Securely accelerating application delivery

In this guest blog, Jeff Yager from IT Central Station (soon to be PeerSpot), discusses how actual AlgoSec users have been able to securely accelerate their app delivery.

These days, it is more important than ever for business owners, application owners, and information security professionals to speak the same language. That way, their organizations can deliver business applications more rapidly while achieving a heightened security posture. AlgoSec’s patented platform enables the world’s most complex organizations to gain visibility and process changes at zero-touch across the hybrid network. IT Central Station members discussed these benefits of AlgoSec, along with related issues, in their reviews on the site.

Application visibility

AlgoSec allows users to discover, identify, map, and analyze business applications and security policies across their entire networks. For instance, Jacob S., an IT security analyst at a retailer, reported that the overall visibility that AlgoSec gives into his network security policies is high. He said, “It’s very clever in the logic it uses to provide insights, especially into risks and cleanup tasks. It’s very valuable. It saved a lot of hours on the cleanup tasks for sure. It has saved us days to weeks.”

“AlgoSec absolutely provides us with full visibility into the risk involved in firewall change requests,” said Aaron Z. a senior network and security administrator at an insurance company that deals with patient health information that must be kept secure. He added, “There is a risk analysis piece of it that allows us to go in and run that risk analysis against it, figuring out what rules we need to be able to change, then make our environment a little more secure. This is incredibly important for compliance and security of our clients.”

Also impressed with AlgoSec’s overall visibility into network security policies was Christopher W., a vice president – head of information security at a financial services firm, who said, “What AlgoSec does is give me the ability to see everything about the firewall: its rules, configurations and usage patterns.” AlgoSec gives his team all the visibility they need to make sure they can keep the firewall tight. As he put it, “There is no perimeter anymore. We have to be very careful what we are letting in and out, and Firewall Analyzer helps us to do that.”

For a cyber security architect at a tech services company, the platform helps him gain visibility into application connectivity flows. He remarked, “We have Splunk, so we need a firewall/security expert view on top of it. AlgoSec gives us that information and it’s a valuable contributor to our security environment.”

Application changes and requesting connectivity

AlgoSec accelerates application delivery and security policy changes with intelligent application connectivity and change automation. A case in point is Vitas S., a lead infrastructure engineer at a financial services firm who appreciates the full visibility into the risk involved in firewall change requests. He said, “[AlgoSec] definitely allows us to drill down to the level where we can see the actual policy rule that’s affecting the risk ratings. If there are any changes in ratings, it’ll show you exactly how to determine what’s changed in the network that will affect it. It’s been very clear and intuitive.”

A senior technical analyst at a maritime company has been equally pleased with the full visibility. He explained, “That feature is important to us because we’re a heavily risk-averse organization when it comes to IT control and changes. It allows us to verify, for the most part, that the controls that IT security is putting in place are being maintained and tracked at the security boundaries.”

A financial services firm with more than 10 cluster firewalls deployed AlgoSec to check the compliance status of their devices and reduce the number of rules in each of the policies. According to Mustafa K. their network security engineer, “Now, we can easily track the changes in policies. With every change, AlgoSec automatically sends an email to the IT audit team. It increases our visibility of changes in every policy.”

Speed and automation

The AlgoSec platform automates application connectivity and security policy across a hybrid network so clients can move quickly and stay secure. For Ilya K., a deputy information security department director at a computer software company, utilizing AlgoSec translates into an increase in security and accuracy of firewall rules. He said, “AlgoSec ASMS brings a holistic view of network firewall policy and automates firewall security management in very large-sized environments. Additionally, it speeds up the changes in firewall rules with a vendor-agnostic approach.”

“The user receives the information if his request is within the policies and can continue the request,” said Paulo A., a senior information technology security analyst at an integrator. He then noted, “Or, if it is denied, the applicant must adjust their request to stay within the policies. The time spent for this without AlgoSec is up to one week, whereas with AlgoSec, in a maximum of 15 minutes we have the request analyzed.” The results of this capability include greater security, a faster request process and the ability to automate the implementation of rules.

Srdjan, a senior technical and integration designer at a large retailer, concurred when he said, “By automating some parts of the work, business pressure is reduced since we now deliver much faster. I received feedback from our security department that their FCR approval process is now much easier. The network team is also now able to process FCRs much faster and with more accuracy.”

To learn more about what IT Central Station members think about AlgoSec, visit https://www.itcentralstation.com/products/algosec-reviews