For this week’s “In the News”, research a new technology solution, or new method to utilize a previous technology, to address Communications and Network Security. How does this solution or application revolutionize networks? If this is particular to certain industries, please also include that detail.
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“Never trust, always verify!”
Trust is a vulnerability. A Zero Trust architecture embodies three main principles – verify explicitly, apply least privileged access and assume breach. According to Palo Alto networks, “Zero Trust is designed to protect modern digital environments by leveraging network segmentation, preventing lateral movement, providing Layer 7 threat prevention, and simplifying granular user-access control.” This revolutionizes network security by changing the traditional way networks were secured.
Zero Trust is an evolving set of concepts that reimagines defenses from static network-based perimeters to focusing on users, assets, and resources. With BYOD and remote work becoming ubiquitous as ever, Zero Trust only makes sense as a robust evolution.
For instance, Cisco’s Identity Services Engine (ISE), which provides total visibility into everyone and everything connecting to your network and blocks unauthorized use, is the foundation of Zero Trust. Also, Palo Alto firewalls provide micro-segmentation and application-layer access control.
https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/security/identity-services-engine/index.html
https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/blog/2021/01/netsec-zero-trust-across-workloads/
https://www.nist.gov/publications/zero-trust-architecture
Great points, Vinny. With the high (and ever-growing) number of attacks, including a Zero Trust approach is vital in protecting networks.
An article on Security Week details the deployment and evolution of 5G networks. While 5G is a much faster infrastructure than 4G LTE and most Broadband networks, the flipside is that because the technology is new, there are security risks surrounding it. One example detailed that because of the current pandemic and remote workers aplenty, 5G networks are barely covered with a work VPN connection. Another issue is trying to retrofit 5G into existing infrastructure. Due to the new technology being ultra-low latency and mmWave frequency, the existing infrastructure would have to be redone in some capacity, otherwise the speed will be bottlenecked. Also, if 5G was properly implemented, that means that nefarious individuals could connect to an organization that much faster and deploy malicious software or payloads at a rapid pace. While 5G is already here, it has a long way to go before deployment in major organizations as the defacto internet service provider.
https://www.securityweek.com/building-end-end-security-5g-networks
Hi Krish, good job on summarizing the articles! I remember when 3G was first becoming popular, and now we’re already exploring 5G. Many times companies are always on the hunt for faster and better options, but to actually make this technology usable, there’s some catching up to do in different areas of the industry. It’s also interesting to see what negative impacts these changes can inadvertently bring along.
Google continues to Innovate!
Google has a new tool offering as part of their security suite. It’s available for use but still very much in experimental phases. Open Source Insights is the name and it is a Google Cloud-Platform hosted tool where user can gather information on “specific open source packages and … how they are put together” . The service offers details such as:
– Information about the package (description, ownership, links)
– Dependencies (components the package depends on)
– Dependents (packages that depend on it)
– Security advisories (known vulnerabilities in the package and dependencies, unmanaged dependencies, etc.) &
– License information
It also enables the user to “visualize and analyze” and perform comparative analysis between versions of the packet to highlight changes that may impact your dependencies. The current limitation of this tool is that it can only provide this level of detail for systems using a ” known packaging model” and it needs all the details included there to generate the dependency graphs. (A visual representation of a dependency graph can be found in the websites listed below.) “This information can help visualize how software is put together, whether an update is worth doing, or how to fix a problem.” says Google’s Open Source Insights Team in their June 3rd article introducing the new tool to the world.
Instead of relying solely on vulnerability scanners and dependency audits, Open Source Insights offers a more holistic view of the security of the software landscape allowing a network architect to gain insight on changes a provider may have made or new patches that may be required but not necessarily apply to you. The goal of Open Source Insight is not to replace the current tools but to enhance and expand. The new more proactive and detective approach is backed up by data gathered from a variety of public data bases to flag security issues. Google re-evaluates the data for commonly used packages presented by Insights regularly to keep it up to date but does admit that inactive or obsolete packages may be more stale.
https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2021/06/07/open-source-dependencies-security/
https://opensource.googleblog.com/2021/06/introducing-open-source-insights-project.html
https://openssf.org/blog/2020/11/06/security-scorecards-for-open-source-projects/
Hi Vanessa,
This sounds like a cool tool with a lot to offer. Google continues to be an important innovator in multiple spaces and the future is bright.(despite all the ransomware, breaches, etc.). Google is considered one of the five Big Tech companies along with Amazon, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft. But I am sure you already knew that. 🙂
I remember when Google started in 1998.
CISA to pilot new tech to advance emergency communications
The cybersecurity and infrastructure security agency(CISA) will be piloting a new technology to support communications for first responders/emergency managers. This is part of their Next Generation Priority Service(NGN-PS) Phase 2 program. It will provide first responders and emergency managers priority voice, data, and video communications through emergencies/widespread outages. This priority service builds on Voice Over Internet protocol networks. The new technology is known as comm3 and uses multimodal mesh network technology to break down barriers to connectivity between different platforms and protocols.
Comm3 is managed by the Crius technology group, they’re able to demonstrate national security and emergency preparedness by having “national security and emergency preparedness (NS/EP) communications signals can be routed to the electric grid as an alternative communications pathway in a way that prioritizes first responder traffic over all other traffic, utilizing the electrical power infrastructure as a backup to existing communications infrastructure.
https://www.securitymagazine.com/articles/94502-cisa-to-pilot-new-tech-to-advance-emergency-communications
Wow interesting article! It’s incredibly important that our emergency personnel have a reliable method of technology to get alerts. I believe during one of the California wildfires, firefighters were unable to connect to local cell towers since it was being congested by everyone near the affected areas. Having a separate wireless technology will make sure that an event like that would be mitigated in the future,
This is very cool technology! It would be interesting to see it develop and also how the government will twist it for “national security” purposes. i can see the secret service using this type of technology.
Great post!!
Vanessa
Nice, I look at this not just as a cutting edge technology but a great stride to save lives and also make it easier and faster for responders.
For this week’s “In the News”, research a new technology solution, or new method to utilize a previous technology, to address Communications and Network Security. How does this solution or application revolutionize networks? If this is particular to certain industries, please also include that detail.
https://www.securityinfowatch.com/covid-19/article/21223328/the-pandemic-risk-and-evolving-security-trends
This is an interesting article that goes over the shift of how our day to day interactions have changed from a communications and security perspective because of the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as new potential normal that may arise from the pandemic.
Access Control – Physical Security
“The idea of “touchless” access control is not new. Steve Van Till, Brivo CEO, states, “Access control has always been touchless…” meaning that the access credentials didn’t touch the card reader. Before COVID-19, however, the touchless concept was being expanded to a “frictionless” model, often driven by facilities planners whose focus on an updated workplace employee experience includes a belief that employees should be able to traverse through security barriers unimpeded. COVID screening and other practices don’t change the frictionless principle but do introduce new opportunities to enrich the employee experience while improving workplace safety.” Some examples given in the article about this is companies moving towards touchless technologies and biometric technologies. Either having passcodes / ID’s on their phones, plus the availability of touchless biometrics and smartphone credentials provide facility and security planners with more options than ever before.
“Perhaps a contactless biometric device confirms the person’s identity (2FA), after which the person passes through a high-speed/no-touch turnstile, or maybe an automatic opening door, monitored by an AI camera to spot tailgating. The employee’s presence is tallied to a workplace digital counter for occupancy load management. Many companies, not ever intending to implement thermal cameras, have incorporated them into their programs, while other technologies such as smart credentials have been accelerated into adoption.” With these technologies being implemented it could lead to not needing the traditional front desk security with a guard. This could be better for the company cutting down on paid employees and making stricter access control to physical locations in place.
The article also goes into detail about the emergence using Artificial intelligence to pair with video surveillance. One quote from the article is “No recent security technology has garnered more hype and generated legal concerns like video artificial intelligence. The potential utility of video AI is immense as it may be useful for positive personal identification, suspicious behavior recognition, facemask and distancing alerting and pattern recognition. AI development for security purposes also has crossover benefits for business processes.” This becomes a slippery slope with a lot of pros and cons that can sway whether a company would want to implement something of this sort. Some of the pros could help Brick and Mortar locations how the future of AI for shoplifting applications can help to support retail loss prevention by recognizing suspicious behavior patterns but giving no indication of a person’s demographic features, such as race, age, or sex. This type of AI can send flags that someone is performing with suspicious activity that someone could than confirm that there was shoplifting being done.
Companies are seeing more hybrid work environments as many employees continue working from home. While this can be great for the business and reduce overhead costs on things like rental spaces, it creates new challenges for network security. Security professionals may be left implementing many different security tools to alleviate many different vulnerabilities. The Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) architecture includes SD-WAN, cloud security, and more network security functions like zero-trust network access and firewall as a service (FWaaS). This allows for less complicated and more consolidated control of the hybrid work environment while improving the security and connection of remote workspaces.
https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/security/what-is-sase-secure-access-service-edge.html
https://cybersecurity.att.com/blogs/security-essentials/secure-access-service-edge-explained
Hi Amelia,
With the current trends that have come as a result of COVID, i believe we are going to see more hybrid systems and years down the road, most systems will be fully cloud based in my opinion.
I agree, Jerry. Many organizations have seen the business cost-benefit of allowing employees to work from home and I doubt that most organizations will ever go back to in-office work.
“The merging of human and artificial intelligence”
AI isn’t coming – it’s here and everywhere. The overwhelming volumes of data from the virtual world blends seamlessly with the physical world as we shift to more frequent digital interactions. With the volume, variety and velocity of data shifting, AI represents an important step to extracting insights from the data and advancing other emerging technologies.
Algorithms and models are creating new efficiencies, improving processes and enabling more intelligent, real-time outcomes at scale. AI is fundamentally changing how businesses operate, redefining the way people work and transforming industries globally. Organizations need to capitalize on the opportunity with intelligent infrastructure, compute, software and algorithms and a data-first approach to realize its full potential.
62% of businesses are investing to some degree in AI
53% of data and analytics decision makers globally say they are planning to implement some form of AI
75% of enterprises will embed intelligent automation into technology and process development by 2022
https://www.delltechnologies.com/en-us/what-we-do/emerging-technology/artificial-intelligence.htm#tab0=0