The approach to network security needs to evolve. As organizations accelerate their digital innovation initiatives, it is essential that their security infrastructure is able to keep up with the new network edges being put in place along with the increasingly complex and fast-evolving threat landscape. 

The explosion of network edges — data center, LAN, LTE/5G, OT, CASB, SASE, and WAN — continue to expand and splinter the perimeter. And new attack vectors, such as home networks, off-net devices, and digital supply chains, require organizations to engage in cyber war on multiple fronts simultaneously. While some of these new environments that need protection are being added to address urgent business requirements, others enjoy a level of trust they do not deserve and therefore fly under the radar. 

In all cases, given the rate of innovation, there is rarely enough time to make them part of a cohesive or comprehensive security strategy. In fact, nearly 80% of organizations are introducing innovations faster than their ability to secure them against cyber-attacks. And when security is deployed ad hoc to try and keep up, the resulting vendor and solution sprawl creates complexities that further limit visibility and restrict control. 

This creates far more than just a management or logistical challenge. Cybercriminals are spending time and energy looking for new ways to circumvent security controls, infiltrate networks, and achieve their objectives. To do this, their attacks are gaining in sophistication. New attacks target different network edges simultaneously to obscure their attack methods and identify the most easily exploited link in the security chain. Some are even leveraging cloud compute resources to deliver polymorphic attack sequences at rapid scale and with full automation. Few distributed networks that rely on traditionally isolated point products are able to see, let alone counter, these sorts of threats.

Organizations simply fall further behind in delivering the expected high-performance and secure user-to-application connection that is needed. And when they can, the approach usually can’t scale. The choices are to either slow down business or introduce more complexity — and risk — to the network. 

Check out the five fundamental principles and practices that every organization needs to consider if they hope to stay ahead of their current security challenges.