Microsegmentation Made Easy: Strengthening Cyber Defenses in Record Time

Summary

Microsegmentation stalls because teams assume it takes years of manual rule-writing. In this ISMG interview, Zero Networks VP of Customers Nicholas DiCola explains how automation changes that math: about an hour to set up, 30 to 60 days of learning, and microsegmentation in under six months. He also covers stopping ransomware, why network, identity, and remote access form the cornerstone of zero trust, and what customers are asking about AI.

Key takeaways

• Microsegmentation gets shelved because it looks too hard. Teams push it to the end of their roadmap. Zero Networks automates it, so customers can move it up and get it done early.
• Automation replaces manual rule-writing. A deterministic engine learns what’s already connecting in the environment and builds the rules. Teams do a light validation instead of analyzing traffic for hundreds of thousands of assets.
• The timeline is months, not years. Setup takes about an hour and assets learn for 30 to 60 days. Customers reach microsegmentation in less than six months.
• It stops ransomware from spreading. Just-in-time MFA on privileged ports stopped a real customer’s ransomware. Customers’ post-deployment pentests confirm attackers can’t move laterally, because all but a few low-privilege ports are closed.
• Network, identity, and remote access are the cornerstone of zero trust. Zero trust can’t be network alone, so Zero Networks segments all three to lay the foundation for a zero trust architecture.

Speakers: Anna Delaney, ISMG · Nicholas DiCola, VP of Customers & Cybersecurity Jedi, Zero Networks

Why does microsegmentation get shelved?

Anna Delaney: Hello, I’m Anna Delaney for ISMG. I’m very pleased to be joined by Nicholas DiCola, VP Customers for Zero Networks. Really good to see you, Nicholas.

Nicholas DiCola: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Anna Delaney: So, we are talking about making microsegmentation work finally.

Nicholas DiCola: Yeah.

Anna Delaney: It is often on security roadmaps, but often gets shelved. So, why is this? What’s in the way?

Nicholas DiCola: Typically what we hear from customers is, yeah, we want to do microsegmentation, but we know it’s really, really hard and it’s going to take us a long time, so we put it at the end of our journey and focus on other things. Um, what we’ve done in Zero Networks is we’ve changed that. We actually make it really easy, so customers can actually move it up earlier in their journey, uh, and solve that very quickly by automating microsegmentation for them.

How does automation make microsegmentation easier?

Anna Delaney: Tell me more about the, the automation process. Where is it delivering most gains, I suppose, over traditional methods?

Nicholas DiCola: Yeah, typical IT professionals, security professionals, they have to sit there and analyze data. “Oh, I need to create this rule for these servers to talk to these servers.” Now, imagine doing that for hundreds of thousands of assets in an environment. Well, with automation, we use a very deterministic engine to automate learning what’s already involved in the environment, what’s already connecting to each other, and build those rules for the customer so that they can just do a light validation of those rules, and now they can achieve microsegmentation very quickly.

How long does microsegmentation take to deploy?

Anna Delaney: So, what does deployment look like in, in practice?

Nicholas DiCola: Yeah. Yeah. So typically you find most customers spend an hour setting up our, uh, service, and once that’s up and running, they add assets to monitoring and learning, typically for 30 to 60 days, and then they’re able to start segmenting assets very quickly. So now customers achieve microsegmentation in less than six months, not multiple years.

Anna Delaney: Okay. That, that’s quite quick.

Nicholas DiCola: Yeah.

Anna Delaney: Right. Um, and, and what are, what, what are the first few steps they take, they have to take initially?

Nicholas DiCola: Yeah. Once they set up our service and they start connecting to machines, we call that monitoring assets. Then we start to get visibility into all the connections that are taking place in the environment, and it’s very easy for them to do it in a matter of hours.

Can microsegmentation stop ransomware?

Anna Delaney: So let’s, uh, look at a real world example. Ransomware, plenty of, of ransomware cases around the idea about microsegmentations. You were trying to prevent lateral movement. So can you just talk us through an example where microsegmentation has really hindered the, the outcome of a, of a bad ransomware?

Nicholas DiCola: Yeah, we actually had a real world customer that had some ransomware, because we have another capability. It’s a just-in-time MFA capability to block privileged ports and only allow certain things. Those are what attackers use inside the environment to laterally move. So we, this customer we helped, we went in and we were able to stop that ransomware from spreading in real world. We also have customers that run pentests after, uh, deploying Zero Networks, and now they’re unable to laterally move, or they can at least validate that with their pentest, because all the ports are now closed. Only the few low-privilege things are open that are needed.

Why combine microsegmentation, identity, and remote access?

Anna Delaney: Okay. And your platform is quite interesting because you, you combine microsegmentation with secure remote access and identity-based control. So what, what’s the thinking behind bringing these elements together?

Nicholas DiCola: It’s really that in zero trust, it can’t be just network. It’s network, identity, it’s remote access, it’s apps, it’s data. You need multiple components. These three that we focused on are really the, what we call the cornerstone of zero trust, so that you can start to segment identities, network, and remote access in the environment and lay that cornerstone for your zero trust architecture.

What are customers asking about AI in security platforms?

Anna Delaney: Okay. And we increasingly see AI being woven into security platforms. I’m curious to know what are the questions or concerns you’re receiving from customers about its use in this environment.

Nicholas DiCola: Yeah. So customers obviously, like, “What are you doing with AI in the environment?” Um, and we’re building some things to enable ease of use of our platform for customers with AI. But then of course they always ask, “Well, how are you securing it? How is my data secured in that platform?” And it traditionally brings additional questions through, like, third-party risk management processes. “Okay, how’s the data secured? How are you making sure that it’s not injected with bad data, or there’s prompt engineering, or these types of attacks that are occurring in the environment?” So customers are very concerned. They want the AI, but how do we protect and make sure that their data is valid in the environment?

Anna Delaney: And how are they doing with it, with its adoption so far?

Nicholas DiCola: Depends on the customer, right? Um, we see some that are advancing a little more fast. They see how it can really help their business. Um, and so they’re still doing the risk-based approach. How do we make sure that it doesn’t affect what data is there? Is it really risky to our business or not? Um, so it really depends on the business. Not a simple answer for that way.

What’s next for Zero Networks after its Series C?

Anna Delaney: Now you have exciting news. You’ve just recently announced a $55 million Series C. Congratulations.

Nicholas DiCola: Today. [CHECK: add the announcement date as a bracket, e.g., [announced Month Year], so the page doesn’t read as current news indefinitely.]

Anna Delaney: Today. Congratulations.

Nicholas DiCola: Thank you. Thank —

Anna Delaney: So what is the next phase of focus for you?

Nicholas DiCola: Yeah, for us it’s growth. It’s customers. Uh, we’ve now validated our product works in many types of organizations, all the way from large enterprise to, to small businesses with one IT admin are able to use our platform in a very simple way. So how do we take that and grow and go help more customers, uh, across the world so they can actually achieve microsegmentation in their environment?

What’s the first step toward modern segmentation?

Anna Delaney: Many security teams are stretched thin, resources are tight. What’s one first step they can take today, uh, to achieve modern segmentation?

Nicholas DiCola: Uh, deploy Zero Networks wouldn’t be my best answer, [CHECK: likely a caption error, possibly “would be my biased answer.” Confirm against the audio.] but yeah, you have to look at tools that take work off those, uh, security and IT administrators. Everybody’s stretched thin. We don’t have enough humans. There’s too many alerts. All of these problems kind of combine. So you need automation, whether that’s SOAR automation in your security ops, whether it’s automation that we do for network segmentation in the environment and identity segmentation. You need automation to help you actually achieve the, the goals that you want for your business.

Anna Delaney: Okay. Well, this has been exciting to talk with you, Nicholas. Thank you so much. It’s been, uh, full of information.

Nicholas DiCola: Thank you. Thank you for having us. Appreciate it.

Anna Delaney: I’ve been speaking with Nicholas DiCola, and for ISMG, I’m Anna Delaney.