Sophos has announced the findings of its global survey, The Dirty Secrets of Network Firewalls, which revealed that IT managers cannot identify 45% of their organization’s network traffic.
In fact, nearly one-in-four cannot identify 70% of their network traffic.
(Learn More. Courtesy of Sophos and Vimeo)
The lack of visibility creates significant security challenges for today’s businesses and impacts effective network management.
The survey polled more than 2,700 IT decision makers from mid-sized businesses in 10 countries including the US, Canada, Mexico, France, Germany, UK, Australia, Japan, India, and South Africa.
Considering the debilitating impact cyber-attacks can have on a business, it’s not a surprise that 84% of respondents agree that a lack of application visibility is a serious security concern.
Without the ability to identify what’s running on their network, IT managers are blind to ransomware, unknown malware, data breaches and other advanced threats, as well as potentially malicious applications and rogue users.
Network firewalls with signature-based detection are unable to provide adequate visibility into application traffic due to a variety of factors such as the increasing use of encryption, browser emulation, and advanced evasion techniques.
“If you can’t see everything on your network, you can’t ever be confident that your organization is protected from threats,” explains Dan Schiappa, senior vice president and general manager of products at Sophos.
“IT professionals have been ‘flying blind’ for too long and cybercriminals take advantage of this,” said Dan Schiappa, senior vice president and general manager of products at Sophos.
“With governments worldwide introducing stiffer penalties for data breach and loss, knowing who and what is on your network is becoming increasingly important.
“This dirty secret can’t be ignored any longer.”
Expose Hidden Risks
Sophos XG Firewall provides unprecedented visibility into your network, users, and applications directly from the all-new control center.
You also get rich on-box reporting and the option to add Sophos iView for centralized reporting across multiple firewalls.
On average, organizations spend seven working days remediating 16 infected machines per month.
Smaller organizations (100-1,000 users) spend on average five working days remediating 13 machines, while larger organizations (1,001-5,000 users) spend on average 10 working days remediating 20 machines per month, according to the survey.
“A single network breach often leads to the compromise of multiple computers, so the faster you can stop the infection from spreading the more you limit the damage and time needed to clean it up,” said Schiappa.
“Companies are looking for the kind of next-generation, integrated network and endpoint protection that can stop advanced threats and prevent an isolated incident from turning into a widespread outbreak.”
“Sophisticated exploits such as MimiKatz and EternalBlue reminded everyone that network protection is critical to endpoint security and vice versa.”
“Only direct intelligence sharing between these two can reveal the true nature of who and what is operating on your network.”
IT managers are acutely aware that firewalls need an upgrade in protection.
In fact, the survey revealed that 79% of IT managers polled want better protection from their current firewall.
99% want firewall technology that can automatically isolate infected computers, and 97% want endpoint and firewall protection from the same vendor which allows for direct sharing of security status information.
Automatic Incident Response
Sophos XG Firewall is the only network security solution that is able to fully identify the source of an infection on your network and automatically limit access to other network resources in response.
This is made possible with our unique Sophos Security Heartbeat™ that shares telemetry and health status between Sophos endpoints and your firewall.
(Learn More. Courtesy of Sophos and Vimeo)
Monitor Network Health
- XG Firewall not only monitors host network activity, but also receives health status directly from your endpoints so you have constant visibility into the health of your entire network.
Identify Infected Systems
- XG Firewall instantly alerts you to compromised systems on your network with full details including the IP address, the user, and the process, so you’re not left digging for information.
Automatically Isolate Infections
- XG Firewall uniquely integrates the health of connected hosts into your firewall rules, enabling you to automatically limit access to sensitive network resources from any compromised system until it’s cleaned up.
Security is Not the Only Risk to Businesses
Following security risks, lost productivity was cited as a concern for 52% of respondents when it comes to a lack of network visibility.
Business productivity can be negatively impacted if IT is unable to prioritize bandwidth for critical applications.
For industries that rely on custom software to meet specific business needs, an inability to prioritize these mission critical applications over less important traffic could be costly.
50% of IT professionals who had invested in custom applications admitted that their firewall could not identify the traffic and therefore were unable to maximize their return on investment.
Lack of visibility also creates a blind spot for the potential transfer of illegal or inappropriate content on corporate networks, making companies vulnerable to litigation and compliance issues.
(Learn More. Courtesy of Sophos and Vimeo)
“Organizations need a firewall that protects their investment in business-critical and custom applications by allowing employees to have prioritized access to the applications they need,” added Schiappa.
“Increasing network visibility requires a radically different approach. By enabling the firewall to receive information directly from the endpoint security, it can now positively identify all applications – even obscure or custom applications.”
The Dirty Secrets of Network Firewalls survey results are available in a PDF report.
The Dirty Secrets of Network Firewalls survey was conducted by Vanson Bourne, an independent specialist in market research, in October and November 2017.
This survey interviewed 2,700 IT decision makers in 10 countries and across five continents, including the US, Canada, Mexico, France, Germany, UK, Australia, Japan, India, and South Africa.
All respondents were from organizations of between 100 and 5,000 users.
Sophos can deliver higher levels of network visibility with the XG Firewall and Sophos Endpoint Protection or Intercept X.
(Sophos has some big news to talk about. Check it out here. Courtesy of Sophos and Vimeo)
