Companies are facing a more sophisticated threat landscape today, targeting remote workers, internet of things sensors, virtual private networks, digital supply chains and other potential vulnerabilities in the new digital workplace.
The old models of security, focused on deploying multiple point products and protecting the perimeter, are no longer efficient nor effective. They can increase risk of successful attacks, particularly as organizations embrace hybrid work environments with more people working remotely or from home.
IT teams need a new model that is holistic, end to end, highly automated and intelligent. That model is intrinsic security, and it is one of the most important innovations in the zero trust cybersecurity model.
The Intrinsic Security Strategy
Traditionally, security has been attached to hardware and software that is put in place in reaction to new vulnerabilities: A threat is discovered and a new product is added to address it. The result has been an overabundance of cyberprotection products, often from different vendors, and often with separate management platforms and dashboards.
Because these solutions are not integrated, cybersecurity becomes siloed and difficult to monitor and manage, which leaves IT administrators and managers in a constant reactive state and drives up cost. Vulnerabilities can slip through, and unfortunately, they often do.
Intrinsic security replaces that reactive model with a framework that allows the organization to take a proactive approach. Security is embedded at all of the key control points of your environment: in the network, in the cloud, at endpoints, in workloads and in identity management.
This creates a holistic, end-to-end model that factors in data, users, devices, identities and assets in real time across any application or cloud. You can apply threat intelligence in context to ensure a more cohesive and targeted response to new vulnerabilities and active threats. Overall, the intrinsic approach is based on three core principles:
- Built-in security controls
- Unified security to remove silos
- Contextual understanding of the assets you are protecting—the endpoints, users, workloads, networks and clouds—and the specific threats you are facing
The Business Case
There are a variety of factors to consider in making the business case for intrinsic security. The piece-by-piece model is no longer applicable in the cloud era, where there is no longer a traditional perimeter to protect. The old model of cybersecurity was an antivirus threat detector you could purchase and a software program that would block incoming threats at the endpoint device level.
Cybersecurity now requires a strategy that not only detects incoming threats but also protects against internal ones, including remote work, bring your own device, multiple user devices running different operating systems, legacy applications, lack of cybersecurity education, accidental destruction and other insider threats.
When analyzing the intrinsic security model, key factors to consider are:
Detect abnormal activity, both internal and external. How does your company proactively eliminate threats before they can do harm, and does your management platform extend visibility for fast response and easy understanding?
Protect your investments, both physical and virtual. Do your current security protocols include protection for endpoints, the network, data in the cloud and backups? If any of these components are affected, there can be severe consequences.
Respond quickly, efficiently and effectively because of simplified IT. With built-in monitors, threat hunting can be fast and the risk can be isolated to a specific environment. With extensive automation and embedded controls in place, IT teams can save valuable time and your organization can stay productive.
Recover fast when there is a breach. The question isn’t if your organization will suffer an attack, but when and whether you have the confidence in your current coverage to respond to an attack. Your organization is an entire ecosystem of employees, contractors, vendors and partners, and confidence in your company’s ability to handle recovery with minimal loss and a return to normal productivity will strengthen trust across your entire value chain.
The ability to apply security at every stage of application and process protects your investments and future revenue. The inevitable shift to doing business digitally means your organization needs to be able to securely onboard employees and clients remotely and scale the process. The intrinsic security strategy future-proofs your organization by integrating protection into current and future technology solutions.
Deploying Intrinsic Security
When it comes to deploying intrinsic security, the tightly integrated collaboration between Dell Technologies and VMware provides organizations with a simple, trusted and comprehensive set of solutions.
With Dell and VMware, security is embedded into technology to maximize visibility, minimize threats and future-proof the organization in the face of an ever-changing, ever-more dangerous threat environment. These key solutions and capabilities demonstrate the intrinsic security leadership of Dell and VMware:
- Dell solutions include multiple layers of control to reduce and mitigate risks that could be introduced anywhere from the endpoint device, throughout the network and even into the cloud.
- Dell products are engineered using secure development lifecycle measures to make security an integral part of the design process.
- Dell builds in advanced security features like CyberSense that can’t be replicated by software, including silicon-based security, cryptographic root of trust and Dell SafeID which isolates user credential data away from the operating system and memory.
- VMware Carbon Black Cloud provides a cloud-native endpoint management platform that uses behavioral analysis to proactively detect threats and uncover behavior patterns.
- VMware NSX enables IT to deliver granular protection to individual workloads while eliminating visibility and security blind spots.
- Dell’s Unified Workspace powered by VMware Workspace ONE® is an intelligence-driven workspace solution that integrates access control, application management and multi-platform management into a single platform. With continuous verification of users, devices and applications, Workspace ONE® helps make zero trust access a reality.
Taking the Next Step
The solutions and capabilities described here are reflective of the long-term approach of Dell Technologies and VMware to make security simpler to deploy and better designed to address the key challenges of today’s environments, where visibility and protections must extend across trusted infrastructure to any device, any application and any cloud.
Intrinsic security is a first step in deploying a zero trust model that strengthens trust and confidence and protects your assets and investments. Please visit Dell Technologies to find out more about how your organization can move forward on its cybersecurity journey, and view this video to learn more about intrinsic security.
