The impact of recent events over the last year on the networking landscape cannot be emphasized enough. Organizations have undergone rapid transformation, moving to telework and dissolving the concept of a defined security perimeter. The explosion of distributed endpoints, brought about by employees working remotely, and proliferation of destinations with applications moving to the cloud, has surfaced unprecedented security challenges from a multitude of unknown threat vectors.
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The scale and impact of these threats has humbled and humiliated the most powerful corporations on the planet. The Federal Bureau of Investigation reported that 2500 American institutions were victims of cybersecurity attacks last year—a 66% increase from 2019. American organizations paid at least $350 million in cryptocurrency in 2020 year from ransomware attacks. *
Inadequacies in network infrastructure combined with software vulnerabilities have emboldened attackers to target institutions, disrupting their business operations and hurting profits. The recent spate of damaging cybersecurity incidents against JBS Foods, Colonial Pipeline, transportation systems in NYC, United Health Services, and other sectors have demonstrated the impact of such attacks that threaten the day-to-day essential services for millions of people. It should be a wake-up call that no IT infrastructure is completely insulated from threats. All organizations should urgently review existing deterrents and implement best practices to fortify their enterprise from threats.
The Zero-Trust Security Framework is the Antidote to Pandemic of Cyber Attacks
Cisco’s Zero Trust Framework is the remedy for this pervasive malaise. With a “Never Trust, Always Verify” approach, its core focus is to minimize data breaches by stopping east-west infections and reducing the attack surface across the enterprise network by:
◉ Establishing a level of trust by identifying endpoints as they onboard the network, define their roles, and assign access policies
◉ Enforcing trust by segmenting the network to secure network and resource access and prevent the spread of east-west threats
◉ Verifying trust by continuously monitoring each endpoint for anomalous behaviors
Cisco SD-Access Reduces Risk
Cisco DNA Center offers a solution with SD-Access that delivers a zero-trust outcome from the campus workplace to remote workforce, branch sites, and applications. The Cisco DNA Center Endpoint Analytics application uses deep packet inspection and Machine Learning to identify, profile, and group endpoints. Policy Analytics enhances visibility by continuously analyzing traffic flows, making it easy for administrators to define and enforce macro and micro segmentation across the automated fabric. Cisco’s latest innovation around Trust Analytics constantly assesses risk by monitoring endpoint vulnerabilities and anomalous behavior at Day N. This definition of trust and endpoint context can be extended beyond the enterprise through the SD-WAN to data center and cloud networks with policy integrations.