The Top 4 Security Tools to Keep Your Network Protected
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This week we are bringing you the top tools we recommend for a great defense-in-depth strategy to protect your network.
1. Next-Generation Firewalls
Firewalls are built to monitor ingress and egress network traffic to decide whether to allow or block specific traffic on a network. These decisions are sometimes based upon advanced analytics or deep packet inspection.
Countless organizations use firewalls as their first line of protection. While a good next-generation firewall can easily reduce risk exposure by fifty percent, keep in mind, no firewall can provide one hundred percent protection. This is why a defense-in-depth approach is necessary to protect your network and its sensitive data.
2. DNS Protection
DNS (Domain Name Service) is one of the most important technologies on the internet. Think of DNS as the internet’s phonebook, containing human-friendly names, such as example.com, and the IP address that is used to reach each website.
DNS protection allows companies to protect their employees’ network communications and reduces the chances of them communicating with the bad guy or a website that has been hijacked or redirected.
A reputable DNS protection vendor also protects clients from speaking to malware sites, malvertising (malicious advertising) links, and ransomware (malware that requires the victim to pay a ransom to access encrypted files) sites.
Some of the top DNS protection services leverage data analytics and algorithms that even protect users from visiting questionable sites that may be using an IP address being seen for the very first time on the Internet, and even protect employees while using company devices off the network.
3. Endpoint Detection and Response
Anti-virus and advanced malware protection, known as Endpoint Protection and Response, prevent threats at the point of entry and then continuously investigates the entire lifecycle of the threat. It will provide insights into what happened, how it got in, where it has been, what it is doing now, and how to stop it.
EDR focuses primarily on advanced threats that are designed to evade front-line defenses and have successfully entered the environment. An Endpoint Protection Platform (your traditional antivirus software) focuses solely on prevention at the perimeter. It is difficult, if not impossible, for traditional antivirus software to block 100 percent of threats.
In the best-case scenario, an endpoint protection solution deploys both EPP and EDR capabilities to provide maximum protection.
4. Email Security
Today’s organizations face a daunting challenge. Email is simultaneously the most important business communication tool and the leading attack vector to get malicious code into your network.
When choosing an Email Security product, you need capabilities to quickly detect, block, and remediate advanced threats in incoming mail such as Business Email Compromise (BEC), ransomware, advanced malware, phishing, and spam. Secure email gateways remain the cornerstone of a solid security posture and are available both as an on-prem solution or a cloud service.
This post was contributed by Eric Grimm, our Service Operations Manager. Eric is a Certified Ethical Hacker, holds a Masters Degree in Cybersecurity, and has multiple Cisco Security certifications.