A New Security Approach to Combat Today’s Threats

A modern approach to security needs to start with one assumption – you have been breached. While consensus has been gaining on the breach assumption for some time, changes to security architecture have been slow. Security still operates in the traditional role of the defender, highly focused on protecting an impossible number of endpoints.

Changing the nature of how we think about security changes the role the defender has to play, and takes the power away from attackers. By focusing security resources on detection and containment, with a strong emphasis on network visibility, enterprises can turn the tables on cyber criminals. This new approach sends a clear message to the attackers – getting into the front door is fine, but you’ll never get out. In this slideshow, Gigamon has identified five steps organizations should take to redesign their approach to security.

Reimagining Your Security Architecture

Click through for five steps organizations can take to realign their security approach to combat today’s ever-changing threats, as identified by Gigamon.

Build Visibility into Multi-Tiered Network Security

Your network today is made up of physical and virtual components, yet the chances are slim that you have unified visibility across your physical and virtual assets. You need end-to-end visibility from the perimeter to the core of the data center, from remote sites to the cloud. Achieve pervasive traffic visibility with a platform that leverages network TAPs that collect traffic on both physical and virtual networks, and sends it to intelligent nodes that then process, filter, and forward traffic for your security, network, and application analyzers. This accommodates agile scalability and reconfiguration in response to evolving threats without affecting the production network.

Leverage Best of Breed Solutions

Advanced persistent threats (APT) require the latest and continually updated security tools to identify attacks and protect vital resources. Specialized APT solutions are often optimized for packet intelligence more than high-speed throughput, and can thus become overwhelmed by network traffic. APT tools can be configured in n+n groups, but this adds expense and complexity. Improve secure network scale-out by applying a comprehensive visibility solution that sees all of the packets traversing all network tiers and virtualized environments. A mix of best of breed tools, managed centrally, can give you the best mix of offense and defense.

Ensure Data Privacy for All Network Traffic

Network security leaders must balance tight budgets against stringent and often costly privacy protection/compliance requirements. Leverage a security delivery platform that can efficiently forward traffic to the right tools for data retention and compliance. Look for one that can mask and slice packets before they are analyzed or stored to protect the privacy and security of packet payloads.

Eliminate Risks from Overtaxed Security Solutions

Here, the goal is to ensure that the existing security appliances are inspecting the right traffic at the right time to take the right corrective action. Ensure load distribution is spread intelligently across multiple appliances so they do not become overloaded and neither open the network to intrusion nor negatively impact business-critical services and applications.

Protect Remote Locations

Branch offices demand secure, high-speed connectivity to enable remote workers to have persistent connections to headquarters and to the Internet from their disparate sites. However, the total cost to acquire (TCA) and total cost of ownership (TCO) of provisioning security tools at each remote location can be prohibitive. Look for ways to extend existing security solutions in the core network out to the network edge.