The two biggest security issues for the future and how to fix them

Security sprawl and the loss of the network perimeter are the biggest challenges organizations must address to be secure in the future.

Organizations need to consolidate their security infrastructure while extending their security policies across expanding networks, said Graham Bushkes, VP Public Sector and Channels at Fortinet Canada. “The reality is, you cannot effectively extend security—and with it, visibility and control—unless you can simplify management and centralize orchestration,” he said.

Managing security is becoming more difficult when an organization has several dozen different security solutions from different vendors deployed in different parts of its network, Bushkes explained. The explosion of connected devices is adding to the problem by “splintering the security perimeter,” causing gaps in visibility.

This leads to an expanded attack surface with gaps that allow attack sequences to go undetected. When they are detected, the response lags behind, said Bushkes.

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A unified security system is the answer
“For digital resources to be protected along the entire data path, security and networking need to function as a unified system,” said Bushkes. “Today’s networks are very dynamic, so security must follow the data and applications from end-to-end, regardless of how rapidly the underlying network changes.”

Like the Fortinet Security Fabric, a unified security system must ensure consistent visibility and policy enforcement across the network. “This includes centralized orchestration, threat intelligence collection and correlation, and a coordinated response across the distributed network to malicious attacks,” Bushkes said.

There are three fundamental pillars for any central security approach. These are:

1. Zero Trust Access: As users continue to work from anywhere, organizations must be able to provide simple, automatic secure remote access that verifies who and what is on the network. This goal is to secure application access no matter where users are located. To do this, network administrators must apply a Zero Trust Access approach with least access privileges. This requires strong authentication capabilities and network access control technologies, as well as pervasive application access controls.
2. Security-driven Network: It’s necessary to tightly integrate an organization’s network infrastructure and security architecture, enabling the network to scale and change without compromising security operations. “This is critical for enabling flexible, anywhere, anytime, secure remote access, especially for enabling the home office to function as the new branch,“ said Bushkes. He added that, to prepare for the future, Fortinet is making investments that include 5G as part of a single security platform to help organizations take full advantage of its functionality.
3. Adaptive Cloud Security: The future of cloud is hybrid and multi-cloud, but this can become unwieldy to manage. Adaptive cloud security provides consistent, cloud native security with auto-scaling across and within multi-cloud environments. This integration ensures a coordinated threat response for the entire environment.

Watch: Fortinet Security Fabric Secures Digital Innovation

Automation is essential
“Security decisions today need to be made locally, quickly, and accurately,” said Bushkes. “This can only be done if machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) are built into every element of the security framework.”

AI should be used to collect information on the latest threats, conduct a threat analysis and share it across all systems. Organizations must incorporate this into a centralized management centre to automatically enable a coordinated response to threats. In this way, “it provides self-healing security and networking to protect devices, data, and applications,” said Bushkes.

As demonstrated in the past year, the networking environment will continue to change rapidly, while the cybercriminals are becoming more sophisticated, said Bushkes. “We must focus our efforts on a single platform, augmented with security AI, to ensure the future of cybersecurity.”

The Fortinet Security Fabric is the industry’s highest-performing cybersecurity platform, powered by FortiOS, with a rich open ecosystem. It spans the extended digital attack surface and cycle, enabling self-healing security and networking to protect devices, data, and applications. Learn more about the Fortinet Security Fabric