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Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) Security Issues You’re in no doubt familiar with Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) technology and its... Information Security Are VLANs secure? VLAN security best practices Kevin Beaver 2 min read Kevin Beaver Short bio about author here Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur. Vitae donec tincidunt elementum quam laoreet duis sit enim. Duis mattis velit sit leo diam. Tags Share this article 9/23/14 Published Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) Security Issues You’re in no doubt familiar with Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) technology and its ability to segment traffic within your network. It’s one of those decades-old technologies that businesses have come to rely on to reduce costs, minimize network broadcast domains, and protect certain systems from others. It sounds good on paper but it’s rare to see a VLAN environment that’s truly configured in the right way in order to realize its intended benefits. For example, I’ve seen some networks segmented by physical switches rather than using logical VLANs configured within each managed switch. This means that anyone on the same physical switch/broadcast domain can see every host on that segment. And if they want to see all traffic, it’s often just a matter of using Cain & Abel’s ARP Poison Routing feature . This is not an effective way to manage network devices and there’s no way to prevent inadvertent connections to the wrong segment during network upgrades, troubleshooting, and the like. It becomes a jumbled mess that negates any perceived switching or VLAN benefits. Furthermore, many “virtual” networks allow anyone to hop between segments if they know the IP addressing scheme. For example, say a user is on the 10.10.10.x network and he wants to get onto the production network of 10.0.0.x. No problem… he just points his Web browser, his vulnerability scanner, or whatever to 10.0.0.x and he’s good to go. Worst case, he might have to configure his system with a static IP address on that network, but that’s simple enough to do. This configuration may be considered a “VLAN” that’s managing broadcast traffic but there are no real ACLs, firewall rules, or packet tagging to prevent unauthorized access by internal attackers, malware, and the like. The network is basically flat with no policies and little to no security between any of the network segments and systems. Another thing to remember is that many VLANs are used to partition networks into distinctive segments to separate business units and their unique data sets. Even if the technical aspects of the VLAN configuration are spot on, these environments are often defined at a very high level without involving the actual business unit managers or information owners, therefore there are often security gaps in the segmentation. This means that information specific to a business unit and believed to be isolated is often anything but – it may well be scattered across numerous other VLANs and network hosts within those segments. How does this happen? Convenience and mobility and general carelessness. Users copy information to places where they can work on it and end up copying it to systems outside of the intended VLAN domain or to different hosts on other VLANs. IT may even copy information for backup or test purposes. Either way, confidential information often ends up on unprotected “islands” that no one knows about until it’s too late. Network security based on VLAN technology can work if it’s done properly. And while it’s not perfect, it can add another layer of security to your environment, one that can make the difference between breach and no breach. Schedule a demo Related Articles Q1 at AlgoSec: What innovations and milestones defined our start to 2026? AlgoSec Reviews Mar 19, 2023 · 2 min read 2025 in review: What innovations and milestones defined AlgoSec’s transformative year in 2025? AlgoSec Reviews Mar 19, 2023 · 2 min read Navigating Compliance in the Cloud AlgoSec Cloud Mar 19, 2023 · 2 min read Speak to one of our experts Speak to one of our experts Work email* First name* Last name* Company* country* Select country... Short answer* By submitting this form, I accept AlgoSec's privacy policy Schedule a call

Overcome hybrid and multi-cloud security challenges with strategies to enhance visibility, enforce policies, and protect data across diverse cloud environments. Hybrid & multi-cloud Security challenges ---- ------- Schedule a Demo Select a size ----- Get the latest insights from the experts Choose a better way to manage your network

Information security is vital to business continuity. Organizations trust their IT teams to enable innovation and business transformation... Risk Management and Vulnerabilities How to optimize the security policy management lifecycle Tsippi Dach 2 min read Tsippi Dach Short bio about author here Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur. Vitae donec tincidunt elementum quam laoreet duis sit enim. Duis mattis velit sit leo diam. Tags Share this article 8/9/23 Published Information security is vital to business continuity. Organizations trust their IT teams to enable innovation and business transformation but need them to safeguard digital assets in the process. This leads some leaders to feel that their information security policies are standing in the way of innovation and business agility. Instead of rolling new a new enterprise application and provisioning it for full connectivity from the start, security teams demand weeks or months of time to secure those systems before they’re ready. But this doesn’t mean that cybersecurity is a bottleneck to business agility. The need for speedier deployment doesn’t automatically translate to increased risk. Organizations that manage application connectivity and network security policies using a structured lifecycle approach can improve security without compromising deployment speed. Many challenges stand between organizations and their application and network connectivity goals. Understanding each stage of the lifecycle approach to security policy change management is key to overcoming these obstacles. Challenges to optimizing security policy management ` Complex enterprise infrastructure and compliance requirements A medium-sizded enterprise may have hundreds of servers, systems, and security solutions like firewalls in place. These may be spread across several different cloud providers, with additional inputs from SaaS vendors and other third-party partners. Add in strict regulatory compliance requirements like HIPAA , and the risk management picture gets much more complicated. Even voluntary frameworks like NIST heavily impact an organization’s information security posture, acceptable use policies, and more – without the added risk of non-compliance. Before organizations can optimize their approach to security policy management, they must have visibility and control over an increasingly complex landscape. Without this, making meaningful progress of data classification and retention policies is difficult, if not impossible. Modern workflows involve non-stop change When information technology teams deploy or modify an application, it’s in response to an identified business need. When those deployments get delayed, there is a real business impact. IT departments now need to implement security measures earlier, faster, and more comprehensively than they used to. They must conduct risk assessments and security training processes within ever-smaller timeframes, or risk exposing the organization to vulnerabilities and security breaches . Strong security policies need thousands of custom rules There is no one-size-fits-all solution for managing access control and data protection at the application level. Different organizations have different security postures and security risk profiles. Compliance requirements can change, leading to new security requirements that demand implementation. Enterprise organizations that handle sensitive data and adhere to strict compliance rules must severely restrict access to information systems. It’s not easy to achieve PCI DSS compliance or adhere to GDPR security standards solely through automation – at least, not without a dedicated change management platform like AlgoSec . Effectively managing an enormous volume of custom security rules and authentication policies requires access to scalable security resources under a centralized, well-managed security program. Organizations must ensure their security teams are equipped to enforce data security policies successfully. Inter-department communication needs improvement Application deliver managers, network architects, security professionals, and compliance managers must all contribute to the delivery of new application projects. Achieving clear channels of communication between these different groups is no easy task. In most enterprise environments, these teams speak different technical languages. They draw their data from internally siloed sources, and rarely share comprehensive documentation with one another. In many cases, one or more of these groups are only brought in after everyone else has had their say, which significantly limits the amount of influence they can have. The lifecycle approach to managing IT security policies can help establish a standardized set of security controls that everyone follows. However, it also requires better communication and security awareness from stakeholders throughout the organization. The policy management lifecycle addresses these challenges in five stages ` Without a clear security policy management lifecycle in place, most enterprises end up managing security changes on an ad hoc basis. This puts them at a disadvantage, especially when security resources are stretched thin on incident response and disaster recovery initiatives. Instead of adopting a reactive approach that delays application releases and reduces productivity, organizations can leverage the lifecycle approach to security policy management to address vulnerabilities early in the application development lifecycle. This leaves additional resources available for responding to security incidents, managing security threats, and proactively preventing data breaches. Discover and visualize application connectivity The first stage of the security policy management lifecycle revolves around mapping how your apps connect to each other and to your network setup. The more details can include in this map, the better prepared your IT team will be for handling the challenges of policy management. Performing this discovery process manually can cost enterprise-level security teams a great deal of time and accuracy. There may be thousands of devices on the network, with a complex web of connections between them. Any errors that enter the framework at this stage will be amplified through the later stages – it’s important to get things right at this stage. Automated tools help IT staff improve the speed and accuracy of the discovery and visualization stage. This helps everyone – technical and nontechnical staff included – to understand what apps need to connect and work together properly. Automated tools help translate these needs into language that the rest of the organization can understand, reducing the risk of misconfiguration down the line. Plan and assess security policy changes Once you have a good understanding of how your apps connect with each other and your network setup, you can plan changes more effectively. You want to make sure these changes will allow the organization’s apps to connect with one another and work together without increasing security risks. It’s important to adopt a vulnerability-oriented perspective at this stage. You don’t want to accidentally introduce weak spots that hackers can exploit, or establish policies that are too complex for your organization’s employees to follow. This process usually involves translating application connectivity requests into network operations terms. Your IT team will have to check if the proposed changes are necessary, and predict what the results of implementing those changes might be. This is especially important for cloud-based apps that may change quickly and unpredictably. At the same time, security teams must evaluate the risks and determine whether the changes are compliant with security policy. Automating these tasks as part of a regular cycle ensures the data is always relevant and saves valuable time. Migrate and deploy changes efficiently The process of deploying new security rules is complex, time-consuming, and prone to error . It often stretches the capabilities of security teams that already have a wide range of operational security issues to address at any given time. In between managing incident response and regulatory compliance, they must now also manually update thousands of security rules over a fleet of complex network assets. This process gets a little bit easier when guided by a comprehensive security policy change management framework. But most organizations don’t unlock the true value of the security policy management lifecycle until they adopt automation. Automated security policy management platforms enable organizations to design rule changes intelligently, migrate rules automatically, and push new policies to firewalls through a zero-touch interface. They can even validate whether the intended changes updated correctly. This final step is especially important. Without it, security teams must manually verify whether their new policies successfully address the vulnerabilities the way they’re supposed to. This doesn’t always happen, leaving security teams with a false sense of security. Maintain configurations using templates Most firewalls accumulate thousands of rules as security teams update them against new threats. Many of these rules become outdated and obsolete over time, but remain in place nonetheless. This adds a great deal of complexity to small-scale tasks like change management, troubleshooting issues, and compliance auditing. It can also impact the performance of firewall hardware , which decreases the overall lifespan of expensive physical equipment. Configuration changes and maintenance should include processes for identifying and eliminating rules that are redundant, misconfigured, or obsolete. The cleaner and better-documented the organization’s rulesets are, the easier subsequent configuration changes will be. Rule templates provide a simple solution to this problem. Organizations that create and maintain comprehensive templates for their current firewall rulesets can easily modify, update, and change those rules without having to painstakingly review and update individual devices manually. Decommission obsolete applications completely Every business application will eventually reach the end of its lifecycle. However, many organizations keep decommissioned security policies in place for one of two reasons: Oversight that stems from unstandardized or poorly documented processes, or; Fear that removing policies will negatively impact other, active applications. As these obsolete security policies pile up, they force the organization to spend more time and resources updating their firewall rulesets. This adds bloat to firewall security processes, and increases the risk of misconfigurations that can lead to cyber attacks. A standardized, lifecycle-centric approach to security policy management makes space for the structured decommissioning of obsolete applications and the rules that apply to them. This improves change management and ensures the organization’s security posture is optimally suited for later changes. At the same time, it provides comprehensive visibility that reduces oversight risks and gives security teams fewer unknowns to fear when decommissioning obsolete applications. Many organizations believe that Security stands in the way of the business – particularly when it comes to changing or provisioning connectivity for applications. It can take weeks, or even months to ensure that all the servers, devices, and network segments that support the application can communicate with each other while blocking access to hackers and unauthorized users. It’s a complex and intricate process. This is because, for every single application update or change, Networking and Security teams need to understand how it will affect the information flows between the various firewalls and servers the application relies on, and then change connectivity rules and security policies to ensure that only legitimate traffic is allowed, without creating security gaps or compliance violations. As a result, many enterprises manage security changes on an ad-hoc basis: they move quickly to address the immediate needs of high-profile applications or to resolve critical threats, but have little time left over to maintain network maps, document security policies, or analyze the impact of rule changes on applications. This reactive approach delays application releases, can cause outages and lost productivity, increases the risk of security breaches and puts the brakes on business agility. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Nor is it necessary for businesses to accept greater security risk to satisfy the demand for speed. Accelerating agility without sacrificing security The solution is to manage application connectivity and network security policies through a structured lifecycle methodology, which ensures that the right security policy management activities are performed in the right order, through an automated, repeatable process. This dramatically speeds up application connectivity provisioning and improves business agility, without sacrificing security and compliance. So, what is the network security policy management lifecycle, and how should network and security teams implement a lifecycle approach in their organizations? Discover and visualize The first stage involves creating an accurate, real-time map of application connectivity and the network topology across the entire organization, including on-premise, cloud, and software-defined environments. Without this information, IT staff are essentially working blind, and will inevitably make mistakes and encounter problems down the line. Security policy management solutions can automate the application connectivity discovery, mapping, and documentation processes across the thousands of devices on networks – a task that is enormously time-consuming and labor-intensive if done manually. In addition, the mapping process can help business and technical groups develop a shared understanding of application connectivity requirements. Plan and assess Once there is a clear picture of application connectivity and the network infrastructure, you can start to plan changes more effectively – ensure that proposed changes will provide the required connectivity, while minimizing the risks of introducing vulnerabilities, causing application outages, or compliance violations. Typically, it involves translating application connectivity requests into networking terminology, analyzing the network topology to determine if the changes are really needed, conducting an impact analysis of proposed rule changes (particularly valuable with unpredictable cloud-based applications), performing a risk and compliance assessment, and assessing inputs from vulnerabilities scanners and SIEM solutions. Automating these activities as part of a structured lifecycle keeps data up-to-date, saves time, and ensures that these critical steps are not omitted – helping avoid configuration errors and outages. Functions Of An Automatic Pool Cleaner An automatic pool cleaner is very useful for people who have a bad back and find it hard to manually operate the pool cleaner throughout the pool area. This type of pool cleaner can move along the various areas of a pool automatically. Its main function is to suck up dirt and other debris in the pool. It functions as a vacuum. Automatic pool cleaners may also come in different types and styles. These include automatic pressure-driven cleaners, automatic suction side-drive cleaners, and robotic pool cleaners. Migrate and deploy Deploying connectivity and security rules can be a labor-intensive and error-prone process. Security policy management solutions automate the critical tasks involved, including designing rule changes intelligently, automatically migrating rules, and pushing policies to firewalls and other security devices – all with zero-touch if no problems or exceptions are detected. Crucially, the solution can also validate that the intended changes have been implemented correctly. This last step is often neglected, creating the false impression that application connectivity has been provided, or that vulnerabilities have been removed, when in fact there are time bombs ticking in the network. Maintain Most firewalls accumulate thousands of rules which become outdated or obsolete over the years. Bloated rulesets not only add complexity to daily tasks such as change management, troubleshooting and auditing, but they can also impact the performance of firewall appliances, resulting in decreased hardware lifespan and increased TCO. Cleaning up and optimizing security policies on an ongoing basis can prevent these problems. This includes identifying and eliminating or consolidating redundant and conflicting rules; tightening overly permissive rules; reordering rules; and recertifying expired ones. A clean, well-documented set of security rules helps to prevent business application outages, compliance violations, and security gaps and reduces management time and effort. Decommission Every business application eventually reaches the end of its life: but when they are decommissioned, its security policies are often left in place, either by oversight or from fear that removing policies could negatively affect active business applications. These obsolete or redundant security policies increase the enterprise’s attack surface and add bloat to the firewall ruleset. The lifecycle approach reduces these risks. It provides a structured and automated process for identifying and safely removing redundant rules as soon as applications are decommissioned while verifying that their removal will not impact active applications or create compliance violations. We recently published a white paper that explains the five stages of the security policy management lifecycle in detail. It’s a great primer for any organization looking to move away from a reactive, fire-fighting response to security challenges, to an approach that addresses the challenges of balancing security and risk with business agility. Download your copy here . Schedule a demo Related Articles Q1 at AlgoSec: What innovations and milestones defined our start to 2026? AlgoSec Reviews Mar 19, 2023 · 2 min read 2025 in review: What innovations and milestones defined AlgoSec’s transformative year in 2025? AlgoSec Reviews Mar 19, 2023 · 2 min read Navigating Compliance in the Cloud AlgoSec Cloud Mar 19, 2023 · 2 min read Speak to one of our experts Speak to one of our experts Work email* First name* Last name* Company* country* Select country... Short answer* By submitting this form, I accept AlgoSec's privacy policy Schedule a call

Podcast: Differences between UTM and NGFW In our recent webcast discussion alongside panelists from Fortinet, NSS Labs and General... Firewall Change Management NGFW vs UTM: What you need to know Sam Erdheim 2 min read Sam Erdheim Short bio about author here Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur. Vitae donec tincidunt elementum quam laoreet duis sit enim. Duis mattis velit sit leo diam. Tags Share this article 2/19/13 Published Podcast: Differences between UTM and NGFW In our recent webcast discussion alongside panelists from Fortinet, NSS Labs and General Motors, we examined the State of the Firewall in 2013. We received more audience questions during the webcast than the time allowed for, so we’d like to answer these questions through several blog posts in a Q&A format with the panelists. By far the most asked question leading up to and during the webcast was: “What’s the difference between a UTM and a Next-Generation Firewall?” Here’s how our panelists responded: Pankil Vyas, Manager – Network Security Center, GM UTM are usually bundled feature set, NGFW has bundle but licensing can be selective. Depending on the firewall’s function on the network, some UTM features might not be useful, creating performance issues and sometimes firewall conflicts with packet flows. Nimmy Reichenberg, VP of Strategy, AlgoSec Different people give different answers to this question, but if we refer to Gartner who are certainly a credible source, a UTM consolidates many security functions (email security, AV, IPS, URL filtering etc.) and is tailored mostly to SMBs in terms of management capabilities, throughput, support, etc. A NGFW is an enterprise-grade product that at the very least includes IPS capabilities and application awareness (layer 7 control). You can refer to a Gartner paper titled “Defining the Next-Generation Firewall” for more information. Ryan Liles, Director of Testing Services, NSS Labs There really aren’t any differences in a UTM and a NGFW. The technologies used in the two are essentially the same, and they generally have the same capabilities. UTM devices are typically classified with lower throughput ratings than their NGFW counterparts, but for all practical purposes the differences are in marketing. The term NGFW was coined by vendors working with Gartner to create a class of products capable of fitting into an enterprise network that contained all of the features of a UTM. The reason for the name shift is that there was a pervasive line of thought stating a device capable of all of the functions of a UTM/NGFW would never be fast enough to run in an enterprise network. As hardware has progressed, the capability of these devices to hit multi-gigabit speeds began to prove that they were indeed capable of enterprise deployment. Rather than try and fight the sentiment that a UTM could never fit into an enterprise, the NGFW was born. Patrick Bedwell, VP of Products, Fortinet There are several definitions in the market of both terms. Analyst firms IDC and Gartner provided the original definitions of the terms. IDC defined UTM as a security appliance that combines firewall, gateway antivirus, and intrusion detection / intrusion prevention (IDS/IPS). Gartner defined an NGFW as a single device with integrated IPS with deep packet scanning, standard first-generation FW capabilities (NAT, stateful protocol inspection, VPN, etc.) and the ability to identity and control applications running on the network. Since their initial definitions, the terms have been used interchangeably by customers as well as vendors. Depending on with whom you speak, UTM can include NGFW features like application ID and control, and NGFW can include UTM features like gateway antivirus. The terms are often used synonymously, as both represent a single device with consolidated functionality. At Fortinet, for example, we offer customers the ability to deploy a FortiGate device as a pure firewall, an NGFW (enabling features like Application Control or User- and Device-based policy enforcement) or a full UTM (enabling additional features like gateway AV, WAN optimization, and so forth). Customers can deploy as much or as little of the technology on the FortiGate device as they need to match their requirements. If you missed the webcast, you can view it on-demand. We invite you to continue this debate and discussion by commenting here on the blog or via the Twitter hashtag Schedule a demo Related Articles Q1 at AlgoSec: What innovations and milestones defined our start to 2026? AlgoSec Reviews Mar 19, 2023 · 2 min read 2025 in review: What innovations and milestones defined AlgoSec’s transformative year in 2025? AlgoSec Reviews Mar 19, 2023 · 2 min read Navigating Compliance in the Cloud AlgoSec Cloud Mar 19, 2023 · 2 min read Speak to one of our experts Speak to one of our experts Work email* First name* Last name* Company* country* Select country... Short answer* By submitting this form, I accept AlgoSec's privacy policy Schedule a call

Your path to zero trust and micro segmentation Select a size Which network Can AlgoSec be used for continuous compliance monitoring? Yes, AlgoSec supports continuous compliance monitoring. As organizations adapt their security policies to meet emerging threats and address new vulnerabilities, they must constantly verify these changes against the compliance frameworks they subscribe to. AlgoSec can generate risk assessment reports and conduct internal audits on-demand, allowing compliance officers to monitor compliance performance in real-time. Security professionals can also use AlgoSec to preview and simulate proposed changes to the organization’s security policies. This gives compliance officers a valuable degree of lead-time before planned changes impact regulatory guidelines and allows for continuous real-time monitoring. Executive summary Why zero trust is a strategic imperative Making the case for micro-segmentation Why micro-segmentation can be tricky Cloud micro-segmentation best practices How AlgoSec supports micro-segmentation AlgoSec: The ultimate engine for zero trust and micro-segmentation Get the latest insights from the experts Schedule time with one of our experts Work email* First name* Last name* Company* country* Select country... Short answer* By submitting this form, I accept AlgoSec's privacy policy Continue

Navigating compliance in 2026: The path to automated security WhitePaper Download PDF Download PDF Add a Title Add a Title Add a Title Schedule time with one of our experts Work email* First name* Last name* Company* country* Select country... Short answer* By submitting this form, I accept AlgoSec's privacy policy Continue

Security Policy Management with Professor Wool Best Practices: Incorporating Security into DevOps Best Practices for Incorporating Security into DevOps, is a whiteboard-style series of lessons that examine the challenges of and provide technical tips for how to incorporate security throughout the DevOps process. Lesson 1 In this lesson, Professor Wool examines the need for and the process of adjusting application connectivity throughout each stage of the DevOps lifecycle. Best Practices for Incorporating Security Automation into the DevOps Lifecycle Watch Lesson 2 In theory adding capacity should be fairly straightforward, with minimal need for any intervention by the organization’s security team. But in practice it’s a little more complex. In this video Professor Wool provides some tips and best practices to help you add capacity without having to change your security policies, complete a security review or worse still, cause an outage or gap in the security perimeter. Tips for Adding Capacity Without Changing Your Security Policies Watch Lesson 3 In a typical DevOps scenario development team adds new functionality to an existing business application and then rolls it out into production. However, while the new functionality worked as planned in both the test and pre-production environments, the application then fails when moved into the live production environment. In this video, Professor Wool will discuss the reasons why this process went wrong, and how you can fix it. How to Integrate Security into the Test Environment Watch Lesson 4 In previous lessons Professor Wool discussed how building security into DevOps processes at an early stage helps organizations maximize the speed and agility of application development, while minimizing the risks of problems and outages when the applications go live. In this whiteboard video Professor Wool looks at how security automation helps to speed up the practice of Continuous Integration (CI) - a core element of DevOps. How to Integrate Security into the CI Process Watch Have a Question for Professor Wool? Ask him now Choose a better way to manage your network Choose a better way to manage your network Work email* First name* Last name* Company* country* Select country... Short answer* By submitting this form, I accept AlgoSec's privacy policy Continue

State of Network Security Report 2025 Download PDF Download PDF Add a Title Add a Title Add a Title Schedule time with one of our experts Work email* First name* Last name* Company* country* Select country... Short answer* By submitting this form, I accept AlgoSec's privacy policy Continue

AlgoSec and Cisco Meraki Solution Brief Download PDF Download PDF Add a Title Add a Title Add a Title Schedule time with one of our experts Work email* First name* Last name* Company* country* Select country... Short answer* By submitting this form, I accept AlgoSec's privacy policy Continue

Explore Algosec's customer success stories to see how organizations worldwide improve security, compliance, and efficiency with our solutions. ORMAT MANAGES RISK AND NERC COMPLIANCE WITH ALGOSEC Organization ORMAT Industry Technology Headquarters Reno, Nevada, United States Download case study Share Customer
success stories "We’re managing our network security with much greater confidence. With the value of the time we save and our improved compliance readiness, we can clearly see that AlgoSec is delivering on our investment" Global Geothermal Power Producer Improves Security and Compliance and Takes Control of DailyFirewall Management Operations at 14 Global Facilities AlgoSec Business Impact • Automated notifications improve firewall management processes.• Visibility of firewall rules allows better management of security infrastructure.• Built-in reports provide instant proof of SOX and NERC compliance. Background Ormat Technologies, Inc. a world leader in the geothermal power plant sector, is committed to developing green, sustainable energy solutions. The company has installed over 2000 MW of geothermal and Recovered Energy (REG) power plants worldwide. Ormat’s global IT department manages network security and ensures compliance with SOX (Sarbanes-Oxley) regulations and NERC (North American Electric Reliability Corporation) at 14 of its power plants. Challenge Ormat’s firewall configurations typically need updating on a daily basis to address the changing roles and information technology requirements of Ormat’s global employees. As the department has assumed greater responsibility for regulatory compliance in addition to internal operations, firewall management has become cumbersome and costly.“With multiple managers adding and changing firewall configurations at our various locations, we had no way to review each change, see who made it, or know if a change was made at all,” explains Meir Moshka, IT Manager at Ormat. Without this information, reviewing firewall configurations against regulations and standards was difficult and time-consuming. “To stay compliant and secure, we needed better controls for firewall management, but we also had to stay responsive to the employees we serve,” says Moshka. Solution After evaluating several firewall management products, Ormat selected the AlgoSec Security Management solution for its ease of use, and for the superiority of its built-in SOX and NERC compliance reports. “The web user interface is easy and friendly,” comments Moshka. His team installed and tested AlgoSec themselves, in a matter of days. Another capability that drove Ormat to select AlgoSec was its ability to create a workflow for their firewall configuration process. “Every time a change is made, the security manager receives an email describing the new configuration,” says Moshka. “The change is only made after the manager approves it.” The new process will ensure that all configuration changes are properly reviewed. Results Today, in addition to maintaining its network security policies more effectively, Ormat is dramatically reducing the time spent preparing for compliance audits. “Together, the firewall management process and reports keep us ready for an audit at all times. We save a great deal of audit preparation time because we already review each configuration change against the requirements on a daily basis.” Automated compliance reporting also gives Ormat the power to demonstrate compliance to customers and prospects, as the company pursues new contracts for power plant operations in the US. “By using the built-in reports, we can instantly show we are NERC and SOX compliant. It’s a valuable proof for the plant owners.” Moshka and his team also rely on AlgoSec’s built-in knowledgebase of best practices for firewall configuration. Additionally, they have customized the out-of-the-box functionality by defining additional risks that apply to Ormat’s environment. With their customized risk profile in place, each firewall configuration change is evaluated against the knowledgebase to determine which configurations to improve or avoid. “Often, a change to the firewall needs to be more restrictive than we thought,” says Moshka. “AlgoSec gives us recommendations for each new change, and we minimize security risks by following them.” Another improvement is how AlgoSec’s policy cleanup and optimization features ensure Ormat’s security policy is streamlined and easy to maintain. “Now I see exactly which policy applies to which firewall, which rules are duplicated, expired, or unused, and get recommendations on the most effective way to reorder the most used rules,” says Moshka. With AlgoSec, Ormat has taken back control for its firewall policies and compliance requirements. “We’re managing our network security with much greater confidence,” Moshka says. “Add together the value of the time we save on a daily basis, and our improved compliance readiness, and we can clearly see that AlgoSec is delivering on our investment.” Schedule time with one of our experts

Security Policy Management with Professor Wool Best Practices for Amazon Web Services Security Best Practices for Amazon Web Services (AWS) Security is a whiteboard-style series of lessons that examine the challenges of and provide technical tips for managing security across hybrid data centers utilizing the AWS IaaS platform. Lesson 1 In this lesson Professor Wool provides an overview of Amazon Web Services (AWS) Security Groups and highlights some of the differences between Security Groups and traditional firewalls. The lesson continues by explaining some of the unique features of AWS and the challenges and benefits of being able to apply multiple Security Groups to a single instance. The Fundamentals of AWS Security Groups Watch Lesson 2 Outbound traffic rules in AWS Security Groups are, by default, very wide and insecure. In addition, during the set-up process for AWS Security Groups the user is not intuitively guided through a set up process for outbound rules – the user must do this manually. In this lesson, Professor Wool, highlights the limitations and consequences of leaving the default rules in place, and provides recommendations on how to define outbound rules in AWS Security Groups in order to securely control and filter outbound traffic and protect against data leaks. Protect Outbound Traffic in an AWS Hybrid Environment Watch Lesson 3 Once you start using AWS for production applications, auditing and compliance considerations come into play, especially if these applications are processing data that is subject to regulations such as PCI, HIPAA, SOX etc. In this lesson, Professor Wool reviews AWS’s own auditing tools, CloudWatch and CloudTrail, which are useful for cloud-based applications. However if you are running a hybrid data center, you will likely need to augment these tools with solutions that can provide reporting, visibility and change monitoring across the entire environment. Professor Wool provides some recommendations for key features and functionally you’ll need to ensure compliance, and tips on what the auditors are looking for. Change Management, Auditing and Compliance in an AWS Hybrid Environment Watch Lesson 4 In this lesson Professor Wool examines the differences between Amazon's Security Groups and Network Access Control Lists (NACLs), and provides some tips and tricks on how to use them together for the most effective and flexible traffic filtering for your enterprise. Using AWS Network ACLs for Enhanced Traffic Filtering Watch Lesson 5 AWS security is very flexible and granular, however it has some limitations in terms of the number of rules you can have in a NACL and security group. In this lesson Professor Wool explains how to combine security groups and NACLs filtering capabilities in order to bypass these capacity limitations and achieve the granular filtering needed to secure enterprise organizations. Combining Security Groups and Network ACLs to Bypass AWS Capacity Limitations Watch Lesson 6 In this whiteboard video lesson Professor Wool provides best practices for performing security audits across your AWS estate. The Right Way to Audit AWS Policies Watch Lesson 7 How to Intelligently Select the Security Groups to Modify When Managing Changes in your AWS Watch Lesson 8 Learn more about AlgoSec at http://www.algosec.com and read Professor Wool's blog posts at http://blog.algosec.com How to Manage Dynamic Objects in Cloud Environments Watch Have a Question for Professor Wool? Ask him now Choose a better way to manage your network Choose a better way to manage your network Work email* First name* Last name* Company* country* Select country... Short answer* By submitting this form, I accept AlgoSec's privacy policy Continue

how can you elevate digital transformation and cloud migration efforts, without neglecting your security Does it have to be one or the other, and if not, what steps should be taken in your transformation journeys to ensure that network security remains a priority Webinars How to modernize your infrastructure without neglecting your security Moving enterprise applications onto the cloud can deliver several benefits, including increased data protection, enhanced business agility, and significant cost savings. However, if the migration isn’t appropriately executed, your hybrid cloud network could be compromised. The key is to balance your digital transformation efforts by improving your infrastructure while providing all the necessary security controls. In this webinar, our expert panel dives into the steps required to migrate applications without sacrificing security. Join us in this session to learn how to: Transfer the security elements of your application onto the cloud Find ways to lower migration costs and reduce risks through better preparation Modernize your infrastructure with the help of superior visibility Structure your security policies across your entire hybrid and multi-cloud network January 11, 2022 Kyle Wickert WW Strategic Architect Alex Hilton | Michael Meyer Chief Executive, CIF | CRP, MRSBPO Relevant resources Cloud migrations made simpler: Safe, Secure and Successful Migrations Keep Reading Cloud atlas: how to accelerate application migrations to the cloud Keep Reading 5 Predictions on Cyber Security and Network Security Management for 2021 Watch Video Choose a better way to manage your network Choose a better way to manage your network Work email* First name* Last name* Company* country* Select country... Short answer* By submitting this form, I accept AlgoSec's privacy policy Continue