Sponsor: Fortinet

An increasing number of organizations are adopting a cloud-first policy, expedited via the use of cloud-native applications and services. However, Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) research has found that 88% of respondents believe that their cybersecurity programs need to evolve to secure their cloud-native applications and use of public cloud infrastructure. When it comes to the biggest cloud-native application security challenges, respondents cited maintaining security consistently across their data centers and public cloud environments (47%), increasing cost and complexity using multiple cybersecurity controls (40%), lacking understanding of the threat model for cloud-native applications and infrastructure (31%), and lacking visibility into public cloud infrastructure (30%).

This ESG Technical White Paper documents the evaluation of Fortinet on Google Cloud. ESG examined how Fortinet delivers integrated and consistent network, application, and cloud security for workloads deployed on Google Cloud.

As organizations increase their use of public cloud, they continue to reap the benefits of business agility, flexibility, and scalability. Yet, consistently maintaining an organization's security posture across its on-premises and public cloud environments can be difficult and cumbersome. This is especially challenging as traffic moves across core and edge networks and the public cloud.

As Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) research has uncovered, respondents have major concerns with securing cloud-native applications running in hybrid clouds and multi-cloud environments, and many are already experiencing security breaches as a result. Read this Business Justification Brief to discover how to close cybersecurity gaps for hybrid and cloud-native applications

Gaining Consistency Across Disparate Environments

The composition of cloud-native applications is a mix of APIs, containers, VMs, and serverless functions continuously integrated and delivered. Securing these applications, the underlying infrastructure, and the automation platforms that orchestrate their deployment, necessitates revisiting threat models, gaining organizational alignment, and leveraging purposeful controls. Additionally, as security and DevOps continue to converge, cloud security controls are being consolidated. Project teams are evolving from a siloed approach to a unified strategy to securing cloud-native applications and platforms.

In order to gain insight into these trends, Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) surveyed 383 IT and cybersecurity professionals at organizations in North America (US and Canada) personally responsible for evaluating or purchasing cloud security technology products and services.

An increasing number of organizations are adopting a cloud-first policy, expedited via the use of cloud-native applications and services. However, Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) research has found that 88% of respondents believe that their cybersecurity programs need to evolve to secure their cloud-native applications and use of public cloud infrastructure. When it comes to the biggest cloud-native application security challenges, respondents cited maintaining security consistently across their data centers and public cloud environments (47%), increasing cost and complexity using multiple cybersecurity controls (40%), lacking understanding of the threat model for cloud-native applications and infrastructure (31%), and lacking visibility into public cloud infrastructure (30%).

This ESG Technical White Paper documents the evaluation of Fortinet on Google Cloud. ESG examined how Fortinet delivers integrated and consistent network, application, and cloud security for workloads deployed on Google Cloud.

As organizations increase their use of public cloud, they continue to reap the benefits of business agility, flexibility, and scalability. Yet, consistently maintaining an organization's security posture across its on-premises and public cloud environments can be difficult and cumbersome. This is especially challenging as traffic moves across core and edge networks and the public cloud.

As Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) research has uncovered, respondents have major concerns with securing cloud-native applications running in hybrid clouds and multi-cloud environments, and many are already experiencing security breaches as a result. Read this Business Justification Brief to discover how to close cybersecurity gaps for hybrid and cloud-native applications

Closing the gap for the potential of a targeted attack and becoming a breach statistic is an ongoing challenge for organizations of all types and sizes. The adoption of continuous security information and event monitoring (SIEM) offers organizations a more holistic, intelligent and comprehensive approach to reduce the window of discovery.

Gartner’s paper­ - Use SIEM for Targeted Attack Detection ­ - details research on how IT security leaders can improve targeted attack detection capabilities using SIEM tools and appropriate investments in expertise, processes and complementary technologies.

The latest advanced threats take advantage of the flat and open internal network. Once they get past traditional firewall defenses at the perimeter, it’s very easy for them to spread and extract valuable trade secrets and sensitive data.

Download the “Protecting Your Network from the Inside Out” white paper, which details the emergence of a new class of firewall that helps address this critical security gap—the Internal Segmentation Firewall (ISFW). Deployed at key strategic points in the network, it identifies and contains threats before they spread.

ISFWs can be deployed rapidly with minimum disruption while keeping up with the multi­-gigabit speeds of internal networks. They offer instant visibility and critical protection that can protect internal data/assets if a threat gets past the perimeter.

The combination of cloud technologies and ever-­increasing worker mobility have required firewalls to expand their reach from securing applications and network traffic to address the entire broad and complex threat surface.

Gartner’s paper­ One Brand of Firewall is a Best Practice for Most Enterprises­ details research that enables you to learn more about the importance of a unified security posture:

• Reducing complexity through consolidated management
• Increasing security effectiveness with deeper levels of inspection
• Automating threat remediation and accelerating response times

The risk of a breach is growing rapidly due to more devises and more applications hitting your infrastructure. We asked security experts about their biggest concerns for advanced persistent threats and application based attacks.

Two Security experts reveal their challenges and share advice on advance persistent threats. Read what they have to say about:

• The importance of including security professionals at early stages of your IT projects
• The best protection against threats (hint: early detection and rapid response)

The rise of BYOD and the Internet of Things (IoT) are bringing new flexibility and functionality to organizations of all sizes ­ and unfortunately, also new Wi­Fi vulnerabilities and attack vectors that put critical assets within your network at risk.

Download Wireless Defense Strategies in the IoT Era to learn how critical it is to deploy more integrated security at the access layer for comprehensive protection that spans the full breadth of the network.

Regardless of an organization’s security maturity model, when the growing level of sophisticated attackers and threats collide with the ever evolving and expanding network environment, a multifaceted defense approach is no longer a luxury, but a necessity.

This white paper -­ Countering Evolving Cyber Threats­ - outlines clear prioritization of solutions and the key areas that should be addressed in order to minimize the impact of potential threats while filling in the gaps that span across all the access vectors.

Increasing the strength of your company’s defense against the latest persistent threats means providing coverage across the entire attack chain: prevention, detection and mitigation. This checklist will help you assess your current Advanced Threat Protection solution needs through a baseline set of requirements, including:

• Environment coverage
• Mix of security technologies
• Integration and automation capabilities