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SSE Magic Quadrant: Key Takeaways of the 2023 Report

by | Jul 28, 2023 | Consolidation, Improve Network Security, Remote Network Management, SD-WAN, Secure Access Service Edge (SASE), Security Service Edge (SSE), Uncategorized, Virtualization, Zero Trust Security

The SSE Magic Quadrant describes top cloud security service vendors, conceptualized as a cloud with glowing network nodes and a padlock.

Gartner’s SSE Magic Quadrant for 2023 identifies 10 key vendors currently providing secure service edge capabilities for the enterprise market. In this guide, we’ll summarize the common factors shared among leading SSE vendors, discuss what separates them from niche players, and share advice for connecting your edge network to SSE solutions via an SD-WAN on-ramp.

Table of Contents:
  1. What is Security Service Edge (SSE)?
  2. What is the need for SSE?
  3. What is the SSE Magic Quadrant?
  4. What has changed since the 2022 SSE Magic Quadrant?
  5. Key takeaways from the 2023 SSE Magic Quadrant
  6. SD-WAN: An on-ramp for SSE
  7. What to look for in an ideal SSE on-ramp
  8. Why Nodegrid is the ideal SSE on-ramp

What is Security Service Edge (SSE)?

Security service edge (SSE) is a cloud-centric security methodology for protecting edge network traffic. It rolls up technologies like Firewall-as-a-Service (FWaaS), Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA), and Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) into a single service. These technologies offer threat protection, security monitoring, access control, and data governance.

What is the need for SSE?

With the frequency and severity of ransomware attacks and other cybercrimes increasing daily, security is a major priority for any organization. To protect your enterprise from cyber threats, you need to be able to extend your security policies and controls to all the remote and geographically distributed systems at your network edge. Historically, that meant backhauling all remote traffic through your primary firewall, which would inevitably cause performance issues for everyone on the network. This is frustrating and can greatly impact the business when much of your remote traffic is destined for cloud and web resources that aren’t even on your enterprise network.

SSE solves this problem by taking advanced enterprise security technologies and making them available as a cloud-based service. You can use SD-WAN with intelligent routing (more on that later) to send remote and branch office traffic through your SSE stack. This allows you to apply consistent policies and controls to your enterprise and edge traffic while reducing bottlenecks and increasing overall network performance.
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Learn more about SSE:

Gartner’s 2023 SSE Magic Quadrant Summarized

Challengers

Leaders

Cisco (SIG)

Netskope
Zscaler
Palo Alto Networks (Prisma Access)

Niche Players

Visionaries

Broadcom
iboss
Cloudflare

Skyhigh Security
Forcepoint (Bitglass)
Lookout

There are many reasons why an SSE vendor would be considered a niche player, including that the market hasn’t caught on to them yet due to poor marketing or sales strategies. However, one common caution among niche players is a failure to fully integrate SSE components, which means customers must use multiple dashboards to manage a single SSE solution. Another common issue is poor support during sales, implementation, and operation, leading to frustration among enterprises with less experience in edge networking and security.

On the other hand, the leaders of the SSE Magic Quadrant share a few common characteristics as well. For one, they have strong marketing and sales outreach, a clear vision, and a roadmap for the future. This vision is essential because it allows enterprises to ensure their goals and strategies align with where their SSE vendor is headed.

In addition, these solutions’ components are tightly integrated with a single, unified management platform for more accessible and efficient operation. Magic Quadrant leaders invest in and implement new security features frequently, bug-free, and with adequate documentation and support. That means customers can stay ahead of emerging security threats without worrying about breaking their existing setups.

What has changed since the 2022 SSE Magic Quadrant?

There are three major changes to Magic Quadrant this year.

  • Palo Alto Networks moves from Challenger to Leader: In 2022, Palo Alto extended its Prisma Access SSE solution to better integrate with Prisma SD-WAN, enhance its proxy and ZTNA components, and add SaaS Security Posture Management (SSPM).
  • McAfee splits its cloud business into Skyhigh Security: Early in 2022, McAfee enterprise split into two, with its cloud business now known as Skyhigh Security. This split disrupted Skyhigh’s growth and market share and moved this SSE offering from the Leaders quadrant to the Visionaries quadrant.
  • Versa leaves the SSE Magic Quadrant: Versa no longer ranks in the top 20 organizations in Gartner’s market momentum index (MMI), so it isn’t included in the 2023 Magic Quadrant.

Key takeaways from the 2023 SSE Magic Quadrant

  • Most vendors prioritized improving their core capabilities and better integrating their product, rather than focusing on new features and other innovations.
  • Vendors who fail to fully integrate their SSE offering into a unified platform are quickly losing market share.
  • WFH traffic is less of a concern for enterprises than branch/edge sites, so SD-WAN access and integrations are critical.

Overall, the biggest takeaway from the SSE Magic Quadrant is the importance of a seamlessly-integrated platform. A consolidated platform ensures complete visibility and control over your security service edge solution without needing to learn and operate multiple consoles.

On top of this, to use SSE’s cloud-delivered solution, you need a reliable way to send traffic from your branch and edge locations to the SSE stack. That means part of the architecture needs to include an access solution that can tunnel traffic from these locations to the cloud, such as SD-WAN. The access solution serves as an on-ramp to SSE, and requires a physical appliance for on-premises installations. This framework combining SD-WAN access with SSE is how SASE (secure access service edge) is built.

SD-WAN: An on-ramp to SSE

Security service edge provides the technology to protect your edge-based cloud-destined traffic, but you still need a way to get that traffic to your SSE platform. This is known as an SSE on-ramp, and it’s not included in any of the SSE Magic Quadrant solutions. However, one of Gartner’s selection criteria was the ability to integrate with SD-WAN technology.

An SSE on-ramp uses SD-WAN (software-defined wide area network) technology to route remote and branch office traffic to your SSE stack in the cloud. SD-WAN separates the control and management processes from your underlying WAN hardware and virtualizes them as software, making it possible to centrally control and orchestrate even very complex and distributed WANs. With SD-WAN, you can use intelligent and application-aware routing to connect your edge users directly to the SSE platform, cloud, and web resources.

What to look for in an ideal SSE on-ramp

The ideal on-ramp to SSE will support seamless integration with your SSE platform, and vice-versa. In addition, the right solution will provide additional capabilities like the ones listed below.

Features of an ideal SSE on-ramp include:

Versatile tunneling

Physical hardware that’s easy to provision with a versatile tunnel mechanism to SSE, including IPsec and WireGuard, with simple cloud management. Ideally this tunneling mechanism uses application-aware traffic steering to make it an effective part of an SD-WAN on-ramp.

Integrated L3/L4 firewall

Integrated Layer 3/Layer 4 firewall technology to secure incoming traffic to your remote and branch locations, including VPN support. The ideal on-ramp has local segmentation capabilities and zero-trust, since SSE can’t do local segmentation on its own without help from on-premises equipment, agents, or VMs.

Out-of-band (OOB) management

OOB management for a direct, dedicated network connection to the SD-WAN on-ramp that doesn’t rely on cloud-based in-band connectivity. OOB access and provisioning are ideal to gain greater control over remote networking infrastructure on a dedicated connection.

Multiple WAN interfaces

Flexible and redundant WAN interfaces to ensure 24/7 availability. At least one of these should include a 5G/4G LTE modem with 2 SIM slots for high-speed cellular failover and out-of-band access when the primary WAN link is down.

Terminal server

Terminal server/serial console/”jump box” port management for easy remote management of edge infrastructure. This should include the ability to host third-party troubleshooting tools so admins can easily recover from outages without going on-site.

Computing power

Compute capabilities to run third-party apps and Docker containers right at the network edge. With built-in compute it’s easier to extend the functionality of SSE with additional applications that may not be part of the SSE stack or need an edge Docker footprint, like vulnerability scanning or user experience monitoring agents.

Centralized automation

Unified management of automation like Zero Touch Provisioning (ZTP) to automatically spin-up edge devices and connect them to SSE. Automation can significantly speed up branch deployments while reducing the risk of human error.

Why Nodegrid is the ideal SSE on-ramp

The Nodegrid branch and edge networking solution from ZPE Systems combines all the capabilities of the ideal SSE on-ramp in a single platform. For example, the Nodegrid Net Services Router (NSR) is a customizable, all-in-one device with available modules for storage, compute, serial console management, and more. The vendor-neutral NSR can host your preferred SD-WAN solution and supports easy integrations with SSE Magic Quadrant Leaders like Palo Alto Prisma Access, or you can use ZPE Cloud’s integrated SD-WAN app.

Thanks to the open-architecture, Linux-based Nodegrid OS, you can also extend Nodegrid’s capabilities with your choice of custom and third-party applications for security, monitoring, automation, and more. Plus, every device, application, and integration connected to the Nodegrid platform is brought under a single management umbrella for a unified and efficient orchestration experience. 

The Nodegrid platform from ZPE Systems rolls up everything you need in an SSE on-ramp and delivers it in one powerful, unified edge networking solution.

Learn how Nodegrid easily hosts and integrates Gartner’s picks for the 2023 SSE Magic Quadrant!

Contact ZPE Systems today!

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What is an Application Delivery Platform?

by | Jul 26, 2023 | Application Hosting, Edge Computing, EdgeOps, Improve Network Security, Network Automation, Remote Network Management, SD-WAN, Simplify Branch Infrastructure, Virtualization, Zero Touch Provisioning (ZTP)

An illustration showing a breakout of various software application components to highlight the need for an application delivery platform

Modern software architectures are highly complex and often very difficult to maintain and operate. A single enterprise application comprises hundreds (or even thousands) of individual services, technologies, and toolchains while requiring a lot of underlying infrastructure, such as servers, routing and load balancing rules, and security controls. All of this complexity increases overhead costs and adds to the ever-growing workloads of software, network, and infrastructure teams, especially when you multiply this effort across dozens or hundreds of software deployments.

Platform engineering is a new discipline introduced by Gartner to address these challenges by reducing the complexity of software engineering, network operations, and application delivery. The platforms built by these engineers are known by several names, including internal developer platforms, internal developer portals, and application delivery platforms. This guide defines an application delivery platform, discusses the underlying technology, and highlights a leading platform engineering solution.
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Table of Contents:
  1. What is an application delivery platform?
  2. What is the importance of an application delivery platform?
  3. What technology makes up an application delivery platform?
  4. Introducing ZPE Systems’ Services Delivery Platform

What is an application delivery platform?

An application delivery platform is a suite of technologies that handles all the services that support an application, including security, traffic management, load balancing, and data management. Platform engineers combine all these services into a common toolset used to deploy applications at customer sites, so there’s no need to build a new architecture every time. This streamlined experience makes application delivery cost-effective by significantly reducing workloads and deployment timelines.

What is the importance of an application delivery platform?

The goal of an application delivery platform is to reduce deployment and management complexity. Deployment complexity leads to a greater risk of human error when configuring things like security controls and access policies, and any mistakes are likely to be found and exploited by cybercriminals. Management complexity makes it harder to stay on top of patch schedules. Unpatched software often contains vulnerabilities that are exploited by cybercriminals; for example, known ransomware groups targeted unpatched IBM software earlier this year.

By reducing complexity, an application delivery platform also reduces the attack surface, improving an organization’s overall security posture.

What technology makes up an application delivery platform?

By its very nature, an application delivery platform is highly customized to fit the needs of the applications being supported. Here are some examples of the services and technologies that are often included.

  • Server storage & compute: The platform needs storage (usually solid-state) and processing units (CPUs or GPUs) to run the applications and store necessary data. Ideally, the OS and computing architecture will support containers (e.g., Docker) for microservices applications.
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  • Automation tools: A key feature of application delivery platforms is the ability to automatically provision and deploy new environments, apps, and network services as well activate services licenses and service chaining. That means the platform should host automation tools for configuration management, code delivery, and software-defined networking (SDN).
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  • Security: The ideal platform makes it possible to deliver applications without configuring security every time. That means it provides unified management and repeatable deployments for security services like firewall traffic inspection, access control lists, and advanced authentication.
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  • Routing & load balancing: A lot of backend networking goes into the typical application deployment to ensure traffic is routed correctly and optimized for performance. An application delivery platform should support network functions virtualization (NFVs) and SDN so standard network configurations can be easily deployed alongside the applications being delivered.
  • Management tools: Engineers need a way to remotely access, manage, and troubleshoot application deployments, even (and especially) during major service disruptions. The ideal platform includes out-of-band serial console management and supports third-party troubleshooting tools so remote teams can quickly recover systems and applications without an expensive on-site visit.

While this list is far from exhaustive, it covers the foundational technology that supports an application delivery platform. Platform engineering is still in its infancy, and many organizations struggle to efficiently execute it because of how many moving pieces need to be considered. The goal is to find a solution that provides the best framework of hardware and software capabilities that platform engineers can build upon, so they can create a fully customized application delivery platform without reinventing the wheel.

Introducing ZPE Systems’ Services Delivery Platform

Zero Pain Ecosysteme

The Services Delivery Platform from ZPE Systems is the perfect foundation for any platform engineering initiative. Nodegrid edge routers serve as the hardware backbone, providing networking and failover capabilities, OOB serial console management, and plenty of memory, storage, and CPU headroom for additional apps and services. You can build a fully customized hardware platform with the modular Net Services Router (NSR), extending your storage or compute capabilities or adding more ports to support your application deployment.

The vendor-neutral, Linux-based Nodegrid OS can run your custom applications as well as third-party automation, security, DevOps, and management tools. Plus, Nodegrid unifies all connected services and applications under a single management umbrella, allowing teams to oversee and orchestrate all of their deployments from one convenient portal.

 

Ready to Learn More?

The Services Delivery Platform from ZPE Systems simplifies platform engineering with powerful, multipurpose hardware and an open, vendor-neutral OS. Contact us today to learn more about using Nodegrid for your application delivery platform!

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The Biggest Ransomware Attack You Haven’t Heard of…Yet

by | Jul 6, 2023 | Data Logging, Improve Network Security, Micro-segmentation, Minimize Impact of Disruptions, Network Automation, Out of Band Management, SD-WAN, SecOps, Secure Access Service Edge (SASE), Security Service Edge (SSE), User Management, Zero Trust Security

James Cabe CISSP

This article was written by James Cabe, CISSP, whose cybersecurity expertise has helped major companies including Microsoft and Fortinet.

MOVEit over SolarWinds — The largest and most successful ransomware attack ever recorded is happening. Right now. It’s attacking healthcare and financial institutions with high rates of success, and recently stole sensitive data of 4 million more healthcare patients. It uses something called CL0P ransomware, and the threat actor is a well-known criminal group with the name FIN11. Many organizations are finding it difficult to stop the attack because they have no way to access infected devices, take them offline, patch, or even replace them. So, what exactly is going on?

The group responsible for the attack

FIN11 is a cybercriminal group that has been active since 2016 or before, originating from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). While the group has historically been associated with widespread phishing campaigns, their focus has shifted towards other initial access vectors. FIN11 often runs high-volume operations targeting industries in North America and Europe for data theft and ransomware deployment, primarily leveraging CL0P (aka CLOP).

FIN11 is responsible for multiple widespread, high-profile intrusion campaigns leveraging zero-day vulnerabilities, and the group likely has access to the networks of many more organizations than it is able to successfully monetize. Despite this, they’re currently attacking MOVEit, a well-known SaaS provider who relies on a file transfer appliance called Accellion lFile Transfer Appliance (FTA). This legacy product remains unpatched, which has led to the breach of many Fortune 100 companies and state and federal agencies.

FIN11

How did the ransomware attack start?

The ransomware attack began with several Accellion FTA customers, including those in industries like healthcare, legal, finance, retail, and telecom. Companies such as Jones Day Law, Kroger, Singtel, and many others had no idea that they had been attacked, because the initial breach was quiet and headless.

Their only indication came after receiving a threatening email aimed at extortion. 

In this email, the group threatened to publish stolen data on the “CL0P^_- LEAKS” .onion website, according to an investigation from Accellion. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) are releasing this joint CSA to disseminate known CL0P ransomware IOCs and TTPs identified through FBI investigations as recently as June 2023.

According to the investigation, four zero-day security holes were exploited in the attacks:

  • CVE-2021-27101 – SQL injection via a crafted Host header
  • CVE-2021-27102 – OS command execution via a local web service call
  • CVE-2021-27103 – SSRF via a crafted POST request
  • CVE-2021-27104 – OS command execution via a crafted POST request

And, the published victim data appears to have been stolen using a “WEB SHELL”. These web shells give remote administrative access to the web server and create a jumping off point to attack the rest of the internal network. Mandiant, a well-known cyber investigation arm of Google, added, “The exfiltration activity has affected entities in a wide range of sectors and countries” (Threatpost). Exfiltration is the unauthorized removal of important or damaging data from an organization.

However the biggest problem is that these web shells are what researchers call “PERSISTENCE”. This means that an attacker can remain in your network indefinitely to continue damaging and attacking your resources. Researchers call these “APTs,” or Advanced Persistent Threats.

Why is the ransomware attack still going strong?

The ransomware attack is still going strong because there’s no patch available. According to open source information, beginning on May 27, 2023, CL0P Ransomware Gang began exploiting a previously unknown SQL injection vulnerability (CVE-2023-34362) in Accelion’s appliance that is the backbone of a solution known as Progress Software’s MOVEit Transfer service. Internet-facing MOVEit Transfer web applications were infected with a web shell named LEMURLOOT, which was then used to steal data from underlying MOVEit Transfer databases. In similar spates of activity, TA505, which is the group responsible for the Dridex trojan and Locky ransomware, conducted zero-day-exploit-driven campaigns against Accellion FTA devices in 2020 and 2021, and Fortra/Linoma GoAnywhere MFT servers in early 2023.

What most organizations want to know is: How do you quickly respond to issues like these? How can you be properly prepared to respond to an issue you didn’t cause or didn’t expect?

Patching is a good response. However, it takes an average of 205 days to patch a recently known zero-day exploit like the MOVEit vulnerability. While patching alone is typically the ideal response, it isn’t automatic nor can it be done quickly.

Another approach involves removing the offending software or appliance, or cutting off access to the software or appliance. But once you remove this access, how do you continue normal operations, and how can you easily bring the software/appliance back online? Without adequate infrastructure in place, physically deploying to each site is not practical, especially for distributed organizations.

CISA and the FBI encourage organizations to implement the recommendations in the Mitigations section of this CSA to reduce the likelihood and impact of CL0P ransomware and other ransomware incidents. The Mitigations section describes many approaches, including patching, removing software/appliance access, and implementing a recovery plan. But all of these take too much time and too many resources, which leaves organizations vulnerable as they scramble to create an adequate response.

The great news is, organizations can cover all their bases without having to reinvent the wheel. This approach is recommended in one of CISA’s recent directives, and gives organizations somewhat of a silver bullet that allows them to quickly defeat ransomware and remain prepared for any future attack.

What approach does CISA recommend to address ransomware attacks?

CISA’s recent directive (23-02), which addresses the vulnerability of Internet-exposed management interfaces, calls for organizations to create an isolated management infrastructure (IMI) via out-of-band connectivity. This is a drop-in solution that the military, telcos, and hyperscalers/cloud companies use to respond to widespread ransomware and other issues impacting security and resilience. This approach — which ZPE Systems has perfected in the last decade with the help of Big Tech — gives organizations a completely separate control plane through which they can monitor and manage their entire IT infrastructure in a safe and dedicated fashion.

What is isolated management infrastructure?

Isolated management infrastructure consists of the hardware and software that create a management network that’s fully separate from other production and management networks. The key to this is in out-of-band connectivity, which is defined as connectivity other than TCP/IP. Out-of-band can include direct USB, serial, or even non-routed zero-trust connections to crown-jewel assets.

Essentially, the IMI gives an organization complete oversight and control of their widespread IT infrastructure, in a way that is secure and accessible only to their IT teams.

In this diagram, the production infrastructure (blue ring) sits at each distributed location. The out-of-band infrastructure for LAN (OOBI-LAN) is the green ring and surrounds the production infrastructure with one layer of isolated management. The OOBI-WAN (orange ring) is what provides a second layer of isolated management, which teams can access from a central or remote location, to gain access to the OOBI-LAN and ultimately the production infrastructure.

ZPE Automation

Knowing these assets and providing access across the organization can be easy and does not have to disrupt current operations. 

How can IMI stop the FIN11 ransomware attack?

In the ongoing FIN11 ransomware attack, Internet-facing applications are targets of the zero-day exploit. This means that no amount of security solutions can pre-mitigate the attack (i.e., there’s nothing you can do to stop it). This is where IMI shines.

Isolated Management Network diagram sitting beside production infrastructure

Remember the OOBI-LAN/OOBI-WAN diagram? Here’s a zoomed-in view of the isolated management infrastructure sitting beside the production infrastructure. The IMI connects via serial, Ethernet, and USB to production gear, and provides the necessary functions (routing, storing golden images, hosting jumpbox tools, etc.) to recover from attack. But how?

IT teams can use OOBI-WAN to remotely access their OOBI-LAN and production gear. They can pull affected devices offline and bring them in for forensics, which takes place in an Isolated Recovery Environment (IRE). This means these assets and networks are still reachable by analysts and responders, but isolated from other vulnerable assets. This allows an organization to quickly and even automatically deploy tools and resources inside of this environment through devices like ZPE Systems’ Nodegrid.

To combat the FIN11 attack, organizations don’t need to unplug cables or shut their devices off. They can instead deploy their IMI as the framework for closing the attack surface while maintaining access and critical data to aid in recovery.

Get the blueprint for isolated management infrastructure

Don’t wait until the next attack to shore up your defenses. ZPE Systems has worked with Big Tech for ten years developing the isolated management infrastructure. It’s now available inside the Network Automation Blueprint, and walks you through how to implement your own IMI. Download the blueprint now to stay ready for any attack.

Download blueprint

Get in touch with me!

True security can only be achieved through resilience, and that’s my mission. If you want help shoring up your defenses, building an IMI, and implementing a Resilience System, get in touch with me. Here are links to my social media accounts:

SD-WAN ROI Calculator & Cost Reduction Strategies

by | Jun 26, 2023 | Increase Productivity, Minimize Impact of Disruptions, SD-WAN, Secure Access Service Edge (SASE), Simplify Branch Infrastructure, Streamline Deployments

sd-wan roi calculator

As an organization expands by adding new branches, its WAN also expands. The larger the WAN grows, the more network traffic needs to flow through MPLS (multi-protocol label switching) circuits, which have much more expensive bandwidth fees than traditional circuits. Some organizations improve their network performance by deploying security appliances at regional data centers, so they don’t need to backhaul traffic through the central firewall, but this only increases MPLS expenses and operating costs. Plus, spinning up each branch takes time, partly because of how long it takes to install a new MPLS circuit, which reduces agility and increases overhead costs.

SD-WAN, or software-defined wide area networking, abstracts WAN management to a separate control plane, streamlining workflows and allowing for a high degree of automation. SD-WAN makes it possible to leverage 5G and other networking technologies to reduce the reliance on MPLS circuits while still applying security policies and controls. With SD-WAN, you can lower your MPLS bandwidth costs, reduce the number of security appliances deployed around the enterprise, and deploy new branches faster.

In this post, we describe how SD-WAN decreases branch networking costs. We also explore strategies to reduce your expenses, providing an SD-WAN ROI calculator for a more personalized estimate of your potential savings.

How SD-WAN reduces branch networking costs

 

Reducing branch networking costs with SD-WAN
SD-WAN decreases MPLS bandwidth expenses by leveraging 5G and other available networks when possible.
An SD-WAN on-ramp to SASE means fewer security appliances deployed around the enterprise.
SD-WAN results in faster branch deployments by decreasing the reliance on new MPLS circuit installations.

 

Implementing SD-WAN can result in the following cost reduction benefits.

Decreased MPLS bandwidth expenses

In a traditional WAN architecture, MPLS circuits are installed at each branch to create a semi-private connection back to the primary enterprise network; this traffic isn’t encrypted, but it is partitioned from the public internet and other MPLS customers. MPLS networks are very reliable, but the bandwidth is significantly more expensive than public internet bandwidth. Finding ways to reduce the amount of traffic over MPLS circuits can reduce the ongoing operational costs of each branch.

SD-WAN leverages whatever networks are at its disposal—including MPLS, public ISPs, and 5G/4G cellular—to find the best and most efficient path for branch traffic. An organization can use SD-WAN software to prioritize specific kinds of traffic based on parameters such as the apps or resources being requested, so precious MPLS bandwidth is only used when needed. Many organizations are able to move away from MPLS completely by using SD-WAN. Providers are also required to build their SD-WAN fabric from encrypted tunnels, allowing SD-WAN to direct traffic over the public internet with less risk.

Cost reduction strategy: secure access service edge (SASE)

Even with SD-WAN’s encryption, branch traffic still needs to pass through a security appliance in the central data center so enterprise security policies and controls can be applied, which likely means using the MPLS anyway. Secure access service edge, or SASE, rolls up multiple enterprise security technologies (such as next-generation firewalls (NGFWs) and data loss prevention) into a single solution delivered as a service, which means organizations can deploy it to regional data centers or even the branches themselves. SD-WAN’s intelligent routing feature can determine when branch traffic is destined for cloud or web resources, then direct this traffic through the SASE stack instead of using the MPLS to reach the central firewall. SASE can help eliminate MPLS usage completely while reducing bottlenecks for greater cost savings.

With SD-WAN and SASE, your organization can reduce the ongoing monthly expense of MPLS bandwidth at each branch without sacrificing reliability or security.

 

Fewer security appliances

To ensure that branch traffic is as secure as the primary enterprise network, teams usually backhaul that traffic through the same central firewall for inspection and policy application. This creates a massive bottleneck that can slow the entire enterprise down, so some organizations choose to deploy security appliances at smaller regional data centers near their branch locations to distribute the load. However, that usually means additional MPLS circuits are provisioned at each data center, increasing startup and bandwidth costs. Plus, there are the hardware, software, and licensing costs for all the additional security appliances.

We’ve already mentioned how SD-WAN leverages alternative networks (as well as encrypted tunnels) to reduce MPLS bandwidth usage and how SASE applies enterprise security controls to branch traffic while bypassing firewalls entirely. These two benefits also result in cost savings from needing to purchase and license fewer security appliances. Since vendors deliver SASE as a service, it doesn’t necessarily require special hardware to run, and some providers even offer it as a managed cloud service, eliminating the hardware cost altogether.

Cost reduction strategy: vendor-neutral solutions

On-premises versions of SASE usually don’t need vendor-specific hardware so you can deploy the software on any available server as a VM. However, many branches lack the extra server storage or computer headroom needed for this kind of deployment. To ensure you can deploy SASE without buying additional resources, consider vendor-neutral branch networking solutions that can directly host and run third-party VMs. That means you can get gateway routing, switching, out-of-band serial console management, and SASE in a single device, consolidating the branch networking stack to reduce hardware expenses and management complexity.

With SD-WAN, SASE, and vendor-neutral solutions, you can streamline your branch deployments to reduce costs and increase efficiency.

 

Faster branch deployments

Generally speaking, the faster a company can deploy a new branch, the faster it will see a return on investment (ROI). However, getting a new MPLS circuit provisioned can take a long time—several months is typical—which can delay deployment timelines and increase overhead expenses while an organization sits on a non-productive branch.

SD-WAN makes it possible to leverage alternative network technologies to get a branch up and running before the MPLS circuit is ready. For example, SD-WAN can direct branch traffic across a 5G network even before the main fiber or cable connection is installed. When all of the branch circuits are provisioned, SD-WAN can seamlessly incorporate them into its routing policies based on preconfigured policies and automation triggers for a smooth deployment. In short, SD-WAN eliminates the organization’s reliance on MPLS for revenue generation, with branches that can be fully operational as soon as LTE or ISP links are set up.

Cost reduction strategy: zero touch provisioning (ZTP)

Another way to reduce branch spin-up times is with zero touch provisioning, or ZTP. ZTP uses software scripts to execute new device configurations over the network, reducing the need for pre-staging or manual, on-site programming. Typical branch deployments involve sending engineers on-site to manually copy and paste configuration files, which is time consuming and increases the risk of human error. With ZTP, unskilled on-site staff simply plug in new device cables and the configuration scripts are automatically retrieved and executed to fully build the environment without human touch. Plus, ZTP scripts are reusable, so you can use the same ones to deploy many different branches.

With SD-WAN and ZTP, your organization can reduce branch deployment delays and see a faster ROI from new branches.

 

SD-WAN ROI calculator

ZPE Systems provides vendor-neutral branch networking solutions that can directly host or integrate your choice of SD-WAN and SASE applications. ZPE’s platform also allows you to extend ZTP and other automation to every device in every branch on your network. Check out our SD-WAN ROI calculator for a customized estimate of how much money you can save by deploying SD-WAN on ZPE’s platform.

ZPE System’s Nodegrid solution combines branch networking, out-of-band management, and vendor-neutral orchestration into a single platform.

To learn more about using Nodegrid as your on-ramp to SD-WAN, or for help with the SD-WAN ROI calculator, contact ZPE Systems today

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IoT in Finance Industry and Security Challenges

by | Jun 26, 2023 | Data Logging, Improve Network Security, Micro-segmentation, Network Automation, Remote Network Management, SD-WAN, Secure Access Service Edge (SASE), User Management, Zero Trust Security

IoT in Finance Industry and Security Challenges
The Internet of Things (IoT) drives new innovations in the finance industry by empowering organizations to harvest more data, improve operational efficiency, and provide better customer service. However, adding dozens of low-touch devices to the network’s edge creates major security, privacy, and compliance challenges.

This post discusses how to take advantage of IoT in the finance industry by overcoming security challenges with automation, secure platforms, and vendor-neutral orchestration

IoT in the Finance Industry: Security Challenges and Solutions

The challenge: Unpatched, out-of-date IoT devices are easier to compromise for harvesting sensitive data.

The solution: Automated patch management using vendor-neutral management platforms that can dig their hooks into multi-vendor IoT.

The challenge: Unsecured remote management interfaces can be used by cybercriminals to access IoT devices and data.

The solution: Secure management hardware and software protected by robust security features like self-encrypted disk (SED) and two-factor authentication (2FA).

The challenge: It’s difficult to enforce security and privacy policies on remote IoT devices that process regulated financial data at the edge of the network.

The solution: A vendor-neutral security orchestration platform that extends Zero Trust Security policies and controls to multi-vendor IoT at the edge.

The challenge: It’s difficult to troubleshoot and resolve security incidents involving remote IoT devices without expensive, time-consuming truck rolls.

The solution: Secure out-of-band (OOB) management solutions that integrate with (or even directly host) third-party automation and AIOps tools.

The challenge: A lot of complexity is involved in gaining holistic security coverage over a distributed, multi-vendor financial network without leaving any gaps.

The solution: A vendor-neutral platform that unifies security and network management for the entire architecture behind a single pane of glass.

 

IoT in the finance industry: security challenges and solutions

There were over 10.54 million global IoT cybersecurity attacks in December 2022 alone. In the finance industry, a breach can result in significant consequences, including regulatory fines and irreparable reputational damage, which means IoT security must be a top priority. Let’s discuss the specific security challenges of using IoT in the finance industry.

Challenge #1: Keeping IoT devices up-to-date

IoT typically uses low-touch, set-it-and-forget-it devices, so they’re deployed around the network’s edge and receive little interaction from operators or technical staff. For example, IoT devices collect sensitive financial data from ATMs, self-service payment kiosks, and smartphone applications with little-to-no human oversight. That makes it easy for network teams to forget about operating system (OS) and software updates, especially when dozens or thousands of IoT devices are in use.

In fact, a recent report found that teams wait an average of 205 days to patch their infrastructure. This is a frightening statistic given that out-of-date software is rife with vulnerabilities just waiting to be exploited by cybercriminals looking for valuable financial data.

Solution: Automated patch management

Automating patches is the best way to ensure they’re installed on time. For example, many IoT device management systems provide dashboards where admins can see IoT device versioning information at-a-glance, manually deploy or roll-back updates, or create automated schedules/triggers to deploy those updates without manual intervention. However, most of these platforms only work within specific vendor ecosystems, which limits your capabilities. The best practice is to use a vendor-neutral IoT device management platform that can dig its hooks into multi-vendor IoT devices. This will ensure that critical IoT devices like credit card payment readers are kept secure and up-to-date.

 

A vendor-neutral IoT device management platform with automated patch management ensures that all devices are kept up-to-date and no vulnerabilities fall between the cracks.

Challenge #2: Securing remote management interfaces

Network admins typically work from a centralized location, which means they remotely access and manage IoT deployments at the branch and edge using jump boxes or serial consoles. If these remote management devices and interfaces aren’t adequately secured, malicious actors could use them to access IoT data and move laterally to other sensitive resources on the network. However, many admins deploy jump boxes without onboarding them with IT, which means they’re not added to security monitoring software and don’t have enterprise policies or controls applied. Serial consoles, on the other hand, often lack the advanced security features and integrations needed to protect them from cybercriminals.

Solution: Secure management hardware and software

The newest generation of serial consoles includes robust hardware security features and supports advanced authentication methods to safeguard remote management interfaces from compromise. A 3rd generation – or Gen 3 – serial console has onboard security features like a self-encrypted disk (SED), secure boot, BIOS protection, and geofencing, so malicious actors can’t access a stolen device. In addition, it supports SAML 2.0 authentication (via integrations with providers like Okta and Ping) and other advanced authentication methods to prevent unauthorized access to its software.

 

A Gen 3 serial console solution uses robust onboard security features and third-party security integrations to protect management hardware and interfaces.

Challenge #3: Complying with data privacy regulations

In a highly-regulated industry like finance, organizations must keep track of which people and devices can access sensitive data and ensure that permissions are granted on a least-privilege basis. Typically, achieving this level of granular control requires applying strict Zero Trust Security policies to every device and user accessing the network, including IoT devices at the edge. However, extending enterprise security policies and controls to the edge is difficult in a distributed, heterogeneous environment due to vendor lock-in.

For example, some branch networking solutions don’t support integrations with third-party identity management tools, forcing you to use their built-in access management settings. That means admins must manually recreate their Zero Trust data access policies in the router settings at every single branch and ensure they’re kept up-to-date.

Solution: Vendor-neutral Zero Trust Security orchestration

A centralized Zero Trust Security orchestration platform allows admins to deploy and manage security policies and controls across the network from a single place. A vendor-neutral platform can extend policy enforcement and other vital security controls to any device or application on the network. For example, you can apply the same Zero Trust data policies to all branch routers in the entire architecture to ensure consistent enforcement.  Such a platform makes compliance easier because financial organizations gain greater control over data access privileges and monitoring for IoT devices deployed anywhere in the world.

 

A vendor-neutral Zero Trust Security orchestration platform simplifies IoT data compliance by providing a centralized control panel to deploy and manage security policies across the entire distributed network architecture.

Challenge #4: Quickly resolving IoT security incidents

When malicious actors compromise an IoT device, financial organizations must act quickly to avoid regulatory fees and reputational damage. However, these devices are often deployed in remote, hard-to-reach locations with no technical or security staff nearby, such as in rural or island communities. That means problems require an expensive, time-consuming truck roll to resolve. Even with a team on-site, manual root cause analysis (RCA) and recovery efforts take a lot of time and effort, increasing both the duration and the expense of incidents.

Solution: Secure OOB with automation and AIOps support

The solution to this IoT security challenge involves out-of-band serial consoles and automation.

  • Out-of-band (OOB) serial consoles create a dedicated control plane to manage, troubleshoot, and recover remote devices and infrastructure. Admins access this control plane via alternative network interfaces that don’t rely on the production network at all. This means teams can still reach remote IoT devices even if the ISP goes down or the LAN is compromised by ransomware. The best practice is to use a Gen 3 serial console with advanced security features, as discussed above.
  • Automation and AIOps streamline the incident resolution process by automating RCA and recovery workflows. A Gen 3 OOB serial console solution can integrate or even directly host third-party automation and AIOps tools, ensuring teams always have remote access to their recovery toolkit during an outage or breach.

 

A secure, Gen 3 OOB serial console ensures 24/7 remote access to edge IoT deployments and supports automation and AIOps for faster security incident resolution.

Challenge #5: Gaining holistic security coverage

A distributed financial services network with many branches, ATMs, edge sites, and IoT devices has a large attack surface, so it requires several different security solutions to cover all potential vulnerabilities. Gaining complete security coverage over every IoT device in every location means deploying many appliances, each of which needs to be installed, patched, and managed, adding a lot of complexity to network and security operations and further increasing the attack surface. The need to orchestrate so many moving pieces increases the risk that security teams will make mistakes and prevent organizations from operating efficiently.

Solution: Unified, vendor-neutral security orchestration

A vendor-neutral security orchestration platform unifies a company’s security solutions and workflows under a single management umbrella. For example, the Nodegrid platform from ZPE Systems can dig its hooks into other vendors’ security appliances and virtual solutions, giving security analysts a holistic overview of the entire architecture from a single centralized portal. Teams can use Nodegrid to orchestrate firewalls, identity and access management (IAM), patches, secure access service edge (SASE), and more.

Nodegrid’s hardware can even directly host third-party security applications for a streamlined, consolidated branch deployment. You can use the Nodegrid platform to build a complete DCIM (data center infrastructure management), network management, and automation orchestration solution, streamlining operations with a truly unified experience.

A vendor-neutral security orchestration platform provides holistic security coverage while reducing complexity, which prevents human error and increases operational efficiency.

IoT in the finance industry and security challenges

Deploying IoT in the finance industry comes with security challenges, including patch management, unsecured management interfaces, policy enforcement, incident resolution, and complexity. The Nodegrid platform provides finance industry solutions to help you overcome each of these challenges, including:

A truly vendor-neutral platform that unifies security, network, and infrastructure management behind a single pane of glass for holistic coverage.

Ready to Learn More?

To learn more about deploying IoT in the finance industry and overcoming security challenges with Nodegrid, contact ZPE Systems.

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Best Intel NUC Alternatives

by | Jun 12, 2023 | Actionable Data, Application Hosting, Failover Connectivity, Micro-segmentation, Network Automation, Out of Band Management, SD-WAN, Secure Access Service Edge (SASE), Virtualization, Zero Trust Security

Intel NUC Alternatives

Service providers often struggle with the hybrid nature of their business. Even as they transition more towards a consumable service-based model that’s decoupled from traditional hardware solutions, there’s still a need for some sort of box to be deployed physically at a customer’s premises. Providers frequently rely on COTS (Common Off The Shelf) hardware to reduce costs and simplify the deployment process.

One commonly used COTS device is the Intel NUC, or “Next Unit of Computing,” which is a small appliance-like mini computer. Some service providers utilize Intel NUC devices as jump boxes, while others use them as a platform to deploy their services on-site. While these mini-computers are relatively inexpensive and easy to install, they create added security risks and management headaches that service providers need to be aware of.

This post highlights the challenges and security risks involved in relying on Intel NUC devices before discussing enterprise-grade Intel NUC alternatives that solve these problems.

Table of contents:

 

Why is Intel NUC so popular in IT infrastructure?

Managed Service Providers (MSPs) and Managed Security Service Providers (MSSPs) often use Intel NUC jump boxes to remotely access the control plane of critical client infrastructure. These mini PCs typically run bare bones software to reduce licensing costs, which means they are unpatched, unmonitored, and unsecured. This lack of oversight and management makes Intel NUCs popular access points for hackers to breach client networks.

Why consider Intel NUC alternatives?

Service providers like to use Intel NUC boxes because they’re cheaper, faster to install, and take up less space than a full PC or server. NUCs are often deployed without antivirus, monitoring agents, or other security software installed, which excludes them from the service provider’s security coverage. Plus, clients are frequently unaware that these devices are in their racks accessing their infrastructure, so they don’t access them in security and compliance audits. Other Intel NUC challenges include:

  • Lack of centralized management – Each Intel NUC is an island that’s managed and accessed individually, which makes it impossible to efficiently deploy updates, install new tools, or monitor for problems.
  • Insecure, unpatched OS – Operating systems and software contain thousands of potential vulnerabilities that hackers can exploit, so a lack of monitoring and patch management creates a huge security risk.
  • No hardware security – Intel NUC boxes lack any hardware security, which means someone could steal the device and use it to deploy malware or access client resources – or even just pawn the hardware.
  • Regulatory issues – When providers use unmanaged jump boxes to access client infrastructure, they expose their customers to potential noncompliance with privacy laws like HIPAA that require strict data access controls.
  • Affects insurance eligibility – Using an unsecured Intel NUC may also disqualify customers from receiving cybersecurity insurance benefits in the event of a successful breach.

While Intel NUCs are a quick and inexpensive way for MSPs, MSSPs, and other service providers to remotely access client infrastructure, they also make it easier for cybercriminals to breach enterprise networks. To reduce the attack surface without increasing the cost, hassle, or footprint of deploying jump boxes, you need an enterprise-grade solution that combines networking functions, security, and remote out-of-band access to the control plane to eliminate the need for a separate device.

Intel NUC alternatives from ZPE Systems

The Nodegrid product line from ZPE Systems simplifies the tech stack in data centers and network closets with all-in-one infrastructure management solutions. Nodegrid devices roll up gateway routing, switching, Wi-Fi, and 5G/4G/LTE out-of-band management to cut down on the number of boxes in the rack. They’re also enterprise solutions, which means they can be onboarded with your security team and covered by your monitoring, intrusion detection, antivirus, and other security controls.

In addition, all Nodegrid boxes are protected by hardware security features such as BIOS protection, self-encrypted disk (SED), UEFI Secure Boot, and Signed OS. Plus, Nodegrid’s hardware and software are completely vendor-neutral, allowing easy integrations with third-party security solutions and SAML 2.0 authentication. Nodegrid can even directly host other vendors’ security software to further reduce your tech stack.

Key Nodegrid features

 

All Nodegrid Devices Include:

Key features

Strong Out-of-band management integration

Extensible applications with virtualization and containers

Zero Touch Provisioning (ZTP) over the WAN

Vendor-neutral, unified management via ZPE Cloud/Nodegrid Manager

Modern x86-64bit Linux Kernel

Extended automation based on actionable data

Failover to 4G/5G/LTE & Wi-Fi

Power control and monitoring

Orchestration support via Puppet, Chef, Ansible, RESTful

Security

BIOS protection

TPM 2.0

UEFI Secure Boot

Signed OS

Self-Encrypted Disk (SED)

Geofencing

X.509 SSH certificate support, 4096-bit encryption keys

Selectable cryptographic protocols for SSH and HTTPS (TLSv1.3)

Selectable cypher suite levels: high, medium, low, custom

SSL VPN (Client and Server)

IPSec, Wireguard, and Strongswan with support for multi-sites

Local, AD/LDAP, RADIUS, TACACS+, Kerberos, authentication

SAML support via DUO, OKTA, Ping Identity

Local, backup-user authentication support

User-access lists per port

Group/role-based authorization: AD/LDAP, RADIUS, TACACS+

Fine grain and role-based access control

Firewall – IP packet and security filtering, IP forwarding support

MD5 / SHA System Configuration Checksum™

System event syslog

Custom security settings

Strong password enforcement

Two-Factor Authentication with RSA and DUO

Networking

IPv4 / IPv6 Support

Embedded Layer 2 switching

VLAN

Layer 3 Routing

BGP

OSFP

RIP

QoS

DHCP (Client and Server)

RIPv1, RIPv2

VXLAN

DDNS

NTP

To learn more about the benefits of Nodegrid’s Intel NUC alternatives, contact ZPE Systems.

Nodegrid product comparison

The Nodegrid family of network edge routers delivers secure, Gen 3 OOB management for reliable remote access to distributed customer sites like branch offices or manufacturing centers.

Nodegrid Service Delivery Platform Family

 

Link SR

Bold SR

Hive SR

Gate SR

Net SR

Mini SR

CPU

X86-64bit Intel 

X86-64bit Intel

X86-64bit Intel 

X86-64bit Intel 

X86-64bit Intel 

X86-64bit Intel 

Cores

2

4 or 8

4 or 8

2, 4 or 8

2, 4, 8 or 16

4

Guest VM

1

1

1-2

1-3

1-6

1

Guest Docker

2+

2+

2+

2+

2+

2+

Storage

16GB – 128GB

32GB – 128GB

16GB – 128GB

32GB – 128GB

32GB – 128GB

14GB SED

Additional Storage

Up to 4TB

Up to 4TB

Up to 4TB

Up to 4TB

Up to 4TB

–

Wi-Fi

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Cellular modem

1

1-2

1-2

1-2

1-6

1

5G

–

Yes

Dual 5G

Dual 5G

6x 5G

–

Sim slots

2

4

4

4

12

1

Serial Console Switch

1

8

Via USB

8

16-80

Via USB

Network

1x Gb ETH 1x SFP

5x Gb ETH

2x GbE ETH 2x 10 Gbps

4x 10/100/1000/2.5 Gbps RJ-45

2x SFP 5x Gb ETH

4x 1Gb ETH PoE+

2x 1Gb ETH 2x SFP+ Multiple expansion cards

2x 1Gb ETH

Data Sheet

Download

Download

Download

Download

Download

Download

The Nodegrid family of Intel NUC alternatives from ZPE Systems can help MSPs and MSSPs ensure secure, reliable remote management access to customer infrastructure without increasing costs.

Ready for a Demo?

To see one of ZPE’s Intel NUC alternatives in action, request a free Nodegrid demo! Request a Demo