According to Blue Coat, NSS research has uncovered that 25% to 35% of network traffic is encrypted within most modern organisations and according to Gartner by 2017 over half of the network attacks targeting enterprises will use encrypted traffic to evade controls.
Why the sudden and direct surge? The increasing pervasiveness of the Cloud and mobile-based services are a key culprit as they can create a blind spot in your enterprise that can be exploited by advanced threats and malware. So yes while they do offer significant benefits to enterprises, the threat of encrypted traffic that protects data from being viewed within these modern applications, can also prove to be a problem.
Today’s highly diversified threat landscape means that there will always be some type of malicious predator trying to feed upon the vulnerabilities within an organisation or user’s work environment. This in turn means that the “blind spot” created by SSL encrypted traffic must be managed and value added distributor Westcon brings local enterprises what they need to do this from its vendor partner Blue Coat.
“An encrypted traffic management (ETM) strategy that balances compliance and privacy requirements with security demands is essential. But privacy policies and compliance regulations vary geographically which means that businesses need flexible, customised and targeted decryption capabilities to meet their own needs,” says Andrew Potgieter, security solutions director at Westcon.
According to Blue Coat companies should consider five steps to getting started with a new security strategy, including: network and application assessment; the establishment of policies; an assessment of the current network security infrastructure for SSL visibility; an understanding of how to resolve the performance ramifications of SSL inspection; and lastly to plan, implement and monitor your business environment for improvement
“Blue Coat offers a range of encrypted traffic management solutions that meet the competing requirements of comprehensive security, high performance and effective, policy-based control. These solutions give any organisation complete visibility and control of SSL communications and potential threats while ensuring the privacy of customer and employee information,” ends Potgieter.
