Anyone with even a little familiarity with IT knows that data security is a big deal, and with good reason. The cost of recovering from a data breach is large when one considers possible regulatory fines, possible lawsuits and the cost of repairing lost reputation and trust.
Perhaps less well understood is the fact that IT security is an ongoing process, a process of risk reduction: The total elimination of holes in a complex system just isn’t possible. Hey, if nuclear centrifuges can be hacked, then really, is anything totally safe?
I think of IT security like building a fortress on a hill. You add gates, and walls, and snipers, and moats…and still, someone with enough cunning and patience will figure out a way in. Yet you add to your defenses, in the hopes that you make your target just unattractive enough for your enemies to look elsewhere, for an easier target. Each defensive layer makes you that more impermeable, but being totally risk free...isn’t ever going to be possible.
This brings me to CodeGuardian, a new capability we’ve recently introduced in our OmniSwitch family. It’s another layer of security we’re adding to make security incidents a little less likely. CodeGuardian starts from the assumption that a network switch or router is as vulnerable as any other IT component in your domain. Looking under the hood, that’s completely true – switches and routers are computers running complex software that is comprised of many lines of code, some of it well-known public domain software.
Like any computer, switches and routers are just as vulnerable to garden-variety hacks: backdoors, known vulnerabilities, embedded malware, to name a few. CodeGuardian’s approach to make OmniSwitches less likely to fall victim to these hacks is well documented; you can read more about it in the recently-released brochure.
Of course, like our aforementioned fortress on the hill, CodeGuardian is only the most recent evolution to the security capabilities of our OmniSwitch portfolio. A few examples:
- User network profiles that dynamically adapt network access based on role and identity
- Smart analytics that can proactively inform a network administrator of traffic anomalies
- SDN capabilities that have been demonstrated to automatically mitigate DoS attacks
OmniSwitch offers a lot of tools to bring to the network security battle. CodeGuardian is the latest evolution. Doesn’t your network -- your fortress -- deserve the best protection it can get?