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Principles of Secure Network Design
Software or hardware that undergoes security by design should implement practices that incorporate various cyber security strategies and tactics into its architectural layout, so in case of an attack on its system, all necessary protocols or procedures will activate to defend against attack; at a minimum, this would include:
Secure Network Design Principles
Here we outline several terms which are key in the implementation and design of our security policy and design.
Utilize compartmentalizing techniques for deep defense/weakest link protection as well as rotating assignments of duties/duty separation.
Create compartmentalization by creating multiple zones of security with distinct policies between them - for instance, an outer and inner zone, DMZ, and intranet zone, respectively.
The need-to-know principle, part of the less privileged principle, stems from military doctrine. Under it, individuals only receive services and privileges necessary for fulfilling their roles - anything beyond this is neither permitted nor expected from them; all else will likely be denied by default.
Concept of Weakest Linkage: Your security systems effectiveness depends upon its weakest link, typically people.
Separation and rotation are integral parts of an efficient process. They help combat collusion, theft, fraud, and errors by segregating duties; multiple people sign checks over $500 instead of only needing one signature; duty rotation refers to cases in which individuals do not regularly work on any one service or application - this should occur regularly in staff rotation processes;
By isolating trust and security components, server systems that cannot be compromised upon boot-up can be created.
Mediated Access allows centralized security controls to protect security domains or asset groups with firewalls, gateways, and sensors acting on behalf of the assets they protect while mediating trust relationships between security domains.
Accountability must always take precedence; all parties involved need to agree on an acceptable usage policy and use accounting mechanisms, auditing, and penetration testing as tools to track administrators.
Risk Management
Tackling risk becomes more challenging with thousands of assets to oversee, each with different values, vulnerability levels, and exposure risks to manage.
An analysis must be performed regularly, while countermeasures are implemented immediately to protect these investments from being exposed or threatened by any risks they present. An integrated methodology with lifecycle steps provides you with an approach for setting out risks or setting the context for risk-based decisions.
Your risks must also be assessed, with plans laid out on how theyre to be mitigated or tracked regularly and managed over the lifecycle process. As factors within an organization change (for instance, assets depreciate over time or are replaced by more modern assets; vulnerabilities arise and security policies must be altered; architecture shifts occur and technologies appear), this process should remain dynamic, organic, and responsive - often shifting as assets depreciate or new technologies appear; while external factors like governance cybersecurity threats or compliance considerations require careful management of this iterative cycle within an organizational environment.
Securing Critical IT Infrastructure in 2023: Challenges and Opportunities Businesses of every size, type, and industry will increasingly integrate physical and virtual assets into critical infrastructure (CI).
Cyber security has quickly become an essential component of IT infrastructure to enable successful business operations within complex ecosystems.
Cyber threats present serious dangers to business continuity; therefore CISOs must develop proactive approaches for dealing with their respective CI environments.
Security Operations Teams continue to face an uphill struggle to protect critical infrastructure (CI), given its growing complexity of threats and vulnerabilities, such as cybercrime - now more sophisticated than ever - making attack services readily available on any network with even amateur attackers capable of conducting successful attacks against organizations with more stringent security postures.
They may encounter challenges protecting from sophisticated risks like these:
Security of Supply Chain Obstacles Endpoint protection can be an arduous yet often unsuccessful undertaking.
In traditional supply chains, multiple vendors were involved with meeting business goals through hardware, software, and managed service components; but as businesses have gone digital, this model no longer applies; third-party vendors must now gain Access to your network in order for smooth operations - this poses significant threats against IT Infrastructure security systems.
Cybercriminals may take advantage of weaknesses in supply chains to find attack surfaces and workflows they use to breach networks laterally.
Therefore, Chief Information Security Officers should recognize all attack surfaces to adjust security posture and increase resilience.
Cybercrime-as-a-Service Today, cybercriminal businesses have increasingly adopted legitimate business models to facilitate attacks even on critical infrastructure more easily than before.
Cybercriminals now have Access to Phishing-as-a-Service and Ransomware-as-a-Service packages. They can choose to gain entry to company networks or breach them laterally to gain entry to key assets of an enterprise network.
Businesses should prioritize cyberinfrastructure (CI) security as it remains complex to identify and mitigate threats quickly due to limited skills and resources available, making collaboration between public and private sectors challenging in terms of meeting regulatory compliance while upholding network security at all times.
Workforce Challenge
Organizations often overlook the human factor when it comes to security; therefore, their human security breaches expose your business operations network to cybersecurity risks that threaten viability and disrupt normal activity.
Companies must raise awareness around critical infrastructure security matters in order to maintain secure operations.
Before developing and deploying cybersecurity and tech stack solutions for their business, businesses should carefully consider all possible challenges and threats.
Businesses implementing an all-encompassing security strategy may better withstand attacks in the future.
Also Read: The Importance of Blockchain for Software Developers
Cyber Security in 2023: Preparing to Meet Challenges
Keep this advice in mind when designing or upgrading your security architecture.
Securing Our Nation
As IT infrastructures proliferate and cyber threat actors evolve their attack methods, cybersecurity becomes ever more challenging for companies.
Cyber Security Companies require an arsenal of security tools in order to defend against advanced attacks.
Configuring and overseeing an organizations cybersecurity infrastructure with individual solutions is often complicated.
Consolidated security platforms may make life simpler by centralizing all necessary features onto one platform for easy configuration, management, and threat prevention capabilities.
Preventive Security
Most corporate cybersecurity strategies focus on detection. Once an attack has been identified as active, security personnel and solutions take immediate steps to mitigate or stop it immediately.
Reactive approaches allow attackers to launch attacks more frequently before any intervention takes place; cyber threat actors utilize that time window of opportunity to harm an organization while expanding its footprint while making repairs more expensive than necessary.
Security should prioritize prevention over detection. A company can efficiently eliminate both threats and costs associated with inbound threats by recognizing them early and blocking them before reaching organizational systems.
Cybercriminals now face many different attack avenues against organizations due to the evolution of IT architectures within corporate environments, with technologies like cloud adoption, remote working arrangements, and mobile phones creating security vulnerabilities that pose many threats against them.
To provide complete protection, organizations need an array of strategies in place.
Cyberthreat actors possess the capability of exploiting vulnerabilities within corporate systems to gain entry, so an effective cybersecurity program should provide comprehensive protection and coverage against all possible attack vectors.
Modernization of networks should be a top priority for enterprises: Given their integral part in digital transformation initiatives, companies will likely place immense value in upgrading them.
Businesses utilizing legacy network infrastructure often encounter limitations that prevent it from meeting business requirements as its maturity limits delivery capabilities - something businesses are now increasingly opting for with distributed and hybrid work environments featuring many connected devices leading to significant investments being made into networking capabilities.
Focus is shifting towards network security: with distributed hybrid work models creating greater opportunities for malicious actors, network security has now become a vital element of network architecture.
Organizations have responded effectively by adopting cloud-based solutions with managed endpoint models and increasing investments in cybersecurity - security threats are pervasive at hybrid workplaces; according to an NTT study mentioned previously, 87% of strong-performing organizations invest in cybersecurity capabilities versus only 41% among underperformers.
Companies with aligned business and Cyber Security technology strategies are twice as likely to seek managed service providers due to difficulty transitioning from planning into purchasing and maintaining networks themselves.
With digital transformation initiatives quickly progressing, we anticipate an upsurge in outsourcing demand as their rollout speeds speed up. In turn, we expect outsourcing levels will rise proportionately!
- Authorization and Accountability: Certain elements of the system can only be accessed by authorized users, which clarifies accountability.
- Authentication: Users, regardless of privilege, must go through the authentication process.
- Data Confidentiality and Availability: When necessary, data is kept secure, confidential, and available only to authorized individuals.
- System Integrity: unauthorized users cannot tamper with the data or the system as a whole.
By including these protocols and others into the architectural design, they will continue to be implemented even if products undergo many alterations.
Challenges in Securing Critical IT Infrastructure in 2023
Critical infrastructures (CI) of most enterprises, irrespective of size, industry, or type, will incorporate both physical and virtual assets within their system.
An integral component of IT infrastructure to ensure smooth operations within complex business ecosystems, these assets form an indispensable resource that needs to remain online at all times and remain unhampered from threats by any means necessary.
Any disruption caused by cyber threats to these critical assets could have serious repercussions for business continuity; consequently, CISOs need to formulate and execute proactive plans designed to control threats within their CIs.
With the increasing complexity of threats and vulnerabilities, SecOps teams face an ever-increasing challenge when trying to secure critical infrastructure (CI).
The cybercrime industry is evolving into one offering Cybercrime-as-a-Service that makes even amateur cybercriminals capable of carrying out full-scale attacks despite better security mechanisms in place. Here are a few challenges SecOps teams might experience while protecting critical infrastructure against sophisticated cyber threats:
Securing Supply Chains: Security Challenges
Ensuring that supply is protected involves complex measures aimed at safeguarding endpoint networks for specific functions.
Before, supply chains were composed of hardware components, software solutions, and managed services from vendors that collaborated together to meet business goals. Today, however, more organizations than ever before are turning towards digital supply chains to meet market requirements for more resilient, transparent, and agile processes.
Businesses often depend on third-party vendors for smooth business operations; however, one of the greatest security challenges presented by other vendors and suppliers can be threats exposed by giving Access to your network.
Identification of all cybersecurity attack surface areas and workflows through end-to-end supply chains that cybercriminals could exploit as potential entryways is key for creating resilience within networks.
CISOs must assess all such vulnerabilities so necessary adjustments may be made in their security posture to increase resilience and ensure maximum resilience.
Cybercrime-as-a-Service Industry Criminal enterprises have now developed sophisticated crime-as-a-service offerings that replicate legit business models, making it much simpler for cybercriminals to attack even critical infrastructure successfully.
Cybercriminals now have Access to Phishing-as-a-Service and Ransomware-as-a-Service that enable them to quickly penetrate business networks before expanding laterally to access critical systems within.
Lack of Required Skill Sets and Resources
It is of critical importance for businesses to place information security among their top priorities, yet as the threat landscape continues to expand rapidly, it has become difficult for enterprises to identify and mitigate threats immediately due to limited resources or skill sets available within an enterprise.
As a result, businesses struggle with maintaining successful public-private collaboration to maintain regulatory compliance that will guarantee network security always.
Workforce-Related Challenges
One major barrier in protecting critical assets of any business network is its workforce. Many organizations tend to neglect this aspect of security despite providing limited resources that expose networks to various vulnerabilities that can cause business disruptions.
Businesses should make efforts to raise awareness about critical infrastructure security measures.
Businesses must take all aspects of critical infrastructure security challenges into consideration before developing and deploying their cybersecurity posture and tech stack.
Companies whose CISOs formulate strategies taking these issues into consideration will experience stronger resilience within their security plan.
How to Tackle Cyber Security Challenges of 2023 mes When designing and upgrading security architecture to address cyber security threats in 2023, keep these aspects of design in mind:
Security Consolidation
Cybersecurity has become more complex as IT infrastructures expand and cyber threat actors adopt sophisticated attack techniques.
Therefore, companies require an ever-expanding suite of security capabilities in order to defend against advanced attacks.
Implementing these capabilities via individual, specialized solutions may actually compromise corporate cybersecurity by making it harder to monitor, configure and operate an organizations security infrastructure.
A security consolidation initiative -- wherein an organization uses one platform with all required security capabilities -- improves efficiency and effectiveness within an organizations security team, thereby improving threat management capabilities and strengthening risk mitigation capabilities.
Prevention-Focused Security
Many corporate cybersecurity strategies focus on detection. Once an active threat has been detected, their security solutions and personnel take swift action to mitigate or remediate an ongoing attack.
With an approach thats reactive rather than preventative in its nature, however, attackers have time between initiating their attack and its remediation to take malicious steps that cause more harm and make remediation harder and costlier than necessary.
Security should have an overarching prevention mindset. By proactively detecting and blocking inbound attacks before they reach an organizations systems, businesses can minimize threats, damages, and costs to themselves while increasing safety for staff and customers alike.
Comprehensive Protection
Corporate IT architectures have evolved significantly over time, providing cybercriminals with numerous paths of attack against an organization.
Cloud adoption, remote work arrangements, mobile phones, and IoT are just a few examples of technologies that have created potential security risks that must be considered when considering comprehensive protection strategies for an enterprise.
Cyber threat actors have developed highly sophisticated methods of exploiting vulnerabilities to gain entry to corporate systems, so implementing an effective cybersecurity program requires providing coverage against all possible attack vectors.
Also Read: Utilizing Blockchain For Secure Data Storage
Top Five Networking Trends Of 2023
In 2023, networks will remain central to digital transformation initiatives for enterprises of all types; we anticipate seeing more businesses invest time and resources towards modernizing existing networks.
While 2022 presented itself with challenges due to dynamically shifting scenarios, 2023 promises the execution of these expectations; we would like to highlight five networking trends expected during 2023:
As network modernization plays an integral part in any digital transformation initiative, enterprises will likely place immense focus on its modernization.
Many enterprises still rely on legacy network infrastructure that impedes their capacity to meet business demands. NTT 2022 Global Network Report confirms this claim by showing that 70% of CEOs believe their network maturity level negatively impedes business delivery.
Enterprises have rapidly adopted hybrid, distributed work environments featuring multiple connected devices, yet only half report being extremely satisfied with their current network capabilities despite investments made to upgrade it. This has caused network modernization to flourish rapidly, with over 90 percent of executives using it to facilitate growth (>90%) and provide support for artificial intelligence operations (91%).
More enterprises will utilize automation: As digitization has increased network demands exponentially, automation tools provide enterprises with tools for improving agility and efficiency while decreasing errors, costs, and errors incurred by providing new services faster, locating the root causes of network issues quicker and accelerating provisioning times of new services more rapidly than before 2025 according to Gartner; by 2025 25% of enterprises will automate over half their network activities versus less than 8% automating them in early 2022.
The focus will increase on improving network security: With distributed hybrid work models presenting greater opportunities for malicious actors to strike at malicious actors, network security has become an indispensable aspect of network architecture.
Organizations have responded by transitioning towards cloud-based security solutions with managed endpoint security models and increasing investments in network cybersecurity. Security threats in an agile workplace environment may come from any direction - the threat may not always originate on one particular endpoint but may take shape elsewhere in a hybrid workplace environment.
NTT reports indicate that, to date, 87% of top-performing organizations are investing in cybersecurity capabilities, while only 41% of underperformers do. One key focus for such investments is identity-based security. Nearly 90% of organizations agree, with almost 40% strongly, that growing security and compliance risks across IT networks and operations are difficult to address, making improving these issues one of the top three motivators for CEOs in the coming two years.
Preference for Network as a Service Models Will Rise: In an NTT report published above, respondents voiced three primary concerns above cost as priorities: security, modernization, and accessing an array of services from their provider.
More than 90% of senior executives favor the network as a service model due to their flexibility to scale up or down as needed and their ease in configuring effective AIOps solutions, which simplify ongoing network operations while being complex initially, making the network as a service model even more desirable than in 2023 when we anticipate its rise to take off fully in 2023!
Theres more than meets the eye in regards to these three words - Outsourcing Trends Will Accelerate: While 86% of organizations still purchase networks individually or from incumbent service providers, trends indicate this could soon change: 9 out of 10 prefer outsourcing their network infrastructure with one managed services provider which offers end-to-end solutions across industries
As digital transformation initiatives expand in scope and pace, organizations with fully aligned technology and business strategies may already have taken the step: those with aligned strategies tend to seek partnerships with managed service providers who specialize in infrastructure. With digital transformation initiatives rapidly taking place worldwide, outsourcing momentum could greatly expand.
Want More Information About Our Services? Talk to Our Consultants!
Conclusion
Networks have evolved beyond being static pieces of hardware into dynamic platforms for innovation; any organization aiming to optimize digital capabilities should embrace network innovation as part of its strategy.
Designing secure network infrastructures is essential to businesses and organizations of any size. By taking time to identify threats, plan a comprehensive security strategy, and implement measures designed to secure data, you can significantly lower the risk associated with breaches or cybersecurity platform incidents.
Network security shouldnt be ignored or taken for granted - when done effectively; it provides valuable layers of protection that should not be underestimated or underestimated.
