Ruvi Kitov, CEO of Tufin, says automation can help prevent unwanted or unnecessary mistakes bound to arise by human mishaps or misconfigurations. And automation is influencing the rising interest of network security policy management (NSPM) solutions. I learned a great deal more after speaking with Kitov.
VMblog: What's contributing
to the rising demand of network security policy management (NSPM) tools?
Ruvi Kitov: Demand
from the business to change at an ever-increasing pace to stay ahead of the
competition and stay relevant with their customers has put enormous pressure on
IT and security teams to accommodate these requests while maintaining secure
and reliable connectivity for key applications and services.
Adoption
of cloud technologies exacerbates the issue by contributing to an already
complex array of vendors and technologies.
With
this increased complexity and a proliferation of applications, it has become
harder for IT teams to keep up with the influx of change requests. Traditional
change management approaches fall short as they are heavily labor intensive,
managed independently, and are not consistent with a centralized approach. Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs)
are also facing additional pressures due to the limited cybersecurity staff
they have to control and implement security policies. This added weight on the
CISO and other security professionals, coupled with the continued adoption of
cloud environments, has encouraged many companies to consider a new approach, network
security policy management (NSPM). By relying on a centralized network security
policy to determine firewall and network device configurations, compliance with
industry and internal regulations is made easier and can now be automated to streamline
security policy management.
VMblog: As networks grow in
complexity, what hidden challenges should IT pros be aware of?
Kitov: Lack of visibility and control over security
policies are major issues for IT pros, particularly when it comes to compliance.
Both
regulatory standards (PCI DSS, HIPAA, GDPR) and internal policy compliance
require all network connectivity be justified and documented, and every network
security change must be auditable and accountable. To make matters worse, most
companies aren't aware of how their current rules and policies are set, or
which ones are redundant and outdated. In other words, internal policies now
have the potential to interfere with meeting external compliance requirements.
To
overcome these challenges, the change management process must rely on a central
command center to ensure visibility, control, and compliance.
VMblog: How can automation
redefine traditional network security policy management?
Kitov: Automation takes over
some of the more labor-intensive tasks of the network security team, which
helps to ease the ongoing IT security workforce shortage. By automating the
management of security policies, organizations can implement changes in minutes
instead of days.
VMblog: What best practices
should organizations adopt as they look to the cloud?
Kitov: Visibility
and control in cloud computing is essential, but is often overlooked by
organizations adopting cloud platforms. Having the ability to centrally manage
the security policies of such a dynamic network infrastructure is a
game-changer in terms of increasing business agility, securing the network, and
saving time and budget.
VMblog: Finally, how is the
cybersecurity skills shortage impacting IT teams?
Kitov: CISOs and other
security professionals are concerned now more than ever about the practical
realities around ways they can extend their existing cybersecurity skills,
processes, and controls to enforce security policies. These concerns are
illustrated through the difficulties cybersecurity professionals have
coordinating security operations consistently across all departments.
In
fact, the shortage of cybersecurity professionals is now expected to grow to
more than 1.8 million workers globally by 2022, according to the Global Information
Security Workforce Study. As a result, CISOs and their teams are relying on
intelligent technologies to take some of the risk management and remediation
burden off their plate and free up their staffs' time to focus more on incident
response and prevention. Organizations should learn how to do more with
existing resources to help combat the skills shortage and network security
challenges.
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Ruvi Kitov is CEO and Co-Founder of Tufin, the leading provider of Security Policy Orchestration solutions. Since Tufin's founding in 2005, Ruvi has led the company through successful growth and product development, quickly gaining more than 1,700 customers among the world's largest enterprises; Tufin is recognized as a market leader with consistent revenue growth, resulting in top rankings in the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 and other awards.