Network Security Isn’t Dead. It’s Evolving.

Raghu Nandakumara,?Head of Industry Solutions

Cybersecurity expert Ross Haleliuk recently posed an interesting question related to this topic on LinkedIn.

“With identity taking center stage and the cloud transforming infrastructure,” he asked, “is network security becoming a dying category?” ?

There’s a lot of buzz around identity being the new perimeter and the cloud making traditional networks obsolete. It’s certainly a thought-provoking idea, and Haleliuk’s conversation generated some great insights.

Here’s my take.

Securing identities vs. securing networks: why not both?

Protecting identities and networks are both important parts of a strong security plan.

Identity security is about deciding who can do something (whether it’s a person or a system) and what they are allowed to do. Network security, on the other hand, controls where they can go and how they get there.

These two types of security work best together. If you focus only on identity security, hackers might find ways to sneak through weak spots in your network. But if you only focus on network security, you could miss places where bad actors can move around without being noticed.

To keep attackers out and make your organization as safe as possible, you need both identity and network security working together.

Zero Trust: the glue that binds them

Zero Trust is a modern security strategy that helps organizations end implicit trust and enforce least-privilege access instead. It follows the principle of “never trust, always verify.” This applies to everything in the organization, from identities to the network itself.

In a Zero Trust architecture, checking who or what is accessing resources (identity security) is only part of the job. Read more here...