What kind of internal network does your company have? If it is a flat network, you’re putting your company and its valuable data at risk. Hackers are getting more and more sophisticated so your network needs to as well if you want to stay protected. A network segmentation security is the improved security of your network to prevent future breaches.
Why you should consider implementing a network segmentation strategy
Network segmentation has not always been a popular strategy for IT and security teams to implement. As cyber-attacks increase in scale and sophistication though, more and more IT and security teams are noticing the major benefit of implementing network segmentation security. Implementing a network segmentation strategy in your business is a huge deterrent for hackers and could save your company a lot of time, money, and heartache.
While most traditional networks have a mature firewall perimeter and include some sort of intrusion detection or prevention system to monitor incoming traffic, once a hacker gets past the firewall, they find a flat network infrastructure allowing them to have free range to penetrate their attack. A flat infrastructure might be easy to manage but it provides a great opportunity for malicious and even accidental activity to happen. Therefore, more and more companies are beginning to execute network segmentation security best practices to properly protect their network infrastructure.
Network Segmentation Security Benefits
Network segmentation is essentially separating groups of systems or applications from each other. Network segmentation can be done either physically or virtually, but the result is the limitation of communication throughout the network and limiting the attack options available to hackers.
- Improved Security
One of the most important network segmentation security benefits is the improved security of your network. Since network segmentation isolates groups of systems and applications, network traffic can also be isolated or filtered to limit and prevent access between network segments.
- Better Access Control
Another one of the most important network segmentation advantages is having better access control over your network. With network segmentation, you can allow users to only access specific network resources, preventing any accidental and malicious activity from happening.
- Better Containment
Network segmentation security allows you to have better containment of your network because when a network issue occurs, its effect is limited to the local subnet. This not only prevents accidents or malicious activity from spreading but also contains any errors in the network to a single location making it much easier to fix.
- Improved Performance
With a network segmentation strategy, you’ll have fewer hosts per subnet, minimizing local traffic. This allows you to isolate broadcast traffic to a local subnet saving you time and money to locate the unwanted incident.
- Improved Monitoring
Network segmentation security also provides you with an opportunity to log events, monitor allowed and denied internal connections, and even detect suspicious behavior. With the ability to monitor and log events, you’ll be able to notice patterns of where more malicious activity occurs and make the proper alterations to those areas to prevent future breaches.
- Stronger Data Security
When you implement a network segmentation strategy, it becomes much easier to protect the most sensitive data on your internally-facing network assets. When your business creates a layer of separation between servers containing sensitive data, you drastically reduce the risk of data loss and theft.
While it is much easier to maintain a flat internal network in your company, it is much safer to implement a network segmentation strategy. With a network segmentation design, you’ll not only be able to prevent hackers from stealing your sensitive data, but you’ll also save yourself a lot of time, money, and frustration hackers often create.
