Microsegmentation is a network security practice that creates safe zones within a data center environment by dividing application workloads into intelligent groups and individually protecting them. Microsegmentation adheres to Zero Trust security principles, enforcing proper authorization and verification for restricted access to applications, data, or systems. Mitigate the risk of lateral propagation of advanced attacks in enterprise data centers and enable organizations to enforce consistent segmentation policies across on-premises and cloud-based workloads.
Here are some of the key benefits of microsegmentation:
- Greater network traffic Visibility in Hybrid Cloud environments: With microsegmentation, all data between workloads are clearly visible. It provides an in-depth picture of every network traffic that goes across data centers Bare metal servers and hybrid cloud environments require regular review and can take considerable time to remediate. Having centralized visibility into each segment of your data center can help reduce this time and maintain a proactive security posture.
- Restrict Lateral Movement, and Reduced network attack surface by limiting the ability of attackers to move laterally through a network. Cybercrime tends toward multi-stage attacks with long dwell times. Once attackers gain access to a network, they rarely take immediate, obvious actions. Instead, they try to move sideways without being detected. Microsegmentation reduces the number of devices that can be easily accessed by a compromised device. At the same time, NFV insertion increases the chances of these efforts being detected before they spread further.
- Stronger defense against Advanced Persistent Threats: Even with all system and protection logs in place, ensuring compliance can be difficult. This is another area where microsegmentation can help. Simplify mandatory compliance regulations such as PCI-DSS (with the upcoming release of PCI-DSS 4.0 in the coming months), HIPAA, or region-specific requirements like GDPR.
The ability of micro-segmentation to define boundaries and prevent lateral movement helps organizations meet various compliance standards. For example, achieving HIPAA compliance provides the ability to protect ePHI data, risk analysis and management, and limit the scope of audits. PCI-DSS enables an automated, auditable process for creating, enforcing, monitoring, and refining policies across all locations and platforms.
- Improved Compliance which saves time, money, and resources while improving the entire network security posture:
Even with all system and protection logs in place, ensuring compliance can be difficult. This is another area where microsegmentation can help. Simplify mandatory compliance regulations such as PCI-DSS (with the upcoming release of PCI-DSS 4.0 in the coming months), HIPAA, or region-specific requirements like GDPR.
The ability of micro-segmentation to define boundaries and prevent lateral movement helps organizations meet various compliance standards. For example, achieving HIPAA compliance provides the ability to protect ePHI data, risk analysis and management, and limit the scope of audits. PCI-DSS enables an automated, auditable process for creating, enforcing, monitoring, and refining policies across all locations and platforms.
- Simplified security configuration: Microsegmentation enables the creation of reusable security policy templates that direct user access to applications and databases, and communication between workloads in different environments. This saves a lot of time. Instead of spending hours on tedious manual configuration tasks, organizations can apply integrated security and compliance templates to environments created or modified.