Page 18 - FCW, September/October 2019
P. 18
Cybersecurity and Modernization
Cybersecurity starts
with visibility
Dennis Reilly
Vice President of Federal, Gigamon
In a recent study, Forrester Research discovered that the technology can reduce cybersecurity costs by 50 percent and pay for itself in just seven months.
Staying ahead of adversaries
The government has recognized the value of such force-multiplying technologies
by making them available through the Department of Homeland Security’s Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation program. As agencies continue their digital
IN TODAY’S RAPIDLY evolving threat landscape, agencies can’t protect what they can’t see. They need a clear
view of all the traffic on their physical and virtual networks, and as more agencies shift workflows to the cloud, they must extend their visibility into that area as well. Even
in cloud environments, agencies remain responsible for the security of their data and applications.
Pervasive visibility is necessary to quickly identify breaches and the lateral movement that could signal that an adversary is conducting command and control or setting the stage for data exfiltration.
Further, agencies must have a view into the estimated 78 percent of traffic that’s encrypted. Adversaries can go largely undetected in encrypted channels, which means that what used to be a secure channel is now a threat vector. It’s one of the reasons why it took so long to discover the Office of Personnel Management breach in 2014.
Agencies can see into encrypted traffic through a technique called “break and inspect,” which involves “breaking the traffic,” decrypting it, inspecting it, re-encrypting it and sending it down the network line.
Maximizing the return
on investment
A next-generation network packet broker (NGNPB) can play a key role in all those areas. It’s a force-multiplying technology that helps the government achieve
the greatest financial return for every cybersecurity dollar it invests while also ensuring that agencies receive the maximum return in terms of readiness and a stronger
cybersecurity posture.
With an NGNPB, agencies can have their
cybersecurity, network and application tools performing at peak capacity. Given the fact that agencies typically use dozens of tools to see, secure and manage the data going across their networks,
an improvement in efficiency of just 20 percent would be a tremendous return on investment.
In some cases, NGNPBs can achieve a fivefold productivity improvement.
davooda/Shutterstock/FCW Staff
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