Seven steps to easy network segmentation

Network segmentation is a network security tool that divides a network into different segments, each of which is a self-contained network. Network segmentation allows a company's experts to control the flow of data between segments according to the company's policies.

Enterprises often use segmentation to improve network security, improve monitoring, increase network performance, and identify vulnerabilities.

Introduction to Network Segmentation

Network segmentation is an organizational method that divides a company's network into multiple segments or subnets. Each segment and subnet is a self-contained network. This helps network administrators track the flow of data between different segments according to the company's needs.

Network segmentation is a tool that helps improve monitoring, boost performance, and improve the network security needs of an enterprise. Network segmentation can prevent unauthorized users and only allow a company to access valuable customer information.

Seven steps to segment your network

1. Identify the most valuable assets and data

Data and company assets drive the value and growth of your business.

Companies should analyze their networks to see which data and assets require the strongest protection. Valuable assets might include customer databases or employee information. To determine how to value data, there are three factors:

Growth: Observing data growth over time can help uncover patterns in current and future data.

Returns: If the asset is related to customer data, trust and money are important parts to consider.

Risk: The risk of losing data needs to be considered, which helps in finding the right way to partition valuable data.

2. Use tags to classify assets

Labeling assets as high, medium, or low importance helps companies determine and prioritize where to focus their cybersecurity efforts. To determine value, companies must consider confidentiality:

While not all data and assets have this level of confidentiality, it is a useful way to begin labeling them. These labels will define trust and protection within the network.

3. Detect the network and data flow and draw a graph

To detect and map network and data flows, companies should use labels to verify each step of the department's network to identify basic data and network flows.

When mapping data and networks, experts should pay attention to how data flows, how it is transmitted, and the methods used by companies.

Industry experts recommend reviewing all data flows to understand:

Northbound traffic refers to data flow leaving the corporate network.

East-west traffic refers to the flow of data between systems within the network boundary.

Southbound traffic refers to the data flow entering the company's network segment.

Network segmentation divides the network into different segments to improve network security.

4. Determine how the company wants to segment the network

Once the networks and data flows are collected, the company must determine how to segment the network. While firewalls are often the company's choice, they are not the only form of network segmentation:

Switches are the second most common method for segmenting a network. Companies often use switches internally and firewalls when dividing network zones.

Air gapping helps segment the two network connections distributed across two Internet providers.

Analog phone lines are an offline way to segment your network. Once deployed and configured, there is no risk of network intrusion.

A Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) is a broadcast domain that provides segmentation and isolation within a network and enables network design when deployed.

End-to-end encryption is another way to segment your network, but it also eliminates the need for segmentation in any way.

5. Deploy a network traffic segmentation gateway

Segment boundaries must be completed quickly to control access within each segment. All segments require access control. In order to have segment boundaries, all network traffic entering and leaving the segment must be transmitted through the gateway.

"When deployed properly, both segment boundaries and access controls provide a flexible way to enforce network segmentation, and traffic can be dynamically directed to application-aware firewalls as it travels across segments," the NSA said.

6. Develop a company-wide access control strategy

A company-wide access control strategy is critical because a cybercriminal or rogue employee could have unrestricted access.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) states: “Access control policy is a high-level requirement that specifies how access is managed and who can access information under what circumstances.”

Decisions about company-wide access control policies should be based on the principle of least privilege, using whatever applications or devices employees may have that are necessary to do their jobs.

7. Perform audits and reviews, and automate your network

After you deploy the segmentation gateway and create your corporate access control policy, you can build out the segmentation gateway. Defining network segmentation strategy does need to change as your corporate network changes.

Since changes occur frequently, companies need to perform audits and reviews and monitor the network, but this will also help the company understand if any risks or errors have occurred.

Network segmentation testing can be a network security audit, penetration test, vulnerability scan, and risk assessment.

Protect your company with network segmentation

Being able to separate network segments helps prevent data breaches both large and small. As a company grows or changes, the corporate network must handle a large amount of traffic.

Network segmentation provides accessibility, better performance, and helps protect the entire company.

This article is translated from: https://www.datamation.com/security/how-to-segment-a-network/