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The fusion of Cloud and AI is more than just a technological advancement; it’s a paradigm shift. As businesses harness the combined power... Hybrid Cloud Security Management The confluence of cloud and AI: charting a secure path in the age of intelligent innovation Adel Osta Dadan 2 min read Adel Osta Dadan 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 9/20/23 Published The fusion of Cloud and AI is more than just a technological advancement; it’s a paradigm shift. As businesses harness the combined power of these transformative technologies, the importance of a security-centric approach becomes increasingly evident. This exploration delves deeper into the strategic significance of navigating the Cloud-AI nexus with a focus on security and innovation. Cloud and AI: catalysts for business transformation The cloud provides the foundational infrastructure, while AI infuses intelligence, making systems smarter and more responsive. Together, they’re reshaping industries, driving efficiencies, and creating new business models. However, with these opportunities come challenges. Ensuring robust security in this intertwined environment is not just a technical necessity but a strategic imperative. As AI algorithms process vast datasets in the cloud, businesses must prioritize the protection and integrity of this data to build and maintain trust. Building trust in intelligent systems In the age of AI, data isn’t just processed; it’s interpreted, analyzed, and acted upon. This autonomous decision-making demands a higher level of trust. Ensuring the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of data in the cloud becomes paramount. Beyond just data protection, it’s about ensuring that AI-driven decisions, which can have real-world implications, are made based on secure and untampered data. This trust forms the bedrock of AI’s value proposition in the cloud. Leadership in the Cloud-AI era Modern leaders are not just visionaries; they’re also gatekeepers. They stand at the intersection of innovation and security, ensuring that as their organizations harness AI in the cloud, ethical considerations and security protocols are front and center. This dual role is challenging but essential. As AI-driven applications become integral to business operations, leaders must champion a culture where security and innovation coexist harmoniously. Seamless integration and the role of DevSecOps Developing AI applications in the cloud is a complex endeavor. It requires a seamless integration of development, operations, and crucially, security. Enter DevSecOps. This approach ensures that security is embedded at every stage of the development lifecycle. From training AI models to deploying them in cloud environments, security considerations are integral, ensuring that the innovations are both groundbreaking and grounded in security. Collaborative security for collective intelligence AI’s strength lies in its ability to derive insights from vast datasets. In the interconnected world of the cloud, data flows seamlessly across boundaries, making collaborative security vital. Protecting this collective intelligence requires a unified approach, where security protocols are integrated across platforms, tools, and teams. Future-proofing the Cloud-AI strategy The technological horizon is ever-evolving. The fusion of Cloud and AI is just the beginning, and as businesses look ahead, embedding security into their strategies is non-negotiable. It’s about ensuring that as new technologies emerge and integrate with existing systems, the foundation remains secure and resilient. AlgoSec’s unique value proposition At AlgoSec, we understand the intricacies of the Cloud-AI landscape. Our application-based approach ensures that businesses have complete visibility into their digital assets. With AlgoSec, organizations gain a clear view of their application connectivity, ensuring that security policies align with business processes. As AI integrates deeper into cloud strategies, AlgoSec’s solutions empower businesses to innovate confidently, backed by a robust security framework. Our platform provides holistic, business-level visibility across the entire network infrastructure. With features like AlgoSec AppViz and AppChange, businesses can seamlessly identify network security vulnerabilities, plan migrations, accelerate troubleshooting, and adhere to the highest compliance standards. By taking an application-centric approach to security policy management, AlgoSec bridges the gap between IT teams and application delivery teams, fostering collaboration and ensuring a heightened security posture. 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

Top 10 cloud security tips and best practices for 2025 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. Top 10 cloud security tips & best practices for 2025 This year’s cloud security recommendations look slightly different from previous years. There are two key reasons for this: New technologies like GenAI and agentic apps have emerged. Attackers are using more sophisticated techniques to exploit cloud assets and evade detection. For example, what used to be basic, easy-to-spot phishing has now become extensive vishing and deep-fake campaigns that even technical experts fall for. To stay ahead of 2025’s threats, the following cloud security best practices are essential. Quick review: What is cloud security and why are cloud security best practices important? Cloud security consists of the controls, policies, and technologies implemented for protecting cloud environments from threats. This includes data, services, applications, configurations, and GenAI models in the cloud. As access to technology has democratized how threat actors launch attacks, cloud security has taken on new meaning and is no longer solely about defense. With cutting-edge tools that often rival many organizations’ defenses at attackers’ disposal, proactive prevention is a must. 10 tips for cloud security Implementing the following recommendations will increase the security of your cloud assets and enhance your overall security posture. 1. Understand the shared responsibility model Traditionally, CSPs (e.g., AWS, Azure, GCP) handle securing your underlying cloud infrastructure and managed services. You, as the customer, need to secure everything running in the cloud (data, applications, configurations, etc.). However, with the arrival of GenAI, companies now also have to worry about safeguarding AI data and AI models. Tips: Understand and embrace your roles as specified by your provider. Establish explicit agreements with providers and supply chain vendors to ensure the integrity of third-party assets. Facilitate shared accountability. 2. Prioritize AI security New technologies come with unknown risks, and adopting them without proper safeguards is an invitation to attack. Tips: Use software composition analysis (SCA) to detect and block vulnerable AI packages to eliminate backdoors that hackers could exploit to attack your cloud environment. Protect your AI training data, model tuning pipelines, and inference endpoints with encryption, strict access controls, and AI-specific guardrails (e.g., model drift detection). Verify provider-enforced tenant isolation to safeguard your AI workloads from multi-tenant risks like data leakage and unauthorized access. Continuously monitor model behavior to spot common AI risks such as model poisoning and compromised AI APIs. Implement input/output validation using dedicated filtering tools (e.g., NVIDIA NeMo Guardrails) to block prompt injection, data exfiltration, and similar attacks. 3. Adopt shift-left security Shift-left security is the practice of securing cloud-native applications and APIs from the development phase. This dramatically reduces your threat footprint and remediation costs. Tips: Embrace secure coding ; integrate automated security and compliance checks (triggered at every pull request or commit) into the CI pipeline; this instantly flags and resolves vulnerable or non-compliant code before it goes live. Use secure container images from trusted sources; scanning for vulnerabilities enhances runtime security and minimizes potential attacker entry points. Store secrets securely (e.g., in HashiCorp Vault) and embed secret detection into developer workflows to uncover hardcoded secrets; this prevents threat actors from gaining a foothold in your cloud environment via exposed secrets. Shield-right as you shift-left, e.g., by enforcing real-time monitoring to detect any blind spots early; this helps deter hackers, who thrive on missed vulnerabilities. 4. Manage identity and access with least privilege and zero trust Embrace centralized identity and access management (IAM), defining policies that govern who can access what. Tips: Implement least privilege (e.g., via RBAC and ABAC), ensuring only essential human and machine identities can access cloud and AI workloads. Adopt a zero trust architecture, segmenting workloads and continuously verifying access rights with MFA, within and outside your network perimeter. Regularly review access rights to revoke unnecessary permissions. 5. Harden configurations Cloud assets, AI workloads, networks, and identities are all pretty easy to misconfigure—making them top causes of breaches. Tips: Validate IaC templates to eliminate security risks before code is shipped. Continuously assess cloud configurations to resolve publicly exposed assets fast. Autonomously enforce security policies with PaC for consistent security and compliance across hybrid and multi-cloud workloads. Enforce timely patching with automated patch management tools to fix vulnerabilities before they become attack vectors. Regularly audit firewall rules to spot misconfigurations that could compromise your cloud resources and networks. 6. Address shadow IT Shadow IT elements (e.g., unsanctioned VMs, data, APIs, and GPUs) are top security risks because they evade centralized governance and monitoring. Tips: Establish policies that balance security with productivity to eliminate the need to bypass centralized security. Automatically block unauthorized deployments from the source, using policies that require resources to be provisioned solely through approved templates. Continuously monitor data flows to discover and resolve shadow IT. 7. Embrace real-time monitoring, detection, and response Continuous monitoring spots threats and anomalies, such as unusual login patterns or configuration changes, before full-blown attacks occur. Tips: Track user behavior in real time to spot lateral movement, model misuse, and other early warning signs of attacks. Predict and prevent potential threats by using AI-powered analytics. Map external exposures to real-world attacker tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) using frameworks like MITRE. 8. Encrypt data Encrypting data and storing encryption keys securely keeps data undecipherable in the event of a breach. However, with the rise of AI and edge computing, you need more than encryption in transit (TLS) and at rest (AES). Tips: Leverage confidential computing techniques like hardware-enforced trusted execution environments (TEEs) for encryption in use (during processing, e.g., for AI model training). Future-proof your data with quantum-resistant cryptography, like hash or code-based cryptography. 9. Automate compliance management Regulatory standards change frequently as technologies and security risks evolve. Companies must stay on top of their compliance posture . Tips: Use automated compliance management tools that keep up with evolving frameworks, including AI-specific standards like the NIST AI RMF and EU AI Act, as well as new policies from PCI DSS, NIST, etc. Maintain regular audit trails to provide audit-ready proof demonstrating your compliance with regulatory bodies and customers. 10. Incident management Having incident management procedures, including prevention and response playbooks, means teams are not left scrambling when incidents happen, i.e., when tensions are usually high and mistakes costly. Tips: Automate incident response with tools that offer autonomous context-based remediation and AI-augmented playbooks; this shortens the compromise-to-containment window. Educate teams on how to secure software development, safeguard third-party component usage, and deal with AI-powered phishing campaigns. Implementing cloud security best practices with AlgoSec Security breaches are costly, with the average figure now standing at $4.44 million , according to IBM’s 2025 Cost of a Data Breach Report. This number can go even higher due to outages, lawsuits, fines, and bad press. The cloud security best practices discussed in this post will help you stay ahead of 2025’s threat landscape and avoid unwanted impacts on your bottom line. AlgoSec can help. Designed to simplify robust cloud security in 2025 and beyond, it offers a suite of tools for cloud network security , cloud security and compliance , zero trust implementation , firewall management , incident response , and more. Get started on improving your cloud security. Sign up for a demo of AlgoSec today. 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

Over nearly two decades, AlgoSec has undergone a remarkable evolution in both technology and offerings. Initially founded with the... Application Connectivity Management Evolving network security: AlgoSec’s technological journey and its critical role in application connectivity Nitin Rajput 2 min read Nitin Rajput 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 12/13/23 Published Over nearly two decades, AlgoSec has undergone a remarkable evolution in both technology and offerings. Initially founded with the mission of simplifying network security device management, the company has consistently adapted to the changing landscape of cybersecurity. Proactive Network Security In its early years, AlgoSec focused on providing a comprehensive view of network security configurations, emphasizing compliance, risk assessment, and optimization. Recognizing the limitations of a reactive approach, AlgoSec pivoted to develop a workflow-based ticketing system, enabling proactive assessment of traffic changes against risk and compliance. Cloud-Native Security As organizations transitioned to hybrid and cloud environments, AlgoSec expanded its capabilities to include cloud-native security controls. Today, AlgoSec seamlessly manages public cloud platforms such as Cisco ACI, NSX, AWS, GCP, and Azure, ensuring a unified security posture across diverse infrastructures. Application Connectivity Discovery A recent breakthrough for AlgoSec is its focus on helping customers navigate the challenges of migrating applications to public or private clouds. The emphasis lies in discovering and mapping application flows within the network infrastructure, addressing the crucial need for maintaining control and communication channels. This discovery process is facilitated by AlgoSec’s built-in solution or by importing data from third-party micro-segmentation solutions like Cisco Secure Workloads, Guardicore, or Illumio. Importance of Application Connectivity Why is discovering and mapping application connectivity crucial? Applications are the lifeblood of organizations, driving business functions and, from a technical standpoint, influencing decisions related to firewall rule decommissioning, cloud migration, micro-segmentation, and zero-trust frameworks. Compliance requirements further emphasize the necessity of maintaining a clear understanding of application connectivity flows. Enforcing Micro-Segmentation with AlgoSec Micro-segmentation, a vital network security approach, aims to secure workloads independently by creating security zones per machine. AlgoSec plays a pivotal role in enforcing micro-segmentation by providing a detailed understanding of application connectivity flows. Through its discovery modules, AlgoSec ingests data and translates it into access controls, simplifying the management of north-south and east-west traffic within SDN-based micro-segmentation solutions. Secure Application Connectivity Migration In the complex landscape of public cloud and application migration, AlgoSec emerges as a solution to ensure success. Recognizing the challenges organizations face, AlgoSec’s AutoDiscovery capabilities enable a smooth migration process. By automatically generating security policy change requests, AlgoSec simplifies a traditionally complex and risky process, ensuring business services remain uninterrupted while meeting compliance requirements. In conclusion, AlgoSec’s technological journey reflects a commitment to adaptability and innovation, addressing the ever-changing demands of network security. From its origins in network device management to its pivotal role in cloud security and application connectivity, AlgoSec continues to be a key player in shaping the future of cybersecurity. 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

A firewall that runs 24/7 requires a good amount of computing resources. Especially if you are running a complex firewall system, your... Firewall Change Management Firewall performance tuning: Common issues & resolutions Asher Benbenisty 2 min read Asher Benbenisty 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 A firewall that runs 24/7 requires a good amount of computing resources. Especially if you are running a complex firewall system, your performance overhead can actually slow down the overall throughput of your systems and even affect the actual functionalities of your firewall. Here is a brief overview of common firewall performance issues and the best practices to help you tune your firewall performance . 7 Common performance issues with firewalls Since firewall implementations often include some networking hardware usage, they can slow down network performance and traffic bottlenecks within your network. 1. High CPU usage The more network traffic you deal with, the more CPU time your server will need. When a firewall is running, it adds to CPU utilization since the processes need more power to execute the network packet analysis and subsequent firewall This may lead to firewall failures in extreme cases where the firewall process is completely shut down or the system experiences a noticeable lag affecting overall functionality. A simple way to resolve this issue would be to increase the hardware capabilities. But as that might not be a viable solution in all cases, you must consider minimizing the network traffic with router-level filtering or decreasing the server load with optimized 2. Route flapping Router misconfiguration or hardware failure can cause frequent advertising of alternate routes. This will increase the load on your resources and thus lead to performance issues. 3. Network errors and discards A high number of error packets or discarded packets can burden your resources as these packets are still processed by the firewall even when they ultimately turn out to be dud in terms of traffic. Such errors usually happen when routers try to reclaim some buffer space. 4. Congested network access link Network access link congestion can be caused due to a bottleneck happening between a high bandwidth IP Network and LAN. When there is high traffic, the router queue gets filled and causes jitters and time delays. When there are more occurrences of jitter, more packets are dropped on the receiving end, causing a degradation of the quality of audio or video being transmitted. This issue is often observed in VoIP systems . 5. Network link failure When packet loss continues for over a few seconds, it can be deemed a network link failure. While re-establishing the link could take just a few seconds, the routers may already be looking for alternate routes. Frequent network link failures can be a symptom of power supply or hardware issues. 6. Misconfigurations Software or hardware misconfigurations can easily lead to overloading of LAN, and such a burden can easily affect the system’s performance. Situations like these can be caused by misconfigured multicast traffic and can affect the overall data transfer rate of all users. 7. Loss of packets Loss of packets can cause timeout errors, retransmissions, and network slowness. Loss of packets can happen due to delayed operations, server slowdown, misconfiguration, and several other reasons. How to fine-Tune your firewall performance Firewall performance issues can be alleviated with hardware upgrades. But as you scale up, upgrading hardware at an increasing scale would mean high expenses and an overall inefficient system. A much better cost-effective way to resolve firewall performance issues would be to figure out the root cause and make the necessary updates and fixes to resolve the issues. Before troubleshooting, you should know the different types of firewall optimization techniques: Hardware updates Firewall optimization can be easily achieved through real-time hardware updates and upgrades. This is a straightforward method where you add more capacity to your computing resources to handle the processing load of running a firewall. General best practices This involves the commonly used universal best practices that ensure optimized firewall configurations and working. Security policies, data standard compliances , and keeping your systems up to date and patched will all come under this category of optimizations. Any optimization effort generally applied to all firewalls can be classified under this type. Vendor specific Optimization techniques designed specifically to fit the requirements of a particular vendor are called vendor-specific optimizations. This calls for a good understanding of your protected systems, how traffic flows, and how to minimize the network load. Model specific Similar to vendor-specific optimizations, model-specific optimization techniques consider the particular network model you use. For instance, the Cisco network models usually have debugging features that can slow down performance. Similarly, the PIX 6.3 model uses TCP intercept that can slow down performance. Based on your usage and requirements, you can turn the specific features on or off to boost your firewall performance. Best practices to resolve the usual firewall performance bottlenecks Here are some proven best practices to improve your firewall’s performance. Additionally, you might also want to read Max Power by Timothy Hall for a wholesome understanding. Standardize your network traffic Any good practice starts with rectifying your internal errors and vulnerabilities. Ensure all your outgoing traffic aligns with your cybersecurity standards and regulations. Weed out any application or server sending out requests that don’t comply with the security regulations and make the necessary updates to streamline your network. Router level filtering To reduce the load on your firewall applications and hardware, you can use router-level network traffic filtering. This can be achieved by making a Standard Access List filter from the previously dropped requests and then routing them using this list for any other subsequent request attempts. This process can be time-consuming but is simple and effective in avoiding bottlenecks. Avoid using complicated firewall rules Complex firewall rules can be resource heavy and place a lot of burden on your firewall performance. Simplifying this ruleset can boost your performance to a great extent. You should also regularly audit these rules and remove unused rules. To help you clean up firewall rules, you can start with Algosec’s firewall rule cleanup and performance optimization tool . Test your firewall Regular testing and auditing of your firewall can help you identify any probable causes for performance slowdown. You can collect information on your network traffic and use it to optimize how your firewall operates. You can use Algosec’s firewall auditor services to take care of all your auditing requirements and ensure compliance at all levels. Make use of common network troubleshooting tools To analyze the network traffic and troubleshoot your performance issues, you can use common network tools like netstat and iproute2. These tools provide you with network stats and in-depth information about your traffic that can be well utilized to improve your firewall configurations. You can also use check point servers and tools like SecureXL, and CoreXL. Follow a well-defined security policy As with any security implementation, you should always have a well-defined security policy before configuring your firewalls. This gives you a good idea of how your firewall configurations are made and lets you simplify them easily. Change management is also essential to your firewall policy management process . You should also document all the changes, reviews, and updates you make to your security policies to trace any problematic configurations and keep your systems updated against evolving cyber threats. A good way to mitigate security policy risks is to utilize AlgoSec. Network segmentation Segmentation can help boost performance as it helps isolate network issues and optimize bandwidth allocation. It can also help to reduce the traffic and thus further improve the performance. Here is a guide on network segmentation you can check out. Automation Make use of automation to update your firewall settings. Automating the firewall setup process can greatly reduce setup errors and help you make the process more efficient and less time-consuming. You can also extend the automation to configure routers and switches. Algobot is an intelligent chatbot that can effortlessly handle network security policy management tasks for you. Handle broadcast traffic efficiently You can create optimized rules to handle broadcast traffic without logging to improve performance. Make use of optimized algorithms Some firewalls, such as the Cisco Pix, ASA 7.0 , Juniper network models, and FWSM 4.0 are designed to match packets without dependency on rule order. You can use these firewalls; if not, you will have to consider the rule order to boost the performance. To improve performance, you should place the most commonly used policy rules on the top of the rule base. The SANS Institute recommends the following order of rules: Anti-spoofing filters User permit rules Management permit rules Noise drops Deny and alert Deny and log DNS objects Try to avoid using DNS objects that need DNS lookup services. This slows down the firewall. Router interface design Matching the router interface with your firewall interface is a good way to ensure good performance. If your router interface is half duplex and the firewall is full duplex, the mismatch can cause some performance issues. Similarly, you should try to match the switch interface with your firewall interface, making them report on the same speed and mode. For gigabit switches, you should set up your firewall to automatically adjust speed and duplex mode. You can replace the cables and patch panel ports if you cannot match the interfaces. VPN If you are using VPN and firewalls, you can separate them to remove some VPN traffic and processing load from the firewall and thus increase the performance. UTM features You can remove the additional UTM features like Antivirus, and URL scanning features from the firewall to make it more efficient. This does not mean you completely eliminate any additional security features. Instead, just offload them from the firewall to make the firewall work faster and take up fewer computing resources. Keep your systems patched and updated Always keep your systems, firmware, software, and third-party applications updated and patched to deal with all known vulnerabilities. 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

Best practices for network security governance in AWS and hybrid network environments Webinars Cut the Clutter with ChatOps & Improve Network Security IT teams’ alerts are overflowing with questions about network status from coworkers. Say no to overwhelming alerts in multiple applications. There is a better way to get critical answers about the state of your network: ChatOps. ChatOps, using your existing chat tools such as Slack or Microsoft Teams, can get the crucial questions answered, and not have to track multiple apps separately. In this webinar, Dania Ben Peretz, Product Manager at AlgoSec, demonstrates the latest in AlgoBot and show how to: Get immediate answers to pressing network traffic questions Get immediate answers about whether your business applications are secure Decrease the time it takes to resolve critical security incidents Empower your business and application teams to drive innovation Ensure that your network and security teams are focusing on the most critical issues Efficiently manage security by transparently collaborating with IT, Security, Network and DevOps teams All while saving time, reducing resources, and cutting the clutter. May 13, 2020 Dania Ben Peretz Product Manager Relevant resources AlgoBot: Your Network Security Policy Management Assistant Watch Video Boosting Network Security with ChatOps Keep Reading A Siri for network security: the benefits of AlgoBot and ChatOps Keep Reading 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

Webinars Network Security Vision with Application Visibility | Live discussion and demo You’re always making changes to your network, commissioning and decommissioning servers, moving data to and from the cloud, revising application connectivity settings and policies, and/or adding and removing business applications. But how do you make sure that you are not running blind and making network configuration mistakes that may lead to outages? Are you leaving firewall openings for unused applications, making your network vulnerable to insider threats or outside attackers? Stop running blind. Expand your vision with application visibility. With application visibility, you associate your traffic flows to the related business applications, enhance network visibility, improve troubleshooting, gain enhanced compliance reports, and even save time while improving security on your network. In this webinar, Avishai Wool, AlgoSec’s co-founder and CTO, and Yoni Geva, AlgoSec’s Product Manager, will demonstrate – in a live demo – how to overcome these challenges and ensure business continuity through application visibility. Join the webinar and learn how to: Associate your business applications with your security policy rules. Identify the network traffic relevant for each application. Identify hidden risks and vulnerabilities in your applications. Associate compliance violations with relevant business applications. Improve troubleshooting by identifying affected applications. Better document the applications on your network. March 5, 2020 Prof. Avishai Wool CTO & Co Founder AlgoSec Yoni Geva Product Manager Relevant resources Adopting an application-centric approach to security management: getting business leaders interested Keep Reading The Need for Application-Centric Security Policy Management Keep Reading 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

The cloud's come a long way, baby.  Remember when it was just a buzzword tossed around in boardrooms? Now, it's the engine powering our... Cloud Network Security The shocking truth about Network Cloud Security in 2025 Iris Stein 2 min read Iris Stein 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 2/10/25 Published The cloud's come a long way, baby. Remember when it was just a buzzword tossed around in boardrooms? Now, it's the engine powering our digital world. But this rapid evolution has left many cloud network security managers grappling with a new reality – and a bit of an identity crisis. Feeling the heat? You're not alone. The demands on cloud security professionals are skyrocketing. We're expected to be masters of hybrid environments, navigate a widening skills gap, and stay ahead of threats evolving at warp speed. Let's break down the challenges: Hybrid is the new normal: Gartner predicts that by 2025, a whopping 90% of organizations will be running hybrid cloud environments. This means juggling the complexities of both on-premises and cloud security, demanding a broader skillset and a more holistic approach. Forget silos – we need to be fluent in both worlds. The skills gap is a chasm: (ISC)²'s 2022 Cybersecurity Workforce Study revealed a global cybersecurity workforce gap of 3.4 million. This talent shortage puts immense pressure on existing security professionals to do more with less. We're stretched thin, and something's gotta give. Threats are evolving faster than ever: The cloud introduces new attack vectors and vulnerabilities we haven't even imagined yet. McAfee reported a staggering 630% increase in cloud-native attacks in 2022. Staying ahead of these threats requires constant vigilance, continuous learning, and a proactive mindset. Level up your cloud security game So, how can you thrive in this chaotic environment and ensure your career (and your company's security posture) doesn't go down in flames? Here's your survival guide: Automate or die: Manual processes are a relic of the past. Embrace automation tools to manage complex security policies, respond to threats faster, and free up your time for strategic initiatives. Think of it as your force multiplier in the fight against complexity. Become a cloud-native ninja: Deepen your understanding of cloud platforms like AWS, Azure, and GCP. Master their security features, best practices, and quirks. The more you know, the more you can protect. Sharpen your soft skills: Technical chops alone won't cut it. Communication, collaboration, and problem-solving are critical. You need to clearly articulate security risks to stakeholders, build bridges with different teams, and drive solutions. Never stop learning: The cloud is a moving target. Continuous learning is no longer optional – it's essential. Attend conferences, devour online courses, and stay informed about the latest security trends and technologies. Complacency is the enemy. Introducing AlgoSec Cloud Enterprise (ACE): Your cloud security wingman Let's face it, managing security across a hybrid cloud environment can feel like herding cats. That's where AlgoSec Cloud Enterprise (ACE) steps in. ACE is a comprehensive cloud network security suite that gives you the visibility, automation, and control you need to secure your applications and keep the business humming. Gain X-Ray Vision into Your Hybrid Cloud: See everything, know everything. ACE gives you complete visibility across your entire environment, from on-premises servers to cloud platforms. No more blind spots, no more surprises. Enforce Security Policies Like a Boss: Consistent security policies are the bedrock of a strong security posture. ACE makes it easy to define and enforce policies across all your applications, no matter where they reside. Conquer Compliance with Confidence: Staying compliant can feel like a never-ending struggle. ACE simplifies compliance management across your hybrid environment, helping you meet regulatory requirements without breaking a sweat. Accelerate App Delivery Without Sacrificing Security: In today's fast-paced world, speed is key. ACE empowers you to accelerate application delivery without compromising security. Move fast, break things – but not your security posture. Proactive Risk Prevention: ACE goes beyond basic security checks with over 150+ network security policy risk checks, proactively identifying and mitigating potential vulnerabilities before they can be exploited. Ready to unlock the true power of the cloud while fortifying your defenses? Learn more about AlgoSec Cloud Enterprise today and take control of your cloud security destiny. 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

Webinars Build and Enforce Defense in-Depth | An AlgoSec-Cisco Tetration webinar Micro-segmentation protects your workloads and applications against lateral movement of malware and limits the spread of insider threats, yet successfully implementing a defense-in-depth strategy using micro-segmentation is complicated. In this technical webinar, Jothi Prakash Prabakaran, Senior Product Manager at Cisco, and Yoni Geva, Product Manager at AlgoSec, will provide a step-by-step blueprint to implementing this strategy using the micro-segmentation capabilities of Cisco Tetration and network security policy management capabilities of AlgoSec. They will demonstrate how to tighten your security posture within the data center using an allow-list approach. They will also show how to enforce these granular micro-segmented policies enforced on the workloads with Cisco Tetration and a coarse grain policy enforced across the infrastructure through AlgoSec network security policy management. Watch the webinar to learn how to: Understand your business applications to create your micro-segmentation policy Validate your micro-segmentation policy is accurate Enforce these granular policies on workloads and summarized policies across your infrastructure Use risk and vulnerability analysis to tighten your workload and network security Identify and manage security risk and compliance in your micro-segmented environment July 22, 2020 Jothi Prakash Prabakaran Yoni Geva Product Manager Relevant resources AlgoSec Joins Cisco’s Global Price List Keep Reading Introducing Deeper Integration with Cisco’s Tetration Keep Reading Application Segmentation With Cisco Tetration and AlgoSec Read Document 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

So we’ve made it to the last part of our blog series on PCI 3.0 Requirement 1. The first two posts covered Requirement 1.1... Auditing and Compliance Avoid the Traps: What You Need to Know About PCI Requirement 1 (Part 3) Matthew Pascucci 2 min read Matthew Pascucci 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 9/9/14 Published So we’ve made it to the last part of our blog series on PCI 3.0 Requirement 1. The first two posts covered Requirement 1.1 (appropriate firewall and router configurations) and 1.2 (restrict connections between untrusted networks and any system components in the cardholder data environment) and in this final post we’ll discuss key requirements of Requirements 1.3 -1.5 and I’ll again give you my insight to help you understand the implications of these requirements and how to comply with them. Implement a DMZ to limit inbound traffic to only system components that provide authorized publicly accessible services, protocols, and ports (1.3.1.): The DMZ is used to publish services such as HTTP and HTTPS to the internet and allow external entities to access these services. But the key point here is that you don’t need to open every port on the DMZ. This requirement verifies that a company has a DMZ implemented and that inbound activity is limited to only the required protocols and ports. Limit inbound Internet traffic to IP addresses within the DMZ (1.3.2): This is a similar requirement to 1.3.1, however instead of looking for protocols, the requirement focuses on the IPs that the protocol is able to access. In this case, just because you might need HTTP open to a web server, doesn’t mean that all systems should have external port 80 open to inbound traffic. Do not allow any direct connections inbound or outbound for traffic between the Internet and the cardholder data environment (1.3.3): This requirement verifies that there isn’t unfiltered access, either going into the CDE or leaving it, which means that all traffic that traverses this network must pass through a firewall. All unwanted traffic should be blocked and all allowed traffic should be permitted based on an explicit source/destination/protocol. There should never be a time that someone can enter or leave the CDE without first being inspected by a firewall of some type. Implement anti-spoofing measures to detect and block forged source IP addresses from entering the network (1.3.4): In an attempt to bypass your firewall, cyber attackers will try and spoof packets using the internal IP range of your network to make it look like the request originated internally. Enabling the IP spoofing feature on your firewall will help prevent these types of attacks. Do not allow unauthorized outbound traffic from the cardholder data environment to the Internet (1.3.5): Similar to 1.3.3, this requirement assumes that you don’t have direct outbound access to the internet without a firewall. However in the event that a system has filtered egress access to the internet the QSA will want to understand why this access is needed, and whether there are controls in place to ensure that sensitive data cannot be transmitted outbound. Implement stateful inspection, also known as dynamic packet filtering (1.3.6): If you’re running a modern firewall this feature is most likely already configured by default. With stateful inspection, the firewall maintains a state table which includes all the connections that traverse the firewall, and it knows if there’s a valid response from the current connection. It is used to stop attackers from trying to trick a firewall into initiating a request that didn’t previously exist. Place system components that store cardholder data (such as a database) in an internal network zone, segregated from the DMZ and other untrusted networks (1.3.7): Attackers are looking for your card holder database. Therefore, it shouldn’t be stored within the DMZ. The DMZ should be considered an untrusted network and segregated from the rest of the network. By having the database on the internal network provides another layer of protection against unwanted access. [Also see my suggestions for designing and securing you DMZ in my previous blog series: The Ideal Network Security Perimeter Design: Examining the DMZ Do not disclose private IP addresses and routing information to unauthorized parties (1.3.8): There should be methods in place to prevent your internal IP address scheme from being leaked outside your company. Attackers are looking for any information on how to breach your network, and giving them your internal address scheme is just one less thing they need to learn. You can stop this by using NAT, proxy servers, etc. to limit what can be seen from the outside. Install personal firewall software on any mobile and/or employee-owned devices that connect to the Internet when outside the network (for example, laptops used by employees), and which are also used to access the network (1.4): Mobile devices, such as laptops, that can connect to both the internal network and externally, should have a personal firewall configured with rules that prevent malicious software or attackers from communicating with the device. These firewalls need to be configured so that their rulebase can never be stopped or changed by anyone other than an administrator. Ensure that security policies and operational procedures for managing firewalls are documented, in use, and known to all affected parties (1.5): There needs to be a unified policy regarding firewall maintenance including how maintenance procedures are performed, who has access to the firewall and when maintenance is scheduled. Well, that’s it! Hopefully, my posts have given you a better insight into what is actually required in Requirement 1 and what you need to do to comply with it. 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... 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The aim of this post is to provide a very high-level illustration of the DNS Tunneling method used in the SolarWinds supply chain attack.... Cloud Security DNS Tunneling In The SolarWinds Supply Chain Attack Rony Moshkovich 2 min read Rony Moshkovich 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 12/23/20 Published The aim of this post is to provide a very high-level illustration of the DNS Tunneling method used in the SolarWinds supply chain attack . An Attacker compromises SolarWinds company and trojanizes a DLL that belongs to its software. Some of the customers receive the malicious DLL as an update for the SolarWinds Orion software. “Corporation XYZ” receives the malicious and digitally signed DLL via update. SolarWinds Orion software loads the malicious DLL as a plugin. Once activated, the DLL reads a local domain name “local.corp-xyz.com” (a fictious name). The malware encrypts the local domain name and adds it to a long domain name. The long domain name is queried with a DNS server (can be tapped by a passive DNS sensor). The recursive DNS server is not authorized to resolve avsvmcloud[.]com, so it forwards the request. An attacker-controlled authoritative DNS server resolves the request with a wildcard A record. The Attacker checks the victim’s name, then adds a CNAME record for the victim’s domain name. The new CNAME record resolves the long domain name into an IP of an HTTP-based C2 server. The malicious DLL downloads and executes the 2nd stage malware (TearDrop, Cobalt Strike Beacon). A Threat Researcher accesses the passive DNS (pDNS) records. One of the long domain names from the pDNS records is decrypted back into “local.corp-xyz.com”. The Researcher deducts that the decrypted local domain name belongs to “Corporation XYZ”. 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

CIS provides best practices to help companies like yours improve their cloud security posture. You’ll protect your systems against... Cloud Security What is CIS Compliance? (and How to Apply CIS Benchmarks) Rony Moshkovich 2 min read Rony Moshkovich 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 6/20/23 Published CIS provides best practices to help companies like yours improve their cloud security posture. You’ll protect your systems against various threats by complying with its benchmark standards. This post will walk you through CIS benchmarks, their development, and the kinds of systems they apply to. We will also discuss the significance of CIS compliance and how Prevasio may help you achieve it. What are CIS benchmarks? CIS stands for Center for Internet Security . It’s a nonprofit organization that aims to improve companies’ cybersecurity readiness and response. Founded in 2000, the CIS comprises cybersecurity experts from diverse backgrounds. They have the common goal of enhancing cybersecurity resilience and reducing security threats. CIS compliance means adhering to the Center for Internet Security (CIS) benchmarks. CIS benchmarks are best practices and guidelines to help you build a robust cloud security strategy. These CIS benchmarks give a detailed road map for protecting a business’s IT infrastructure. They also encompass various platforms, such as web servers or cloud bases. The CIS benchmarks are frequently called industry standards. They are normally in line with other regulatory organizations, such as ISO, NIST, and HIPAA. Many firms adhere to CIS benchmarks to ensure they follow industry standards. They also do this to show their dedication to cybersecurity to clients and stakeholders. The CIS benchmarks and CIS controls are always tested through on-premises analysis by leading security firms. This ensures that CIS releases standards that are effective at mitigating cyber risks. How are the CIS benchmarks developed? A community of cybersecurity professionals around the world cooperatively develops CIS benchmarks. They exchange their knowledge, viewpoints, and experiences on a platform provided by CIS. The end result is consensus-based best practices that will protect various IT systems. The CIS benchmark development process typically involves the following steps: 1. Identify the technology: The first step is to identify the system or technology that has to be protected. This encompasses a range of applications. It can be an operating system, database, web server, or cloud environment. 2. Define the scope: The following stage is to specify the benchmark’s parameters. It involves defining what must be implemented for the technology to be successfully protected. They may include precise setups, guidelines, and safeguards. 3. Develop recommendations: Next, a community of cybersecurity experts will identify ideas for safeguarding the technology. These ideas are usually based on current best practices, norms, and guidelines. They may include the minimum security requirements and measures to be taken. 4. Expert consensus review: Thereafter, a broader group of experts and stakeholders assess the ideas. They will offer comments and suggestions for improvement. This level aims to achieve consensus on the appropriate technical safeguards. 5. Pilot testing: The benchmark is then tested in a real-world setting. At this point, CIS aims to determine its efficacy and spot any problems that need fixing. 6. Publication and maintenance: The CIS will publish the benchmark once it has been improved and verified. The benchmark will constantly be evaluated and updated to keep it current and useful for safeguarding IT systems. What are the CIS benchmark levels? CIS benchmarks are divided into three levels based on the complexity of an IT system. It’s up to you to choose the level you need based on the complexity of your IT environment. Each level of the benchmarks offers better security recommendations than the previous level. The following are the distinct categories that benchmarks are divided into: Level 1 This is the most basic level of CIS standards. It requires organizations to set basic security measures to reduce cyber threats. Some CIS guidelines at this level include password rules, system hardening, and risk management. The level 1 CIS benchmarks are ideal for small businesses with basic IT systems. Level 2 This is the intermediate level of the CIS benchmarks. It is suitable for small to medium businesses that have complex IT systems. The Level 2 CIS standards offer greater security recommendations to your cloud platform. It has guidelines for network segmentation, authentication, user permissions, logging, and monitoring. At this level, you’ll know where to focus your remediation efforts if you spot a vulnerability in your system. Level 2 also covers data protection topics like disaster recovery plans and encryption. Level 3 Level 3 is the most advanced level of the CIS benchmarks. It offers the highest security recommendations compared to the other two. Level 3 also offers the Security Technical Implementation Guide (STIG) profiles for companies. STIG are configuration guidelines developed by the Defense Information Systems Agency. These security standards help you meet US government requirements. This level is ideal for large organizations with the most sensitive and vital data. These are companies that must protect their IT systems from complex security threats. It offers guidelines for real-time security analytics, safe cloud environment setups, and enhanced threat detection. What types of systems do CIS benchmarks apply to? The CIS benchmarks are applicable to many IT systems used in a cloud environment. The following are examples of systems that CIS benchmarks can apply to: Operating systems: CIS benchmarks offer standard secure configurations for common operating systems, including Amazon Linux, Windows Servers, macOS, and Unix. They address network security, system hardening, and managing users and accounts. Cloud infrastructure: CIS benchmarks can help protect various cloud infrastructures, including public, private, and multi-cloud. They recommend guidelines that safeguard cloud systems by various cloud service providers. For example, network security, access restrictions, and data protection. The benchmarks cover cloud systems such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, IBM, Oracle, and Google Cloud Platform. Server software: CIS benchmarks provide secure configuration baselines for various servers, including databases (SQL), DNS, Web, and authentication servers. The baselines cover system hardening, patch management, and access restrictions. Desktop software: Desktop apps such as music players, productivity programs, and web browsers can be weak points in your IT system. CIS benchmarks offer guidelines to help you protect your desktop software from vulnerabilities. They may include patch management, user and account management, and program setup. Mobile devices: The CIS benchmarks recommend safeguarding endpoints such as tablets and mobile devices. The standards include measures for data protection, account administration, and device configuration. Network devices: CIS benchmarks also involve network hardware, including switches, routers, and firewalls. Some standards for network devices include access restrictions, network segmentation, logging, and monitoring. Print devices: CIS benchmarks also cover print devices like printers and scanners. The CIS benchmark baselines include access restrictions, data protection, and firmware upgrades. Why is CIS compliance important? CIS compliance helps you maintain secure IT systems. It does this by helping you adhere to globally recognized cybersecurity standards. CIS benchmarks cover various IT systems and product categories, such as cloud infrastructures. So by ensuring CIS benchmark compliance, you reduce the risk of cyber threats to your IT systems. Achieving CIS compliance has several benefits: 1. Your business will meet internationally accepted cybersecurity standards . The CIS standards are developed through a consensus review process. This means they are founded on the most recent threat intelligence and best practices. So you can rely on the standards to build a solid foundation for securing your IT infrastructure. 2. It can help you meet regulatory compliance requirements for other important cybersecurity frameworks . CIS standards can help you prove that you comply with other industry regulations. This is especially true for companies that handle sensitive data or work in regulated sectors. CIS compliance is closely related to other regulatory compliances such as NIST, HIPAA, and PCI DSS. By implementing the CIS standards, you’ll conform to the applicable industry regulations. 3. Achieving CIS continuous compliance can help you lower your exposure to cybersecurity risks . In the process, safeguard your vital data and systems. This aids in preventing data breaches, malware infections, and other cyberattacks. Such incidents could seriously harm your company’s operations, image, and financial situation. A great example is the Scottish Oil giant, SSE. It had to pay €10M in penalties for failing to comply with a CIS standard in 2013. 4. Abiding by the security measures set by CIS guidelines can help you achieve your goals faster as a business. The guidelines cover the most important and frequently attacked areas of IT infrastructure. 5. CIS compliance enhances your general security posture. It also decreases the time and resources needed to maintain security. It does this by providing uniform security procedures across various platforms. How to achieve CIS compliance? Your organization can achieve CIS compliance by conforming to the guidelines of the CIS benchmarks and CIS controls. Each CIS benchmark usually includes a description of a recommended configuration. It also usually contains a justification for the implementation of the configuration. Finally, it offers step-by-step instructions on how to carry out the recommendation manually. While the standards may seem easy to implement manually, they may consume your time and increase the chances of human errors. That is why most security teams prefer using tools to automate achieving and maintaining CIS compliance. CIS hardened images are great examples of CIS compliance automation tools. They are pre-configured images that contain all the necessary recommendations from CIS benchmarks. You can be assured of maintaining compliance by using these CIS hardened images in your cloud environment. You can also use CSPM tools to automate achieving and maintaining CIS compliance. Cloud Security Posture Management tools automatically scan for vulnerabilities in your cloud. They then offer detailed instructions on how to fix those issues effectively. This way, your administrators don’t have to go through the pain of doing manual compliance checks. You save time and effort by working with a CSPM tool. Use Prevasio to monitor CIS compliance. Prevasio is a cloud-native application platform (CNAPP) that can help you achieve and maintain CIS compliance in various setups, including Azure, AWS, and GCP. A CNAPP is basically a CSPM tool on steroids. It combines the features of CSPM, CIEM, IAM, and CWPP tools into one solution. This means you’ll get clearer visibility of your cloud environment from one platform. Prevasio constantly assesses your system against the latest version of CIS benchmarks. It then generates reports showing areas that need adjustments to keep your cloud security cyber threat-proof. This saves you time as you won’t have to do the compliance checks manually. Prevasio also has a robust set of features to help you comply with standards from other regulatory bodies. So using this CSPM tool, you’ll automatically comply with HIPAA, PCI DSS, and GDPR. Prevasio offers strong vulnerability evaluation and management capabilities besides CIS compliance monitoring. It uses cutting-edge scanning algorithms to find known flaws, incorrect setups, and other security problems in IT settings. This can help you identify and fix vulnerabilities before fraudsters can exploit them. The bottom line on CIS compliance Achieving and maintaining CIS compliance is essential in today’s continually changing threat landscape . However, doing the compliance checks manually takes time. You may not also spot weaknesses in your cloud security in time. This means that you need to automate your CIS compliance. And what better solution than a cloud security posture management tool like Prevasio? Prevasio is the ideal option for observing compliance and preventing malware that attack surfaces in cloud assets. Prevasio offers a robust security platform to help you achieve CIS compliance and maintain a secure IT environment. This platform is agentless, meaning it doesn’t run on the cloud like most of its competitors. So you save a lot in costs every time Prevasio runs a scan. Prevaiso also conducts layer analysis. It helps you spot the exact line of code where the problem is rather than give a general area. In the process, saving you time spent identifying and solving critical threats. Try Prevasio today! 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

How To Reduce Attack Surface: 6 Proven Tactics Security-oriented organizations continuously identify, monitor, and manage... Cyber Attacks & Incident Response How To Reduce Attack Surface: 6 Proven Tactics 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 12/20/23 Published How To Reduce Attack Surface: 6 Proven Tactics Security-oriented organizations continuously identify, monitor, and manage internet-connected assets to protect them from emerging attack vectors and potential vulnerabilities. Security teams go through every element of the organization’s security posture – from firewalls and cloud-hosted assets to endpoint devices and entry points – looking for opportunities to reduce security risks. This process is called attack surface management. It provides a comprehensive view into the organization’s cybersecurity posture, with a neatly organized list of entry points, vulnerabilities, and weaknesses that hackers could exploit in a cyberattack scenario. Attack surface reduction is an important element of any organization’s overall cybersecurity strategy. Security leaders who understand the organization’s weaknesses can invest resources into filling the most critical gaps first and worrying about low-priority threats later. What assets make up your organization’s attack surface? Your organization’s attack surface is a detailed list of every entry point and vulnerability that an attacker could exploit to gain unauthorized access. The more entry points your network has, the larger its attack surface will be. Most security leaders divide their attention between two broad types of attack surfaces: The digital attack surface This includes all network equipment and business assets used to transfer, store, and communicate information. It is susceptible to phishing attempts , malware risks, ransomware attacks, and data breaches. Cybercriminals may infiltrate these kinds of assets by bypassing technical security controls, compromising unsecured apps or APIs, or guessing weak passwords. The physical attack surface This includes business assets that employees, partners, and customers interact with physically. These might include hardware equipment located inside data centers and USB access points. Even access control systems for office buildings and other non-cyber threats may be included. These assets can play a role in attacks that involve social engineering, insider threats, and other malicious actors who work in-person. Even though both of these attack surfaces are distinct, many of their security vulnerabilities and potential entry points overlap in real-life threat scenarios. For example, thieves might steal laptops from an unsecured retail location and leverage sensitive data on those devices to launch further attacks against the organization’s digital assets. Organizations that take steps to minimize their attack surface area can reduce the risks associated with this kind of threat. Known Assets, Unknown Assets, and Rogue Assets All physical and digital business assets fall into one of three categories: Known assets are apps, devices, and systems that the security team has authorized to connect to the organization’s network. These assets are included in risk assessments and they are protected by robust security measures, like network segmentation and strict permissions. Unknown assets include systems and web applications that the security team is not aware of. These are not authorized to access the network and may represent a serious security threat. Shadow IT applications may be part of this category, as well as employee-owned mobile devices storing sensitive data and unsecured IoT devices. Rogue assets connect to the network without authorization, but they are known to security teams. These may include unauthorized user accounts, misconfigured assets, and unpatched software. A major part of properly managing your organization’s attack surface involves the identification and remediation of these risks. Attack Vectors Explained: Minimize Risk by Following Potential Attack Paths When conducting attack surface analysis, security teams have to carefully assess the way threat actors might discover and compromise the organization’s assets while carrying out their attack. This requires the team to combine elements of vulnerability management with risk management , working through the cyberattack kill chain the way a hacker might. Some cybercriminals leverage technical vulnerabilities in operating systems and app integrations. Others prefer to exploit poor identity access management policies, or trick privileged employees into giving up their authentication credentials. Many cyberattacks involve multiple steps carried out by different teams of threat actors. For example, one hacker may specialize in gaining initial access to secured networks while another focuses on using different tools to escalate privileges. To successfully reduce your organization’s attack surface, you must follow potential attacks through these steps and discover what their business impact might be. This will provide you with the insight you need to manage newly discovered vulnerabilities and protect business assets from cyberattack. Some examples of common attack vectors include: API vulnerabilities. APIs allow organizations to automate the transfer of data, including scripts and code, between different systems. Many APIs run on third-party servers managed by vendors who host and manage the software for customers. These interfaces can introduce vulnerabilities that internal security teams aren’t aware of, reducing visibility into the organization’s attack surface. Unsecured software plugins. Plugins are optional add-ons that enhance existing apps by providing new features or functionalities. They are usually made by third-party developers who may require customers to send them data from internal systems. If this transfer is not secured, hackers may intercept it and use that information to attack the system. Unpatched software. Software developers continuously release security patches that address emerging threats and vulnerabilities. However, not all users implement these patches the moment they are released. This delay gives attackers a key opportunity to learn about the vulnerability (which is as easy as reading the patch changelog) and exploit it before the patch is installed. Misconfigured security tools. Authentication systems, firewalls, and other security tools must be properly configured in order to produce optimal security benefits. Attackers who discover misconfigurations can exploit those weaknesses to gain entry to the network. Insider threats. This is one of the most common attack vectors, yet it can be the hardest to detect. Any employee entrusted with sensitive data could accidentally send it to the wrong person, resulting in a data breach. Malicious insiders may take steps to cover their tracks, using their privileged permissions and knowledge of the organization to go unnoticed. 6 Tactics for Reducing Your Attack Surface 1. Implement Zero Trust The Zero Trust security model assumes that data breaches are inevitable and may even have already occurred. This adds new layers to the problems that attack surface management resolves, but it can dramatically improve overall resilience and preparedness. When you develop your security policies using the Zero Trust framework, you impose strong limits on what hackers can and cannot do after gaining initial access to your network. Zero Trust architecture blocks attackers from conducting lateral movement, escalating their privileges, and breaching critical data. For example, IoT devices are a common entry point into many networks because they don’t typically benefit from the same level of security that on-premises workstations receive. At the same time, many apps and systems are configured to automatically trust connections from internet-enabled sensors and peripheral devices. Under a Zero Trust framework, these connections would require additional authentication. The systems they connect to would also need to authenticate themselves before receiving data. Multi-factor authentication is another part of the Zero Trust framework that can dramatically improve operational security. Without this kind of authentication in place, most systems have to accept that anyone with the right username and password combination must be a legitimate user. In a compromised credential scenario, this is obviously not the case. Organizations that develop network infrastructure with Zero Trust principles in place are able to reduce the number of entry points their organization exposes to attackers and reduce the value of those entry points. If hackers do compromise parts of the network, they will be unable to quickly move between different segments of the network, and may be unable to stay unnoticed for long. 2. Remove Unnecessary Complexity Unknown assets are one of the main barriers to operational security excellence. Security teams can’t effectively protect systems, apps, and users they don’t have detailed information on. Any rogue or unknown assets the organization is responsible for are almost certainly attractive entry points for hackers. Arbitrarily complex systems can be very difficult to document and inventory properly . This is a particularly challenging problem for security leaders working for large enterprises that grow through acquisitions. Managing a large portfolio of acquired companies can be incredibly complex, especially when every individual company has its own security systems, tools, and policies to take into account. Security leaders generally don’t have the authority to consolidate complex systems on their own. However, you can reduce complexity and simplify security controls throughout the environment in several key ways: Reduce the organization’s dependence on legacy systems. End-of-life systems that no longer receive maintenance and support should be replaced with modern equivalents quickly. Group assets, users, and systems together. Security groups should be assigned on the basis of least privileged access, so that every user only has the minimum permissions necessary to achieve their tasks. Centralize access control management. Ad-hoc access control management quickly leads to unknown vulnerabilities and weaknesses popping up unannounced. Implement a robust identity access management system so you can create identity-based policies for managing user access. 3. Perform Continuous Vulnerability Monitoring Your organization’s attack surface is constantly changing. New threats are emerging, old ones are getting patched, and your IT environment is supporting new users and assets on a daily basis. Being able to continuously monitor these changes is one of the most important aspects of Zero Trust architecture . The tools you use to support attack surface management should also generate alerts when assets get exposed to known risks. They should allow you to confirm the remediation of detected risks, and provide ample information about the risks they uncover. Some of the things you can do to make this happen include: Investing in a continuous vulnerability monitoring solution. Vulnerability scans are useful for finding out where your organization stands at any given moment. Scheduling these scans to occur at regular intervals allows you to build a standardized process for vulnerability monitoring and remediation. Building a transparent network designed for visibility. Your network should not obscure important security details from you. Unfortunately, this is what many third-party security tools and services achieve. Make sure both you and your third-party security partners are invested in building observability into every aspect of your network. Prioritize security expenditure based on risk. Once you can observe the way users, data, and assets interact on the network, you can begin prioritizing security initiatives based on their business impact. This allows you to focus on high-risk tasks first. 4. Use Network Segmentation to Your Advantage Network segmentation is critical to the Zero Trust framework. When your organization’s different subnetworks are separated from one another with strictly protected boundaries, it’s much harder for attackers to travel laterally through the network. Limiting access between parts of the network helps streamline security processes while reducing risk. There are several ways you can segment your network. Most organizations already perform some degree of segmentation by encrypting highly classified data. Others enforce network segmentation principles when differentiating between production and live development environments. But in order for organizations to truly benefit from network segmentation, security leaders must carefully define boundaries between every segment and enforce authentication policies designed for each boundary. This requires in-depth knowledge of the business roles and functions of the users who access those segments, and the ability to configure security tools to inspect and enforce access control rules. For example, any firewall can block traffic between two network segments. A next-generation firewall can conduct identity-based inspection that allows traffic from authorized users through – even if they are using mobile devices the firewall has never seen before. 5. Implement a Strong Encryption Policy Encryption policies are an important element of many different compliance frameworks . HIPAA, PCI-DSS, and many other regulatory frameworks specify particular encryption policies that organizations must follow to be compliant. These standards are based on the latest research in cryptographic security and threat intelligence reports that outline hackers’ capabilities. Even if your organization is not actively seeking regulatory compliance, you should use these frameworks as a starting point for building your own encryption policy. Your organization’s risk profile is largely the same whether you seek regulatory certification or not – and accidentally deploying outdated encryption policies can introduce preventable vulnerabilities into an otherwise strong security posture. Your organization’s encryption policy should detail every type of data that should be encrypted and the cipher suite you’ll use to encrypt that data. This will necessarily include critical assets like customer financial data and employee payroll records, but it also includes relatively low-impact assets like public Wi-Fi connections at retail stores. In each case, you must implement a modern cipher suite that meets your organization’s security needs and replace legacy devices that do not support the latest encryption algorithms. This is particularly important in retail and office settings, where hardware routers, printers, and other devices may no longer support secure encryption. 6. Invest in Employee Training To truly build security resilience into any company culture, it’s critical to explain why these policies must be followed, and what kinds of threats they address. One of the best ways to administer standardized security compliance training is by leveraging a corporate learning platform across the organization, so that employees can actually internalize these security policies through scenario based training courses. It’s especially valuable in organizations suffering from consistent shadow IT usage. When employees understand the security vulnerabilities that shadow IT introduces into the environment, they’re far less likely to ignore security policies for the sake of convenience. Security simulations and awareness campaigns can have a significant impact on training initiatives. When employees know how to identify threat actors at work, they are much less likely to fall victim to them. However, actually achieving meaningful improvement may require devoting a great deal of time and energy into phishing simulation exercises over time – not everyone is going to get it right in the first month or two. These initiatives can also provide clear insight and data on how prepared your employees are overall. This data can make a valuable contribution to your attack surface reduction campaign. You may be able to pinpoint departments – or even individual users – who need additional resources and support to improve their resilience against phishing and social engineering attacks. Successfully managing this aspect of your risk assessment strategy will make it much harder for hackers to gain control of privileged administrative accounts. 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