Best Microsegmentation Solutions

When beginning the process of moving to a microsegmentation solution, it is important to be vigilant and painstakingly thorough to ensure that nothing is missed in the process and to avoid any avoidable issues.

1. Know your traffic - Microsegmentation is complete transparency of ALL traffic flow - north-south and east-west. You will need to work with your IT team and perhaps look at third-party solutions to get a complete understanding of the current appropriate ongoing communication and active productive connections between workloads. This will facilitate the identification of unnecessary connections which need to be closed.

1. Identify your segments - Next, you will want to identify your segments. The most common ones are function, location, class, security threat, and distinction. These identifiers will help with regulating communication flows throughout your workflows. These identifiers or tags will help when adding third-party solutions and scalability. They will also play a big part with increased security options as you make changes to your plan.

1. Establish concise security protocols - You will want to identify the level of threat risk that is unique to your organization and the microsegmentation attributes you have created. These protocols should be extremely thorough and address every type of communication flow and every device with access to your network and how they will all relate to each other. You will want to take a deep dive into your entire ecosystem to ensure every workflow has been considered. The zero-trust concept must be applied and all traffic must be identified, categorized, and verified to securely reduce the chance of any threat to your organization. Within the zero-trust concept, any unknowns must be denied access and considered a potential threat risk.

1. Scalability is a must - Organizations are growing and changing - sometimes, daily. You need to create the option to make adjustments and adapt to changes as your organization changes. Complete workflow transparency allows for immediate identification of changes in workflow and complete awareness of any changes to the threat surface. You will want your system to be able to identify new workloads and auto-tag them with known identifiers.

1. Implement your plan - Start slow. You want to roll out your plan slowly and with solid communication to all members of your project team, (security, tech, architect, etc). It’s best to start small, test your plan, gain feedback, test again, then add new workloads to your rollout plan. During every step in your rollout process, you want to ensure protocols are workable and being followed consistently. If any problems develop, it is important to address them immediately and make the necessary adjustments to your plan, communicate the changes to the team, and continue to the next segment based on your set priorities. Once the entire rollout is complete, continue to regularly follow up to make certain all protocols are being satisfied and everything is working according to plan.

Microsegmentation Software improves network security by dividing the network into smaller segments, allowing you to apply specific security policies to each segment. This isolation minimizes the risk of lateral movement by attackers within your network. By enforcing granular security controls, Microsegmentation enables you to detect and respond to threats more efficiently, protecting sensitive data from unauthorized access.

When choosing Microsegmentation Software, look for features like real-time visibility into network traffic, centralized policy management, and integration with existing security infrastructure. The ability to support dynamic environments such as cloud and hybrid networks is crucial. Automation capabilities that adapt to changes in the network topology can streamline operations while reducing manual workload.

Real-time monitoring is essential in Microsegmentation Software because it provides continuous insights into network activity, allowing you to identify and address anomalies swiftly. With real-time alerts, you can detect potential security incidents as they occur, enabling proactive responses. This helps maintain the integrity of segmented environments and ensures quick remediation of threats before they escalate.

Microsegmentation Software can enhance compliance by allowing you to implement strict access controls and monitoring mechanisms that align with regulatory requirements. By segmenting your network and enforcing policies around sensitive data, you can demonstrate adherence to standards like GDPR, HIPAA, and PCI DSS. Automated reporting and auditing capabilities within Microsegmentation solutions simplify the compliance management process.

Microsegmentation Software differs from traditional firewall solutions by focusing on more granular, internal segmentation rather than perimeter security. While firewalls protect the network edge, Microsegmentation restricts movement between workloads within the network. This approach provides more detailed security controls and reduces attack surfaces, meeting the demands of modern, complex network environments that traditional firewalls cannot effectively address.