Why should organisations consider microsegmentation as part of their cybersecurity strategy?

When organisations consider cybersecurity measures, it's often tempting to choose blanket solutions for peace of mind. In our very nature, we love a one-size-fits-all or that'll-fix-it approaches. However, the modern cybersecurity landscape has outgrown more traditional, universal measures. Instead, organisations have to take a step back, assess their assets, and get granular with their network. The unforgiving nature of cyber attacks, combined with cloud services and various deployment options, necessitate that organisations build battlements around their assets at every possible opportunity. Although it sounds like quite a hefty endeavour, microsegmentation makes it possible to strategise and implement these measures.

What is microsegmentation?

Microsegmentation is effectively the compartmentalisation and consequent protection of your organisation's data centre and cloud assets. By taking a segmentation-driven approach, organisations can apply security policies and controls per each individual workload. In turn, businesses can enjoy greater resistance to cyber attacks. The combination of hybrid environments, digital transformation, and cloud are all enabling organisations to get more granular. Until now, traditional firewalls have only been good for controlling the north-south traffic flows. However, the east-west communication between servers is key in cloud/hybrid environments. In particular, the east-west traffic is known to evade perimeter security tools despite having them at the ready. Fortunately, microsegmentation grants organisations the autonomy they need to control the horizontal communication. Perhaps an obvious one, but a key benefit of microsegmentation is that it minimises the attack radius. Should an attacker one perimeter, they'll find themselves confronted by many more in the surrounding environment. Better still, organisations will be able to act quicker through this approach thanks to better detection. Most microsegmentation solutions will come equipped with real-time alert capabilities for the organisation's benefit.

How do we get started?

One of our favourite offerings in the microsegmentation sphere is Guardicore. This company recognises the importance of microsegmentation and packs it into its Guardicore Centra solution. Companies can take advantage of its deep application dependencies mapping and policy enforcement capabilities to ensure ongoing management of your microsegmentation policy. If you want to hit the ground running with your microsegmentation solution, then Guardicore Centra is the one for you. Its intuitive workflow delivers simplicity throughout, whether you're mapping application dependencies or suggesting and setting rules. What's more, with Guardicore, you can apply microsegmentation policies "anywhere your applications run today or tomorrow." To get the most out of getting granular, Guardicore makes for a great choice. This is because it allows you to enforce 'process-level' rules to tightly control flows between application components. In turn, you can enjoy a resilient, watertight security posture that is future-proof.

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