It’s no big secret that cybersecurity is becoming one of the most prevalent considerations for enterprises in today’s world. As organizations keep moving their operations online via cloud-based services and applications, the number of attack vectors for criminals continues to grow with the trend.
While most people will think of 2020 as being defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, some pretty alarming infosec statistics should be catching headlines as well. Many people heard about the SolarWinds breach. But this was just one of thousands. What’s more concerning is how attackers are clearly becoming more sophisticated in their methods.
Despite 2020 having an overall lower number of publicly reported breaches, the number of records compromised increased by a whopping 141 percent versus the previous year. Equally disturbing is the fact that breaches became significantly more severe over the course of the year, with some sources saying the increase was by a factor of ten.
Though not always considered when thinking about securing enterprise networks, web traffic itself is fertile soil for vulnerabilities to be exploited by nefarious parties. Here’s how to control and protect users’ web traffic on enterprise networks.
Secure Web Gateway
When thinking about how to secure web traffic, there are few solutions more up to the challenge than a secure web gateway. The name lives up to the purpose of this product. Secure web gateways are designed to provide a layer of protection between web users and the threats that reside there. A good secure web gateway should accomplish this in a variety of ways:
Build Corporate Permission Policies
It should go without saying that most of the internet isn’t essential to accomplishing tasks at work. While there’s probably no need to go totally Byzantine and block all unnecessary sites and applications, a secure web gateway can help organizations set policies that dictate who can access what sites. Doing this can block malware and from having a chance to exploit vulnerabilities.
URL Filtering, TLS Interception, and Certificate Validation –
These are all defenses utilized by secure web gateways to block potentially dangerous web traffic. With URL filtering, certain websites, or sites that exhibit certain characteristics are totally blocked from end users, making it less likely they’ll accidentally land somewhere they don’t belong. TLS interception and certificate validation is the process of decrypting encrypted traffic to read the data for any anomalies, which otherwise might have gone unnoticed. Since the vast majority of web traffic is encrypted in today’s world, it’s essential to investigate data fully before allowing it to access enterprise networks.
These are some of the most important features of secure web gateways. But there are other technologies as well that can provide essential security upgrades for enterprises.
Is SASE a Good Option for Your Organization?
Secure access service edge (SASE) is growing in popularity because it combines network infrastructure via a software-defined wide-area network (SD-WAN) with security tools like secure web gateways. Bundling these things together into one product has some distinct advantages that shouldn’t be overlooked by organizations that want to up their security protocols, while also improving network performance.
With SASE, you’re getting a network architecture that’s built with security in mind. This means you’ll have to spend less time worry about whether or not your networks are up to snuff, as they’re specifically designed to be secure. Having the SASE provider’s team of dedicated security experts backing you up is another massive benefit, as they’ll be the first responders in the event there is a breach of some kind. Additionally, bundling your network’s base infrastructure with its own security suite can reduce operating costs, as you will only be dealing with a single vendor.
There’s no excuse for skimping on web security when it’s such an obvious danger to modern organizations. Consider these ways your enterprise can do a better job securing users’ web traffic.
