The COVID pandemic has highlighted the challenges of ensuring security across an expanding enterprise network forced to support more and more remote workers, an ever-increasing diversity of devices, and frequent mobility. Praveen Jain, founder and CEO of cloud networking startup WiteSand, spoke with eSecurity Planet about the challenges of maximizing security in today’s environment, the value of a zero trust model – and three key questions to address to make sure you’re on the right track.
There’s an inherent weakness in the way security too often relies on a trust-but-verify model in which endpoints are given access to the network and are only quarantined when they’re determined to be infected, Jain, a former Cisco SVP and founder of Insieme Networks, told eSecurity Planet.
Praveen Jain, founder & CEO, WiteSand
The problem with that approach is that malware can remain dormant on a user device for a long time before threats actors move laterally through a network – and most current methods that count on perimeter security won’t notice that traffic flow.
Employing a zero trust model instead, Jain said, ensures that endpoints only get network access post-authentication – and recognizes that most traffic will likely be to the Internet or a private data center, limiting lateral movement within the network via default deny policies (with exceptions for printers, conferencing, etc.). “There really is no reason laptops need to be able to talk to each other,” he said.
Network Security Grows in Complexity
Networking and security are far more complex today than they were even a decade ago, when trust-but-verify was sufficient. “The rise of remote wor ..
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