Don’t get lost in your digital transformation journey

Securing a distributed enterprise today is a whole different ball game from a decade ago. Today, the boundary of an enterprise is not limited to a physical definition as it was in the past. In fact, we may as well declare that digital transformation has entirely removed all boundaries. This is bound to cause anxiety when it comes to securing an enterprise from the ever growing problem of cyber threats. In this blog, I highlight three guidelines that enterprises should consider during their digital transformation journey to ensure they don’t get lost.

1. Take a comprehensive approach to security
2. Think cloud-first and be hybrid-ready
3. Deploy flexible and future-proof solutions

Let’s take a look at each of these in detail.

Take a comprehensive approach to security

Securing an enterprise is a multidimensional problem. It involves securing networks, applications, users, and data. Traditionally, enterprises have tackled each of these separately, using point solutions like firewalls, secure web/e-mail gateways, cloud access security brokers, and data loss prevention. Understandably, these solutions were developed at different points in time and hence were deployed independently. However, today managing and maintaining each of them separately is not only costly but also less effective. In a boundary-less world, security practitioners must also break down the silos between security solutions and insist on a converged solution that accelerates deployment and incident resolution while reducing the total cost of ownership. At RSA 2019 in San Francisco, Forcepoint announced a converged security solution that does exactly that.

Think cloud-first and be hybrid-ready

When it comes to deploying a converged solution, a cloud-based deployment seems to be a natural fit. As applications and IT infrastructure are migrating to the cloud, securing them through a cloud-based service makes sense. In fact, a significant benefit of doing so is the single pane of glass management that simplifies security operations tremendously. When it comes to security enforcement, however, a hybrid deployment provides the most effective solution. Take for instance a scenario where real-time traffic needs to be routed directly to the Internet or network layer traffic needs a fast path decision at the point of origin. Routing all of that traffic to the cloud, only to be bypassed or dropped, not only affects user experience but also consumes unnecessary resources in the network. Further, a cloud-only solution does nothing to securely and directly connect branch offices to each other. Forcepoint’s SD-WAN enabled appliances deployed on-premises can work in conjunction with our cloud service to provide a hybrid solution that has both single pane of glass management and efficient as well as comprehensive security enforcement. Contrary to some vendors’ cloud-only approach, Forcepoint believes that a cloud-first and hybrid-ready approach enables the enterprise to take advantage of the best of both worlds.

Deploy flexible and future-proof solutions

All of what I’ve described makes sense now, but what about in the future? Say you deploy a converged hybrid solution today that addresses your network security and web security needs. Are you going to have to resort back to a point solution approach when you want to add cloud and data security? While there are “converged” solutions out there that are prone to this problem, Forcepoint converged security solution is based on a future-proof platform that is flexible enough to host a broad range of security technologies, including those from 3^rd party providers. The platform is in fact a security ecosystem that will leverage the Forcepoint native solutions as well as partner developed solutions to provide convergence on an ongoing basis.

At Forcepoint, we recognize that digital transformation is a journey.  And distributed enterprises going through this journey can count on a trusted advisor like Forcepoint to provide the long-term guidance and future-proof solutions.