Back to the Basics with Your Network Protection

Old-time marathon winner and runner Bill Rodgers once made the comment that, “Every race is totally different.” And if this is true in the relatively predictable world of marathon running, it is even more accurate in the race against cyberterrorism, where – whether we like it or not – each day brings with it unforeseen challenges that threaten the integrity of the network.

The question is how best to approach network protection successfully despite the ongoing development of unexpected threats. The truth is that throughout 2016, we’ve had more than ample opportunity to consider this question. From the involvement of hackers in the U.S. elections to the IoT DDoS attacks of October 21, last year saw some shocking stories of breaches. With all of that behind us, 2017 is not a moment too early to take stock, explore the options – and perhaps, go back to the basics and adopt some old-new security strategies that provide greater visibility, improved resilience, increased automation, and better security.

An Unfortunate Side of “Things”

The distributed infrastructures of today’s networks make businesses more vulnerable to attacks, with IoT and BYOD adding a huge degree of complexity. The threat is simply greater – so much so that, according to Gartner (as quoted on TechCrunch here), the security market is predicted to grow to the whopping size of $120 billion by 2020.
As pointed out in the eBook, The Top 5 Misconception of IoT Network and Device Security, IoT devices represent the weakest link of today’s corporate network. To make matters worse, because most users are unaware of the threat, most devices are not even set up securely. (to learn more, read the eBook preview here.)

Because Seeing is Believing

Part of why IoT and BYOD have changed the situation so drastically is that new devices (both managed and unmanaged) are constantly being connected. Any device connected to the network can potentially function as a gateway into your infrastructure.

It has become all too common for there to be a “disconnect” between the number of devices the average IT administrator thinks is attached to the network, and how many devices are actually there. Shockingly, it is not unusual for the disparity to be as high as 20-30 percent.

In approaching the protection of any network, visibility is key – because you cannot protect what you cannot see.

An Innovative Approach to Today’s Security Challenges

A Next-Gen network visibility and access control management solution such as Portnox CLEAR continues to provide ongoing and comprehensive protection against hackers. With Portnox CLEAR, an organization can be hermetically covered, and IT and CISOs regain the visibility and continuous risk assessment they need.
Portnox CLEAR gives you 100% visibility of all devices, including managed and unmanaged devices. With this comes greater control and security, and the ability to develop new strategies – particularly, segmentation of IoT devices, so that they only access a limited part of the network.

The Need for Speed

Portnox CLEAR handles the complexity of today’s networks through Continuous Risk Analysis (CRA), which provides more flexibility than the approach of a one-time “grant or deny.” CRA is built to provide protection in a reality that involves a broad range of devices as well as “anytime, anywhere” connectivity.
CRA is a response to the need to act fast in the geo-distributed mobile workforce of BYOD and IoT. Replacing the old tactic of periodically scanning, CRA provides a real-time approach to network admission control that allows you to continually assess endpoint risks to the network.

Putting It All in Context

Portnox CLEAR also offers an unprecedented degree of context awareness, monitoring changes in hundreds of parameters and correlating multiple context attributes. This provides an adaptive and more analytic approach to risk determination, and facilitates the development of security assessments that are much more comprehensive – taking into account considerations such as time, network location, user identity, and scenario.
Context awareness is particularly significant to today’s cybersecurity because it facilitates the discovery of anomalies – both as relate to device behavior, and as relate to the status of the network.

100% Visibility and Real-Time Access Control

Portnox CLEAR offers ongoing network visibility and access management control so that you can keep your network safe, with real-time risk assessment that mitigates the cybersecurity threats.
As a cloud-based endpoint security management solution with context-aware security assessment capabilities, Portnox CLEAR is up to the challenge of optimally protecting the security of your network.