data on the enterprise network is highly valued and therefore a malicious Hacker covet the goal. Major security incidents have become almost daily news, and the responsibility of the network team for the status quo is getting heavier.
How does the network operations team respond to the latest hacker threats?
Network Instruments recently released its 2015 Web State Research Report, which describes how technicians redistribute IT resources and protect the integrity of network data in cyber security confrontation. One notable change is that corporate security teams are more likely to seek help from network teams in the face of many scenarios, including identifying unusual behavior, directing investigations, and taking preventative measures.
In fact, of the 322 researchers, about 25% of the members spent 10-20 hours a week, fully using the time on security issues. These burdens are heavier for managing network upgrades (the number of networks that have been upgraded to 40GB/100GB bandwidth has doubled over the past year), software-defined networks, and concepts related to cloud and big data. This article shares the advice of some professionals to help us understand how the impact of security threats on the network team has evolved to the present day.
Understanding intrusion
Half of the respondents said the biggest security challenge was not taking into account security and network performance. It experts need to be proficient with the right network tools to replay security events, such as those that have dropped the network, caused data leaks, abnormally high bandwidth spikes, and linked these events to network performance data. This will give people a deeper understanding of the causes of the invasion and help create more powerful defenses.
Speed and passion
The deployment of 40GB/100GB bandwidth networks has doubled over the past year, and there is no sign of slowing down. The network is accelerating, the packets are transmitted like lightning in the network, and then accelerated in the storage area, in which case it is more difficult to grab the packet. However, it is important to have some tools that monitor the entire network like security cameras. The effective load of the packets has the contextual resources which pave the way for the success of the security investigation, and also the underutilized resources in the security investigation.
Bandwidth usage Spikes
We have heard this for many years, but it is still not outdated. Employees bring multiple devices to the workplace, 4K and 6K video collaboration, and the use of private clouds, resulting in an impact on enterprise bandwidth requirements. Respondents agreed that their bandwidth would increase by 50% in 2016. As a result, IT pros have a lot of things to do. They need to transform relevant data with security information into real information about the status of the network, and therefore need to develop relevant tools and systems and intelligent Insight systems. But it may seem like the difficulty of finding a blade of clover on a whole meadow.
SDN will become mainstream
Half of the respondents said they were ready to deploy SDN (software-defined networks) by the end of the year. New visibility issues arise when you virtualize network components and work in a hardware-based environment. It pros need to understand the virtual environment and how to properly run Network diagnostics and mapping infrastructure in the environment.
Data disclosure
As large-scale data breaches are occurring more frequently, 85% of respondents say the network team is now involved in the security sector. A significant proportion of people (about 25%) spend more than 10 hours a week on security issues. As an IT expert, this means that the need for a comprehensive understanding of security issues is re-emerging, despite their reluctance to embark on new initiatives and to deploy multifaceted defensive strategies.
Executives care about the network
Nearly 3/4 of respondents pointed out that it was difficult to determine whether the network problem was rooted in the network itself, the system, or the application. Whether the business is large or small, its operations are more reliant on the cloud, and the network itself and related issues are attracting people outside the IT department's offices, including board of directors and C-level decision makers. As a result, IT professionals need to be able to clearly identify and target the root cause of the problem.
Resource transfer
The survey found a huge challenge: money is flowing from network teams to security teams, presumably to address the impact of growing security threats. In fact, 22% of respondents said it would be a problem in the coming year. No one wants to become the next target, Anthem or Sony. As a result, the network team is likely to be forced by the company to help solve security problems, they must learn to use less resources to do more things, which means that there may be more automation elements in the network architecture.
Target
Content is becoming richer and the signal quality of unified communications systems is higher. Video flaws, buffering, and stalling can be a great test for the productivity of your business and the patience of your end users. As people are more sensitive, the need to identify fundamental problems in the network is also increasing. Is it the network itself, or is it an application? It's possible that it's just the end user itself causing the problem. The vast majority of respondents said that there were two major problems, one was to determine the fundamental problem of it, and the other was the lack of visibility in the user experience. As the complexity of the field continues to increase, good security teams must be able to harness these issues.
Collaborate across Departments
On the one hand, security threats continue to rise; on the other hand, network teams become increasingly stretched in the process of damage assessment while fighting with attackers. The following two points must be achieved. First, while the network team is fighting various threats, other departments in the IT direction should stand up to fill the gaps left behind, and second, companies need to automate more manual processes so that the network team can gain more freedom in mobilizing resources.
Again, we recommend that you do server security and data protection whenever you're ready.
How does the network operations team respond to the latest hacker threats?