The historical definition of network security is to use a firewall to screen users coming into the network, but as IT technology and security technology have evolved, the definition is much broader now.
Today, network security is everything a company does to ensure the security of its networks and everything connected to them. This includes the network, the cloud (or clouds), endpoints, servers, users and applications.
Cybersecurity products seek to use preventive physical and software measures to protect the network and its assets from unauthorized access, modification, destruction and misuse. These products typically target certain assets on the network:
- Firewalls prevent unauthorized users from accessing the network by allowing or denying traffic.
- Anti-Virus/Malware software protects network endpoints and servers from becoming infected by damaging software that can corrupt files, export sensitive data, or perform other malicious activities.
- Application Security systems look for and block vulnerability points in application software.
- Network Access Control systems manage access permissions for authorized users and devices, preventing unauthorized users from gaining access.
- User Behavior Analytics solutions monitor user activity, baseline normal behavior, and alert on activities that deviate from normal activity.
- Network Traffic Analysis Network Detection and Response (NTA/NDR) products analyze network traffic, look for abnormal patterns that can indicate attacks, and take action based on the results. Network traffic does not lie and contains strategic data for threat detection.
- Cloud Security solutions protect resources in the cloud.
- Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS): monitor for and block attacks from outside users or processes that get past the firewall.
- Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) products collect data from various device logs on the network and can monitor for anomalies. Traffic-based NTA/NDR products complement SIEMs by analyzing logs and taking action. In fact, NTA/NDR is critical to advancing visibility beyond logs.
As you can see, there’s a lot to protect, and a lot of approaches to protecting it under the idea of network security. But rather than having a dozen or more point solutions (each with its own interface console) to manage, wouldn’t it be easier, faster and more efficient to have just one?
Your next-gen security operations platform should integrate security tools under one interface, including network security, referred to by Gartner as network detection and response (NDR). Bundling native applications in a base platform eliminates the need to manually correlate threat information from multiple siloed solutions.
That’s how we think at Stellar Cyber. Check out our product tour today and see how Stellar Cyber offers the industry’s most comprehensive solution for network security and everything connected to them.
Guest blog courtesy of Stellar Cyber. Read more Stellar Cyber guest blogs here. Regularly contributed guest blogs are part of MSSP Alert’s sponsorship program.
