2014 Security: Focus Cloud encryption, network virtualization

The advent of 2014 has not halted the threat of data security. Just happened to pay the treasure inside Ghost events show that this is a war that is impossible to stop, and the latest US National Security Agency (NSA) quantum computer, which can decipher any cipher and encryption algorithm in the world, means that the security challenges we face are increasingly diverse.

The new Year comes as John Kindervag, the lead analyst at Forrester, has predicted what challenges the cyber-security professionals will face in 2014.

Universal Cloud Encryption is necessary

Kindervag says the controversy surrounding the US National Security Agency has caused many companies to worry about their data, especially the data they send to the cloud. Cloud encryption will be a priority.

"People want to encrypt things more than ever before, and a large part of the encryption intent lies in the data that leads to the cloud," he said. To this end, the network security industry will need to provide technology to help companies encrypt their data.

"(Cloud encryption Gateway) is essentially a new product category," he said. "They're just a gateway that allows you to encrypt data before sending it to the cloud. ”

Kindervag says his clients at Forrester are usually conservative, and they mainly invest in mature technology. But for cloud-encrypted gateways, mainly by start-ups, conservative companies have invested in the early stages of technological development. Kindervag believes that the larger network security providers may try to acquire the market in 2014.

"Microsoft has announced that they will take more encryption, and every vendor is using more encryption," he said.

At the same time, businesses are concerned that their WAN links are vulnerable to government snooping, Kindervag said. As a result, some businesses will start encrypting data through their MPLS networks. "More people will use the IPSec site to the site's tunnels to build their own wans on the public Internet." Typically, they do not have SLAs for these services (service level agreements), but they are easier to build than ever before. ”

Traditional firewalls and intrusion prevention are outdated

Kindervag said that in the 2014 the State firewall and intrusion prevention devices will become less. In fact, their markets will "dry up". The next-generation firewall, which has flourished for several years, will become an undisputed mainstream network security platform in the new year, especially with a wider adoption that will lead to lower prices.

"Independent (state) firewalls and intrusion prevention will be limited to specialized use cases," he said. "For most companies, there is no reason not to use a next-generation firewall because it is no longer expensive." (improved) performance and manageability of next-generation firewalls will continue to drive this. ”

Network virtualization is the Gospel of network security

In 2014, the security of virtual network infrastructure will be a major focus for businesses as companies install VMware NSX and Juniper contrail products in their data centers. Kindervag says that network virtualization has a positive impact on network security because automation and process software configurations will replace manual hardware configurations, eliminating human errors and the possibility of updating bottlenecks from security.

"It will be incumbent on security vendors to establish partnerships with network virtualization, software definition networks (SDN) providers," he said. "I see that my customer base has a great demand for virtual networks. ”

Some network security vendors are ready to dock with the network virtualization platform. For example, Palo Alto NX has married its next-generation firewall to VMware NSX. McAfee, Symantec, Trend Technology and RAPID7 have also concluded partnerships with VMware NSX.