Best practices for securing the network edge

Reggie Best at NS1 describes security best practice relating to applications at the edge

 

Investments in hardware, software and services for edge solutions are picking up pace as companies aim to improve performance and deliver a better customer experience. At the beginning of the year, IDC said that global spending would reach $176 billion, which is a rise of 14.8 percent over 2021. Added to this, spend is forecast to expand further to $274 billion by 2025.

 

There are good reasons for moving applications and devices to the edge, not the least of which is to lower latency. Organisations backhauling data to the cloud or to their data centre incur delays, which can have a deleterious impact on performance, whether that’s streaming video optimisation, real-time monitoring of critical services, or management of autonomous vehicles. The closer that storage and processing of data are to where they are most needed, the better the outcomes regardless of the use case.

 

However, as more and more solutions are deployed to the edge, the attack surface is growing exponentially and the challenge of securing them becomes ever greater. Previously security and network teams were able to control what came into and out of the data centre or onto the cloud, much of which was stored securely. However, data at the edge is, by its nature, flowing across networks and systems and is therefore at greater risk of attack.

 

Edge oriented visibility

The key to securing data at the edge is visibility. If a company doesn’t have visibility, it will be unable to quantify the risk or implement effective mitigation strategies. As applications have moved closer to the edge, the traditional tools that security professionals used to garner visibility into the security posture of their environments have become less effective.

 

So the priority is to find the best tools and processes so organisations can arm themselves as systems evolve. Here are three essential best practices:

• Build in observability of anomalies within edge applications and services so security vulnerabilities can be quickly identified.
• Ensure central control from cloud and cloud deployment of trusted edge containers.
• Put automation in place to ensure the reliable deployment of IoT devices, and their ongoing maintenance.

 

Observability to gain insight

Observability helps companies to delve into edge network data streams and analyse them in real time thus allowing them to identify security weaknesses. If they can determine why an anomaly occurred, and not just that it did occur, they can mitigate the impact of an attack and put preventative measures in place for the future.

 

The same applies when a rapid response is needed in the event of a DDoS attack, or when bad actors are probing edge locales. If this is happening at multiple layers in the infrastructure, an observability tool will track it quickly and deliver network or security teams with the intelligence they need to address the problem. It will also inform how they shore up their defences moving forward.

 

Getting control from the cloud

Putting in place a cloud control system that allows edge devices and network services to be managed is essential to the widespread deployment and security of the edge estate. Cloud management is the only effective way to massively deploy to a myriad of locations  (think thousands to millions) and geographies in a systematic, automated, secure way.

 

Cloud management engenders a level of stability akin to an internal data centre-class or public cloud environments, allowing for continuous health monitoring, ongoing configuration adds/moves/changes/rearrangements and uniform deployment of software patches to defend against new security vulnerabilities.

 

Containerisation technologies and orchestration deployed from the cloud also increases the level of maintainability, via a trusted cloud control plane that acts as a consolidation hub for edge installations with multiple devices.

 

Automate to lower risk

If automation is not already in place, network teams will always be challenged by a lack of visibility, and along with that, compromised security. With edge applications and devices growing, this becomes even more urgent.

 

Automation introduces repeatable processes that reduce the likelihood of human error that leads to misconfiguration or deployment issues, and it can reduce the time it takes teams to identify and escalate threats, ensure security protocols are updated, and oversee vulnerability assessments and monitoring tasks without human intervention.

 

But that’s not all, automation has a key role to play in ensuring the reliable deployment of applications across multiple locations. Thousands of retail branches, for example, or the roll-out of multiple ATMs for a bank, or sensors to support water or energy pipeline operations are just a few of the use cases that will benefit. Automation together with observability allows organisations to maintain control over the systems at the edge while reducing risk.

 

What network and security managers should be looking for when deploying devices and applications at the edge is an accurate source of truth that can reflect their edge network assets.

 

By using dedicated observability and automation tools, companies can gain increased and accurate insights regardless of the number of sites they are operating, and reduce the propensity for human error, which will only grow as edge applications and their vulnerability to security breaches increases.

 

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Reggie Best is VP of Product, NS1

 

Main image courtesy of iStockPhoto.com