How a Global Investment Banking Firm streamlined their segmentation initiative
3 minute read
We always say, “you cannot secure what you cannot see,” which rings a bell for many networking, system, infrastructure, and security specialists.
One of the most common challenges organizations face when attempting to secure their business is understanding current communications within the environment. Many organizations face this challenge when trying to secure their environment from hackers, ransomware, theft, and unforeseen disasters.
This is the story of a Global Investment Banking Firm’s journey…
The Problem
The firm had the desire to better secure their network environment. They chose to implement network segmentation and micro-segmentation to prevent unwanted lateral movement. The IT Operations team quickly discovered there were thousands of security policies in place that needed to be examined, tested, and changed in order to meet the objective. The team estimated it would take 12 months just to understand current communications using manual processes.
Their core applications had also changed since they were first implemented. Existing documentation was out of date and application owners had moved on from the organization. New applications had been brought online and there was no clear source of truth for how the environment was operating.
This made implementing any changes to the environment complicated and often resulted in outages, resulting in downtime for business operations.
A New Approach
The firm looked for alternate ways of understanding digital communications so they could implement security best practices. They came across Interrosec, the System Visibility Company, and their platform, FlowSIGHT.
flowSIGHT showed them what servers were communicating and how. Being able to visualize what was talking to what and how groups of servers made up applications made securing them much easier. flowSIGHT also showed what ports and protocols were being used. The teams utilized flowSIGHT as a “virtual sandbox” as they planned and rearchitected the environment the way they wanted. flowSIGHT would provide them with the exact security policies they needed to enforce segmentation and micro-segmentation within their environment.
This new approach provided accurate information based on data from their own environment. Multiple teams came together to understand the information and implement security without disrupting communications.
Benefits
Implementing network segmentation and micro-segmentation best practices improved the security posture of the business. By containing the potential spread of malware/ransomware and closing unused ports, they significantly reduced the attack surface, lowering the level of risk for the business.
Significant financial resources were also saved by completing the project in house, as opposed to hiring expensive 3rd party contractors.
The time it took to plan and implement the initiative using flowSIGHT was reduced by over 58% compared to manual processes of looking through logs..
Compliance also benefitted with the added layers of security to sensitive information. Having current and accurate documentation helped during audit procedures.
Final Result
Improving security for the business and saving time and resources was a significant win for the organization. The efforts of all involved and the information provided by flowSIGHT resulted in a streamlined process and achieved initiative.
Contact us if you would like to find out how FlowSIGHT can help you achieve your initiatives.