Microsegmentation is a security approach that involves dividing a network into smaller subnetworks or “microsegments” to improve security and reduce the likelihood of a successful cyber attack. This approach enables organizations to enforce stricter security policies and individualized access control for each microsegment, which helps limit lateral movement by attackers within a network.
For instance, consider an e-commerce website that has various sections such as the homepage, product catalog, shopping cart, and payment gateway. With microsegmentation, the network can be divided into subnetworks or “microsegments” such that each section can be isolated and protected separately. This means that if an attacker gains access to the payment gateway, they cannot move laterally and access the product catalog, homepage, or other sections. Each microsegment can have its own firewall, security policies, and access control mechanisms, making it harder for attackers to escalate privileges and take over the entire network.
In summary, microsegmentation is a security approach that helps organizations mitigate risks and keep networks safe through dividing networks into smaller microsegments. It provides increased visibility, control, and segmentation, which can minimize the attack surface and prevent the spread of malware and unauthorized access.
Individual network segments: Microsegmentation involves breaking down a network into smaller and more specific segments, often on an individual machine or application level.
Enhanced security: This approach helps enhance security by limiting the spread of cyber threats or attacks across a network. Each segment has its own security policies.
Better visibility: Microsegmentation allows for better visibility into network traffic and patterns.
Granular access control: By limiting access to specific parts of the network, microsegmentation enables granular access control.
Reduced attack surface: By isolating workloads and applications, microsegmentation reduces the attack surface for cyber criminals.
Improved compliance: Microsegmentation helps improve compliance with regulations by enforcing strict controls on data access.
Scalability: This approach can be implemented at scale due to software-defined networking (SDN) that allows for programmatic enforcement and can be automated.
Can support hybrid cloud: Microsegmentation can support hybrid cloud environments by providing security policies that apply to both on-premises and cloud-based resources.
What is the objective of microsegmentation?
Answer: The objective of microsegmentation is to enhance security and ease network management by splitting a network into smaller, more secure segments.
How does microsegmentation work?
Answer: Microsegmentation divides a network into distinct segments and applies security policies and controls to each segment independently, thus minimizing the attack surface and reducing the risk of data breaches.
What are some of the benefits of using microsegmentation in network security?
Answer: Microsegmentation provides increased visibility, control, and security for network administrators. It reduces the risk of lateral movement of attackers within the network, making it more difficult for them to access sensitive data.
What are the requirements for implementing microsegmentation?
Answer: To implement microsegmentation, organizations need to have a clear understanding of network topology, identify the critical assets that need to be protected, develop segment-specific policies, and ensure that access controls are in place.
How does microsegmentation differ from traditional firewall-based security?
Answer: Microsegmentation is a more granular approach to security that offers better threat protection and greater visibility over network traffic than traditional firewall-based security. It allows for the restrictions on specific types of traffic and emphasizes the need for the least-privileged principle, in which every user and device has only the bare minimum access required for their job.