The unprecedented growth of business networks has expanded attack surfaces and pathways that threats exploit. To counter this, network security strategies must become more targeted. The experts at Hillstone Networks tell us that rather than use blanket defenses, precision is needed to isolate and protect critical resources while maximizing productivity. Emerging techniques like micro-segmentation and zero trust provide this by shifting from network-wide to per-workload security models.
The Limits of Broad-Brush Security
Traditionally, network protections focused on the perimeter using tools like firewalls, intrusion prevention systems and VPNs. Inside this hard shell, resources were implicitly trusted. But as networks grow and workloads distribute across data centers, branches and cloud, the perimeter dissolves. Threats move laterally unseen once inside. Meanwhile, overly permissive trust models allow attackers access to everything once they compromise any asset.
Several factors contribute to the deficiencies of legacy security paradigms. Flat networks with no segregation group unrelated workloads allowing threats to spread. There are no compartments to limit damage. Assigning access based on a user’s network location provides only coarse-grained control. It says nothing of their actual need.
These limitations show why organizations need more surgical and adaptive means to secure critical resources in modern diffuse environments while enabling business.
Micro-Segmentation for Compartmentalization
Network security models centered on the perimeter were effective when businesses had well-defined edges. However, today’s distributed environments require compartmentalizing into logical enclaves to limit lateral movement after intrusions. Micro-segmentation addresses this by dividing networks into smaller segments isolating workloads based on role, application, and data sensitivity.
Key capabilities include granular segmentation of network traffic allowing only required connections between segments to contain threats and breaches by preventing lateral spread. Inter-segment traffic policies adapt to application needs.
Dividing monolithic networks into isolated enclaves with least privilege access means micro-segmentation frustrates lateral movement, dramatically shrinking surface area for threats. This compartmentalization into logical cells provides surgical precision compared to legacy network-wide security models.
Navigating the Zero Trust Transition
Complementing micro-segmentation, zero trust further increases precision by shifting from implicit trust based on network location to continuous validation of every request to access resources. Key tenets include verifying users explicitly with multifactor authentication and device checks before granting access rather than assuming verified users or devices are inherently trusted once inside the network.
Additional tenets are limiting user privilege strictly to required resources for their role, inspecting traffic comprehensively even between permitted segments to detect threats operating within allowed protocols, and automating adaptation by instantly isolating compromised users and devices based on analytics-driven risk scoring using identity context and behavioral factors.
Zero trust shrinks the attack surface to discrete access points and resources per request. However, transitioning requires phasing in order to avoid business disruption by immediately revoking traditionally uncontrolled access. This involves assessing resources, users, and workloads to map appropriate access requirements, implementing multifactor authentication to validate user identities, using network segmentation and ACLs to reduce lateral movement, and building zero trust controls into new applications and infrastructure.
Conclusion
Micro-segmentation, zero trust and related emerging paradigms reflect a crucial shift from blanket network security to targeted precision by workload and request context. However, organizations should avoid deploying piecemeal controls and workflows in isolation. The greatest benefit comes from coordinating precision approaches.
This includes unified policy control to prevent inconsistencies, leveraging identity as the control plane to improve context for access decisions, automating coordinated isolation of compromised resources across segments and tiers, applying controls consistently across physical, virtual and cloud infrastructure, and holistic monitoring to identify novel threats operating within allowed paths.
With coordination, individual precision controls reinforce each other to establish tightly interwoven protection. Precision offers enhanced security without sacrificing operational agility when implemented thoughtfully.