Network visibility is critical to cybersecurity and compliance, but that doesn’t just mean keeping track of IP addresses given how many network layers are at stake. While the use of cloud computing is on the rise, and this creates a wide range of new challenges, the reality is that most corporate networks – to one degree or another – have long since migrated to the cloud.
This includes discovery of software-defined networks (SDNs) such as Cisco ACI or SD-WAN, including Cisco Miraki or Cisco Viptela. In particular, remote sites mean that companies must improve and unify the visibility of hybrid IPAMs.
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In short, it allows the network team to quickly look up IP addresses, find device names, what types, vendors, models or revisions, or even chassis serial numbers they have. All this allows you to get much more forensic information and context.
These polls help solve the critical task of detecting and remediating unauthorized and/or compromised assets while reconciling networks with any IPAM conflicts and collecting firmware information to help with updates and patches.
Easy Access
With cybersecurity protections and compliance rules, easy access to custom and standardized reports is essential to be aware of any access and see if anything significant has changed. For example, when an employee installs a router on their own, bought from a computer store in Santa Ifigenia or a supermarket, the question arises: does it meet the requirements? Practically, this is not the case.
Another problematic network element is the switch. It is essential to have in-depth and up-to-date switch port discovery information, especially when monitoring free, available, and unused ports or ports connected to wired or wireless end hosts.
Examining switches can provide a lot of useful data, including IP and Mac addresses, administrator status and operations, switch port description, VLAN settings, their IDs, their names, data VLANs, voice VLANs, the start and end of these intervals, and metadata and meta tags associated with switches and ports.
Today’s enterprise networks are inherently more complex, involving a large number of vendors running multiple operating systems.
IT needs to make all of this visible, as well as the ability to translate IP networks and addresses into manageable entities. Discovery needs to be more than just a ping scan. IT departments need reliable information about DNS, DHCP, host objects, devices (physical and virtual), models, OS, versions, interfaces, as well as current information about routers, subnets and VLANs.
Benefits of VLANs
This VLAN issue is critical given the growing number of assets and data being moved to clouds controlled by third parties, and IT may not know where the data and assets are physically located. But with the right systems in place, all of this information can still be discovered, especially for virtual machine instances. This is not only the ability to identify physical and logical layer 2 devices, but also an understanding of how these complex components are actually connected to the network.
If IT understands how these elements actually relate, it helps manage changes and configurations for both traditional and virtualized networks, using technologies such as Virtual Routing and Forwarding (VRF), which allow for multiple routing tables and multiple forwarding instances on the same router. . All this also provides visibility into the end hosts connected to the physical switches, which can provide current and historical information, which is very important for effective forensic investigations.
Many security products pass information about this endpoint and this endpoint only to the server. But they usually don’t answer the important question: how did the problem move between them? It is important to know how they are connected, because that is when it becomes noticeable that in order to get from point A to point B, something else is compromised. These threats affect devices, do what they need to do, and then clean themselves up and move on. We even saw some who were able to use the device because the firmware was not properly updated. Before moving on, they updated the firmware. If you didn’t keep track of your firmware versions, you wouldn’t know this.
How do you understand how network designs fit together so you can see a view of the topology, see how those devices are connected, and then drill down to see how specific devices perform on your network. The idea is to collect all this information in one place, in the IPAM database.
Another consideration is data sharing. This is why OpenAPIs are so useful as they can provide easy access to a Threat Scanner, SIEM or even SOAR for automation. The more context your systems have, the better for cybersecurity and compliance.
Networks must also track end-of-life and end-of-service for different types of devices. How can device vulnerabilities be addressed with automated security and lifecycle management? Integration with DNS, DHCP and IPAM.
About Infoblox
Infoblox is the leader in next generation DNS management and security. More than 12,000 customers, including more than 70% of the Fortune 500, trust the company to scale, simplify and secure their hybrid networks to meet today’s cloud world challenges. Talk to us in the comments and let us know if you liked this news and take the opportunity to read more news on our website.
Source : Married Games
