Cybersecurity is dead. …that is, the way it was originally designed and is currently deployed. Whether measured by the billions of dollars wasted trying to implement it, or the almost-daily breach notifications from organizations around the world, the core premise of old security models is failing society every day. The old adage that the good guys have to be right 100% of the time while the bad guys only have to be right once is both true and troublesome. This failed premise that assumes that protection requires absolute perfection must be changed. Especially now.
Our reliance on computing and communications is critical to our way of life, and is increasing every day. It’s not just our computers that are at risk; rather, increasingly attacks jeopardize careers, wallets, companies, infrastructure, and even lives. Our adversaries are no longer anonymous or invisible as they boldly wield the power to access personal and corporate data online as well as take control of systems throughout our logical and physical worlds.
A fresh approach to security — one that understands that organizations aren’t perfect, that employees sometimes work from home, that clouds and mobile are a necessary efficiency, that supply chains are integrated, and that adversaries are both skilled and motivated to attack — will tip the balance of power back to the good guys. This fresh approach is our future and is based on advanced technology coupled with an approach that assumes that bad guys will get in somehow/somewhere/sometime, but that the damage they do must be localized and limited so that it’s not front page news. This paper outlines the power of Micro-segmentation to do just that.