting on the fray for the perfect time to strike. By following the guidelines set out in front of them, businesses can modernize without compromise. To learn more about migrating enterprise apps into the cloud without compromising on security, and how a DevSecOps approach could help your business modernize safely, watch our recent Bright TALK webinar here . Alternatively, get in touch or book a free demo . Schedule a demo Related Articles 2025 in review: What innovations and milestones defined AlgoSec’s transformative year in 2025? AlgoSec Reviews Mar 19, 2023 · 2 min read 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 Speak to one of our experts Speak to one of our experts Work email* First name* Last name* Company* country* Select country... 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Before your organization can move business applications to the cloud, it must deploy network security solutions that can reliably block... Network Segmentation Host-based firewalls vs. network-based firewalls for network security? 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 8/28/23 Published Before your organization can move business applications to the cloud, it must deploy network security solutions that can reliably block cybercrime and malware. Firewalls are essential cybersecurity tools that protect network traffic against threat actors. There are many different types of firewalls available, but put the same basic principles in action. Before finding out which types of firewalls offer the best security performance for your cloud implementation, it’s important to cover how firewalls work and what characteristics set them apart. How firewalls work: Different types of firewalls explained Firewalls are best explained through analogy. Think of firewalls as 24/7 security guards with deep knowledge of millions of criminals. Whenever the security guard sees a criminal approaching an access point, they block access and turn the criminal away. This kind of access control is accomplished in a few different ways. Some firewalls inspect packets for suspicious characteristics. Others use stateful inspection to identify malicious traffic. Some incorporate contextual awareness to tell the difference between harmless traffic and cyberattacks . Here are some of the major types of firewalls and how they work: Packet filtering firewalls inspect data traveling through inline junction points like routers and switches. They don’t route data packets themselves, but compare them to a list of firewall rules. For example, they may filter packets that are traveling to untrusted IP addresses and drop them. Circuit-level gateways monitor TCP handshake data and other protocol messages for signs of unauthorized access. These firewalls don’t inspect individual packets or application layer monitoring, though. Proxy firewalls apply application layer filtering that filters data according to a wide range of characteristics. This category includes web application firewalls, which are a type of reverse proxy firewall – they protect the server from malicious traffic by filtering clients before they reach the server. Stateful inspection firewalls examine and compare multiple packets to find out if they are part of an established network session. This offers a high degree of control over incoming and outgoing traffic while providing comprehensive logs on network connections. Next-generation firewalls combine packet inspection, stateful inspection, antivirus, and additional technologies to protect organizations against unknown threats and vulnerabilities. These firewalls are expensive and have high bandwidth requirements, but they also offer a high level of protection. All of these firewalls exist in different forms. Traditional hardware firewalls are physical devices that sit between network devices and the internet. Network-based firewalls are software-defined apps designed to do the same thing. Hardware, software, or cloud? firewall deployment methods compared Organizations have multiple options when deciding to host firewalls on their private networks. The market offers a vast number of security devices and firewall providers, ranging from Cisco hardware to software solutions like Microsoft’s Windows firewall. Large enterprises use a combination of firewall solutions to adopt a multi-layered security posture. This allows them to achieve network scalability and segmentation while offering different levels of protection to data centers, individual devices, and user endpoints. As firewall technology becomes more accessible, smaller organizations are following suit. Here are some of the delivery formats that firewall solutions commonly come in: Network-based Firewalls are self-contained hardware appliances. They typically run custom operating systems using Linux distributions designed for secure computer networking. They can be challenging to configure and deploy, but are appropriate for a wide range of use cases. Host-based Firewalls run as software on a server or other device. You can run host-based firewalls on individual computers, or at the host level of a cloud environment. The firewalls offer granular control over security rules and individual hosts, but consume resources in the process. Cloud Hosted Firewalls are provided by third-party security partners as a service. These firewalls may be entirely managed by a third-party partner, making them ideal for small organizations that can’t afford building their own security infrastructure from the ground up. How to select an optimal firewall solution for your organization Every organization has a unique security risk profile. Finding the right firewall deployment for your organization requires in-depth knowledge of your network’s security vulnerabilities and potential for long-term growth. Some of the issues you have to consider include: Identifying technical objectives for individual firewalls. There are no one-size-fits-all firewall solutions. One solution may match a particular use case that another does not. Both stateless packet inspection firewalls and sophisticated next-generation solutions operate at different levels of the OSI model, which means each device should serve a well-defined purpose. Selecting firewall solutions that match your team’s expertise. Consider your IT team’s technical qualifications. If configuring a sophisticated next-generation firewall requires adding talent with specialized certifications to your team, the cost of that deployment will rise considerably. Deploying firewalls in ways that improve security performance while reducing waste. Optimal firewall architecture requires effective network segmentation and good security policies. Deploying a secure local area network (LAN) and using virtual private networks (VPNs) can help optimize firewall placement throughout the organization. Determining which kinds of traffic inspection are necessary. Different types of network connections require different levels of security. For example, a public-facing Wi-Fi router is far more likely to encounter malicious traffic than an internal virtual local area network (VLAN) that only authenticated employees can access. How to choose between host-based firewalls and network-based firewalls when moving to the cloud Organizations that are transitioning to cloud infrastructure need to completely rethink their firewall deployment strategy. Firewalls are the cornerstone of access control, and cloud-hosted infrastructure comes with the shared responsibility model that puts pressure on security leaders to carefully deploy security resources. In many cases, you’ll face tough decisions concerning which type of firewall to deploy at particular points in your network. Building an optimal deployment means working through the pros and cons of each option on a case-by-case basis. Host-based firewalls and network-based firewalls are the two main options you’ll encounter for most use cases. Let’s look at what each of those options look like from a complete network security perspective . 1. Host-based firewalls offer flexibility but may introduce vulnerabilities A cloud-native organization that exclusively uses host-based firewalls will have a cloud environment filled with virtual machines that take the place of servers and individual computers. To protect those devices, the organization will implement host-based firewalls on every virtual machine and configure them accordingly. This provides the organization with a great deal of flexibility. IT team members can clone virtual machines and move them within the cloud on demand. The host-based firewalls that protect these machines can move right alongside them, ensuring consistent security policies are enforced without painstaking manual configuration. It’s even possible to move virtual machines between cloud environments – like moving a virtual server from Amazon AWS to Microsoft Azure – without having to create completely new security policies in the process. This makes it easy for IT teams to work securely without introducing friction. However, if attackers gain privileged access to host-based firewalls, they gain the same level of control. They may switch off the firewall or install malicious code in ways that other security technologies cannot detect. Even highly secure organizations are subject to this kind of risk. Imagine an attacker compromises the credentials of a system administrator with firewall configuration privileges. Very few obstacles stand between an insider threat and the sensitive data they wish to exfiltrate. Network-based firewalls offer independent security Compared to host-based firewall products, it’s much harder for a malicious insider to compromise a network-based firewall solution managed by a cloud provider. That’s because the physical hardware is operating on a completely separate system from the host. In a cloud-native environment, the network-based firewall would be a fully hardened device managed by a third-party provider running their own intrusion detection systems. This makes it much harder for attackers to successfully infiltrate and compromise systems without being noticed. At the same time, independent network-based firewall architecture means that the attacker would have to compromise both your network and the cloud provider’s network without triggering security alerts from either. This adds a great deal of complexity to any attack, and significantly increases the chance it will be detected. However, few organizations can afford to exclusively deploy hardware firewalls at every layer of their network. Even those that can afford it will run into significant challenges when planning for growth and scalability. Segment your network for optimal protection While they offer increased security, hardware firewalls are costly to deploy and maintain. Most organizations segment their networks in ways that offer extensive multi-layered protection to their most sensitive data while allowing more flexible host-based firewalls to protect less critical assets. Every organization has a unique balance between optimal network-based firewall and host-based firewall deployment. This depends heavily on the volume of sensitive data the organization regularly accesses, and the security of its connections with users and third-party service providers. Proper network segmentation helps reduce the organization’s attack surface and decrease the risk of business disruption. Schedule a demo Related Articles 2025 in review: What innovations and milestones defined AlgoSec’s transformative year in 2025? AlgoSec Reviews Mar 19, 2023 · 2 min read 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 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

Learn best practices to secure your cloud environment and deliver applications securely Webinars State of Ransomware: Caught between perception and reality Ransomware continues to be a major problem—and the problem is only getting worse. An exclusive ExtraHop 2022 survey conducted with over 500 security and IT decision makers provided some sobering responses: 85% of those surveyed reported suffering at least one ransomware attack while an alarming 74% have experienced multiple attacks. Yet most IT decision makers (77%) are confident in their ability to prevent or mitigate all cybersecurity threats, including ransomware. In this webinar, we take an in-depth look into the implications of this alarming trend and provide a turnkey strategy that organizations can implement today to safeguard their most critical data stored in their business applications and increase their level of ransomware preparedness. Join us for: * In-depth analysis of infamous ransomware attacks * Ways to identify and remediate vulnerabilities at the application level * A practical application centric approach that can support your pre-existing security measures * Mitigation measures to consider at the onset of your next ransomware attack * Ransomware future trends predictions January 24, 2023 Eric Jeffery Regional Sales Engineer Relevant resources Reducing risk of ransomware attacks - back to basics Keep Reading Fighting Ransomware - CTO Roundtable Insights 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

Cloud Security is a broad domain with many different aspects, some of them human. Even the most sophisticated and secure systems can be... Cloud Security CSPM importance for CISOs. What security issues can be prevented\defended with CSPM? 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 6/17/21 Published Cloud Security is a broad domain with many different aspects, some of them human. Even the most sophisticated and secure systems can be jeopardized by human elements such as mistakes and miscalculations. Many organizations are susceptible to such dangers, especially during critical tech configurations and transfers. Especially for example, during digital transformation and cloud migration may result in misconfigurations that can leave your critical applications vulnerable and your company’s sensitive data an easy target for cyber-attacks. The good news is that Prevasio, and other cybersecurity providers have brought in new technologies to help improve the cybersecurity situation across multiple organizations. Today, we discuss Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) and how it can help prevent not just misconfigurations in cloud systems but also protect against supply chain attacks. Understanding Cloud Security Posture Management First, we need to fully understand what a CSPM is before exploring how it can prevent cloud security issues. CSPM is first of all a practice for adopting security best practices as well as automated tools to harden and manage the company security strength across various cloud based services such as Software as a Service (SaaS), Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), and Platform as a Service (PaaS). These practices and tools can be used to determine and solve many security issues within a cloud system. Not only is CSPM critical to the growth and integrity of your cloud infrastructure, but it’s also mandatory for organizations with CIS, GDPR, PCI-DSS, NIST, HIPAA and similar compliance requirements. How Does CSPM Work? There are numerous cloud service providers such as AWS , Azure , Google Cloud, and others that provide hyper scaling cloud hosted platforms as well as various cloud compute services and solutions to organizations that previously faced many hurdles with their on-site cloud infrastructures. When you migrate your organization to these platforms, you can effectively scale up and cut down on on-site infrastructure spending. However, if not appropriately handled, cloud migration comes with potential security risks. For instance, an average Lift and Shift transfer that involves a legacy application may not be adequately security hardened or reconfigured for safe use in a public cloud setup. This may result in security loopholes that expose the network and data to breaches and attacks. Cloud misconfiguration can happen in multiple ways. However, the most significant risk is not knowing that you are endangering your organization with such misconfigurations. That being the case, below are a few examples of cloud misconfigurations that can be identified and solved by CSPM tools such as Prevasio within your cloud infrastructure: Improper identity and access management : Your organization may not have the best identity and access management system in place. For instance, lack of Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) for all users, unreliable password hygiene, and discriminatory user policies instead of group access, Role-based access, and everything contrary to best practices, including least privilege. You are unable to log in to events in your cloud due to an accidental CloudTrail error. Cloud storage misconfigurations : Having unprotected S3 buckets on AWS or Azure. CSPM can compute situations that have the most vulnerabilities within applications Incorrect secret management : Secret credentials are more than user passwords or pins. They include encryption keys, API keys, among others. For instance, every admin must use encryption keys on the server-side and rotate the keys every 90 days. Failure to do this can lead to credentials misconfigurations. Ideally, part of your cloud package must include and rely on solutions such as AWS Secrets Manager , Azure Key Vault , and other secrets management solutions. The above are a mere few examples of common misconfigurations that can be found in your cloud infrastructure, but CSPM can provide additional advanced security and multiple performance benefits. Benefits Of CSPM CSPM manages your cloud infrastructure. Some of the benefits of having your cloud infrastructure secured with CSPM boils down to peace of mind, that reassurance of knowing that your organization’s critical data is safe. It further provides long-term visibility to your cloud networks, enables you to identify violations of policies, and allows you to remediate your misconfigurations to ensure proper compliance. Furthermore, CSPM provides remediation to safeguard cloud assets as well as existing compliance libraries. Technology is here to stay, and with CSPM, you can advance the cloud security posture of your organization. To summarize it all, here are what you should expect with CSPM cloud security: Risk assessment : CSPM tools can enable you to see your network security level in advance to gain visibility into security issues such as policy violations that expose you to risk. Continuous monitoring : Since CSPM tools are versatile they present an accurate view of your cloud system and can identify and instantly flag off policy violations in real-time. Compliance : Most compliance laws require the adoption of CIS, NIST, PCI-DSS, SOC2, HIPAA, and other standards in the cloud. With CSPM, you can stay ahead of internal governance, including ISO 27001. Prevention : Most CSPM allows you to identify potential vulnerabilities and provide practical recommendations to prevent possible risks presented by these vulnerabilities without additional vendor tools. Supply Chain Attacks : Some CSPM tools, such as Prevasio , provides you malware scanning features to your applications, data, and their dependency chain on data from external supply chains, such as git imports of external libraries and more. With automation sweeping every industry by storm, CSPM is the future of all-inclusive cloud security. With cloud security posture management, you can do more than remediate configuration issues and monitor your organization’s cloud infrastructure. You’ll also have the capacity to establish cloud integrity from existing systems and ascertain which technologies, tools, and cloud assets are widely used. CSPM’s capacity to monitor cloud assets and cyber threats and present them in user-friendly dashboards is another benefit that you can use to explore, analyze and quickly explain to your team(s) and upper management. Even find knowledge gaps in your team and decide which training or mentorship opportunities your security team or other teams in the organization might require. Who Needs Cloud Security Posture Management? At the moment, cloud security is a new domain that its need and popularity is growing by the day. CSPM is widely used by organizations looking to maximize in a safe way the most of all that hyper scaling cloud platforms can offer, such as agility, speed, and cost-cutting strategies. The downside is that the cloud also comes with certain risks, such as misconfigurations, vulnerabilities and internal\external supply chain attacks that can expose your business to cyber-attacks. CSPM is responsible for protecting users, applications, workloads, data, apps, and much more in an accessible and efficient manner under the Shared Responsibility Model. With CSPM tools, any organization keen on enhancing its cloud security can detect errors, meet compliance regulations, and orchestrate the best possible defenses. Let Prevasio Solve Your Cloud Security Needs Prevasio’s Next-Gen CSPM solution focus on the three best practices: light touch\agentless approach, super easy and user-friendly configuration, easy to read and share security findings context, for visibility to all appropriate users and stakeholders in mind. Our cloud security offerings are ideal for organizations that want to go beyond misconfiguration, legacy compliance or traditional vulnerability scanning. We offer an accelerated visual assessment of your cloud infrastructure, perform automated analysis of a wide range of cloud assets, identify policy errors, supply-chain threats, and vulnerabilities and position all these to your unique business goals. What we provide are prioritized recommendations for well-orchestrated cloud security risk mitigations. To learn more about us, what we do, our cloud security offerings, and how we can help your organization prevent cloud infrastructure attacks, read all about it here . Schedule a demo Related Articles 2025 in review: What innovations and milestones defined AlgoSec’s transformative year in 2025? AlgoSec Reviews Mar 19, 2023 · 2 min read 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 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