Member Article

Addressing today’s security gaps

It’s long been recognised that it’s not possible to have watertight protection from today’s threats, however a common problem is that IT teams are often struggling to stay up-to-date with industry developments. Indeed, we are working in a fast-paced environment, with hackers changing tactics and targets on a regular basis. Furthermore, the working world is evolving as enterprises increasingly embrace digital transformation and move their applications to the cloud. This is breaking the secure perimeter businesses have traditionally sought to create, as applications and data reside outside of the Wide Area Network (WAN) and staff becomes increasingly mobile. This, along with the increasingly complex threat landscape, means many IT teams are more frequently unsure as to what it is they need to protect.

Addressing today’s top security gaps

So what are today’s security gaps? A good example is SSL (Secure Sockets Layer), the standard security technology for establishing an encrypted link between a web server and browser. For hackers, it’s relatively easy to hide a cyber-attack in SSL-encrypted traffic, however most organisations are still unable to inspect it due to the required performance a security scan involves. With 70 percent of all internet traffic encrypted with SSL and Zscaler research revealing that SSL threats increased by 30 percent in the last half of 2017, businesses are faced with a huge blind spot by failing to tackle this growing threat. In some countries, there are employee protection rules that prevent employers from inspecting the traffic even if they wanted to. It’s like being on fire, holding onto an extinguisher and being told you can’t use it.

There’s also mobile security. With bring your own device (BYOD) becoming commonplace, many users use their own phone – whether it’s on 3G or 4G, the corporate network, or Starbucks WIFI – accessing any website or app. The fact is, hackers exploit the weakest spot in the security chain, which is the end user, and start their targeted attacks with threats dedicated for mobile devices. The user pays less attention, meaning smartphones are often a security blind spot. Yet, in most cases, mobile traffic is still untouched by legacy network security protocols. It’s a bit like having a police force focusing only on quiet lanes, despite most vehicles driving on motorways.

Additionally, applications are shifting increasingly into the cloud. With 120 million users by the end of 2017, Office 365 is a great example of a game changing application that is transforming how businesses work. For many companies, Office 365 may be the most significant application platform to leave the data centre. It is a huge transition for a lot of organisations that have never dealt with that volume of cloud application traffic. Many companies subsequently suffer from performance problems due to the increased network traffic caused by applications like Office 365 as they are still routing that traffic through MPLS lines to the data centre and back to the user. User experience suffers, tempting people to circumvent security controls. When traffic thus bounces unprotected between users, devices and clouds, it’s a case of Russian roulette and eventually will lead to compromising corporate data.

A modern approach is needed

While all the above is going on, the focus is still predominantly on protecting the data centre, which is a strategy that is becoming increasingly outdated. Applications have moved to the cloud and users have moved off the network – meaning a new approach to security is required. The migration of internal applications to cloud services like Azure, AWS and Google, as well as the increase in remote employees, means that enterprises must now rethink how they provide secure access. Relying on incumbent technologies based on data centre appliances introduces networking and security costs, and complexity, creating opportunities for the aforementioned gaps. In the end, cloud adoption is slowed, users have a poor user experience and the network is left vulnerable.

Businesses therefore need to readdress their security strategies and ensure they are investing in products and technologies that make sense in today’s evolving networking and security industry. They need to facilitate cloud application performance, whilst also keeping it secure. Indeed, regardless of the user location, connection type, or internet destination, it’s important that IT teams have control and visibility of network-traffic that allows them to deliver the seamless access and strong performance users demand when using their mobile device or cloud applications.

This requires a multi-layer defence-in-depth strategy that fully supports SSL/TLS inspection, protection of mobile users regardless of the location they access cloud or network-based applications and a secured direct to Internet approach that enables businesses to close the gaps to have more secure and fast access, no matters where their applications are located.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Matt Piercy, VP & GM EMEA Zscaler .