USE CASE

Segmenting Every Asset in a Click

TL;DR

With its ability to apply a firewall “bubble” to every asset in the network, microsegmentation can completely stop lateral movement and kill ransomware. However, it has also been notoriously hard to scale due to its use of agents and manual rule creation that often ends in broken applications and downtime.

Zero Network Segment is radically different. With automated, accurate rule creation, agentless architecture and patented just-in-time MFA for privileged connections, Zero Networks segments every asset on prem and in the cloud, even OT/IoT, with set-and-forget deployment and maintenance.

Why Segment?

Microsegmentation, when done right, can completely block lateral movement and kill ransomware – the main step to achieve zero trust. It involves applying a firewall “bubble” around every asset in the network, allowing only necessary traffic.

As most cyber-attacks stem from threats, such as employees clicking a malicious link, the traditional firewall on the perimeter and EDR are no longer enough. Microsegmentation enables organizations to prevent lateral movement and dramatically reduce the risk of unauthorized access and data breaches.

But despite its clear benefits, microsegmentation has not been widely adopted at scale. Traditional segmentation solutions, using hardware firewalls, require significant upfront costs in hardware, and lengthy and costly deployment and maintenance, which heavily rely on professional services.

Legacy microsegmentation solutions, using software firewalls, require agents that are difficult to deploy and maintain. And manual rule creation is a tedious, labor-intensive process that often ends in broken applications.

As a result, many organizations take months and even years to deploy and ultimately do not manage to microsegment their entire network. In addition, many client-facing ports, such as admin ports, must remain open and therefore exposed to lateral movement.

The Fix: Automated, Agentless, MFA-enabled Microsegmentation at Scale

Zero Networks Segment’s radically different architecture allows it to effortlessly achieve microsegmentation at scale.

It monitors and learns all network connections over a period of up to 30 days, and then creates corresponding and highly accurate firewall rules. The rules and policies are then centrally applied to the host firewalls of all assets in the network. The policies allow legitimate traffic, hence transparent to end users, and apply just-in-time MFA to privileged remote admin protocols like RDP, SSH or WinRM that are also used by attackers to move laterally.

Zero Networks deployment is 100% agentless, making it highly scalable across large, complex networks. From installation to usage, it takes only 30 days or less, as opposed to months and even years with legacy vendors. Professional services traditionally required for ongoing maintenance are replaced by automated rule creation with self-service just-in-time MFA access. Also, end users have no experience difference on day-to-day activity.

Segmenting Both North-South and East-West Traffic

Zero Networks Segment is unique in its ability to segment every asset, on-prem and in the cloud, including OT/IoT devices. It protects both east-west (server-to-server) and north-south (client-to-server) traffic. Unlike legacy microsegmentation solutions that only segment east-west, Zero Networks’ patented MFA solution effortlessly protects client-to-server and even client-to-client sensitive traffic.

Unlike legacy vendors that must keep at least some privileged ports open and therefore vulnerable, Zero Networks keep ports closed and opens them after admin users have authenticated using just-in-time MFA.