Attackers are becoming more sophisticated with time; enterprises need to revisit to check their existing SD-WAN Security with a fresh perspective
Like other network technologies, SD-WANs require very strong security systems. SD-WAN technology offers multiple benefits, such as lower transport costs and greater agility. But firms are struggling to address security concerns once they move the traffic of a structured, private MPLS VPN – onto a public broadband link.
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Below are the five most effective ways to keep the network locations safe from hackers, intruders, and attackers, ensuring that they are resilient and secure:
- Integrating SD-WAN security into the overall security architecture of the firm
It is a mistake to treat SD-WAN security as a separate entity, while it remains a key element in the overall enterprise security strategy. Most enterprises look at SD-WAN as a connectivity tool that provides a level of data encryption. However, SD-WAN solutions, in reality, don’t ensure data security and are in no way responsible for identifying the security risk.
The security teams need to actively develop a holistic approach that integrates policy-based control rules which are designed to monitor data traffic with a DN managed detection response model in place.
- Stop viewing the SD-WAN as a conventional network technology
SD-WAN security demands an entirely fresh approach – CISOs should ensure that they never look at them in the same context as the traditional physical networks. The traditional networks automatically place particular constraints on the data flow, which don’t apply to SD-WANs. Also, in the case of SD-WAN, the restrictions attached to traditional networks are not applicable as the internet is the network.
- Tying security to a single vendor
The security needs of each business evolve over time with the expansion of network infrastructure and new threats being discovered. They must remain flexible in order to migrate to alternative security solutions promptly and cost-effectively as soon as the attack vectors appear. Unfortunately, some SD-WAN vendors lock-in their customers to a single proprietary security stack – which denies them the required flexibility.
- Legacy firewalls should never be blindly trusted
With traditional WANs, the traffic is backhauled at the data centers, or a legacy firewall might be deployed at the branch, which is maintained separately from the edge router. This leads to several issues, such as heavy performance penalties, expensive bandwidth, unpredictable application performance, and sometimes even to unnecessary complexities regarding IT infrastructure management.
While deploying SD-WAN access, enterprises need to take additional security precautions, as connecting to the Internet exposes the company to a broader attack surface.
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- Proper placement of the SD-WAN appliance
Many SD-WAN adopters end up accidentally bypassing their firewalls by deploying the SD-WAN appliance behind the firewall. Failing to place the SD-WAN appliance properly puts the system to a high risk of malware infection. The security risks created due to a misplaced SD-WAN box eliminate by installing it in front of the firewall. This will enable it to handle the WAN connections while the firewall struggles to protect the internal network. Also, it is of paramount importance to re-check all security controls after making changes to the SD-WAN.
Enterprises should look forward to taking advantage of the latest network security technologies as many next-generation firewalls, and unified threat management appliances now offer SD-WAN capabilities, such as intelligent path routing. Using such built-in capabilities will allow enterprises to fix at least the placement issues, plus also cuts down on the cost of managing two appliances. But, all these ideas will only work if enterprises look at the SD-WAN security issues with a much-needed fresh approach.
