How Network Access Control Tools Can Safeguard Your Organization’s Data

Most NAC tools authenticate devices and users, verify their security posture and enforce policies before they connect to the network. They can also restrict the lateral movement of devices and users based on their authentication status.

A modern NAC tool should continuously identify all connected devices, provide visibility, and automatically perform least-privilege access to protect data at scale. This should be done in a way that reduces costs for IT teams by automating the process.

User Authentication

Network access control tools prevent unauthorized users and devices from entering your private network or accessing data. They also help ensure that users can only access the data that their job roles require. This helps keep sensitive information from falling into the wrong hands and keeps untrusted, infected, or misconfigured devices from spreading attacks throughout the enterprise.

These security solutions can take a pre-connect, post-connect, or hybrid approach to authentication and authorization. The pre-connect design checks and validates devices before they connect to the network, allowing only compliant devices onto the web. Post-connect designs trust connected devices until they become non-compliant. At this point, they deny them access or quarantine them to a separate network to prevent them from infecting the rest of the organization’s system.

The hybrid approach allows you to provide temporary access to your corporate networks and data to guests, contractors, and visitors while checking that their devices are up-to-date and secure. It also allows employees to work from home or other remote locations while ensuring outside malware doesn’t infiltrate their work computers when they return to the office. This solution is beneficial when dealing with Bring Your Device (BYOD) policies and work-from-anywhere initiatives. However, it is essential to note that the base license capabilities of these tools may limit how much security they provide.

Device Authentication

Network access control tools can verify whether devices are compliant and secure before trusting them to access sensitive information. They can also prevent unauthorized devices from communicating with each other by limiting communication between them. This can help protect organizations from lateral attacks that can spread malware to the rest of the network and potentially damage critical systems like client databases or data storage facilities.

Device authentication in NAC is typically based on factors including device identification and location. These features don’t replace the need to authenticate users but can be helpful as secondary verification forms in conjunction with other security measures. For example, an organization can allow users to access the system only within specific time windows and deny access outside those times. This helps prevent rogue employees from working outside the office when they should be on break.

Many organizations deploy IoT applications, automation, and other IT initiatives that require them to move massive amounts of data over their networks. NAC solutions can inventory and tag IoT devices as they enter the network, ensure they follow internal security protocols, and monitor their behavior to ensure compliance with organizational policies.

A network access control solution is a critical component of any modern IT infrastructure, and it can help safeguard data from cyberattacks that threaten your organization’s business processes and the integrity of customer information. Ensure you have the resources to continuously monitor and adjust your NAC solution as your business and network security needs evolve.

Device Segmentation

When segmenting a network, admins can limit the devices’ connection to certain network parts. They can also define rules that dictate how data should flow among those segments. This helps to prevent hackers from gaining access to sensitive information by blocking off their path.

In addition, this approach can help to ensure compliance with various regulations. For instance, it can help businesses meet PCI standards by keeping credit card data in a protected zone isolated from the rest of the network. This will prevent hackers from stealing credit card details from employees in the branch offices and using them to attack the central corporate system.

Network segmentation can be implemented by implementing internal firewalls or Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) configurations on networking equipment. However, this is a cumbersome process that doesn’t scale well. Software-defined access tools allow for more effective segmentation by tagging network traffic and enforcing security policies directly on the networking equipment.

This allows administrators to create more precise and granular security policies. They can apply security based on the device, application, and user to enable a policy of least privilege that’s more relevant for each use case. It can also help to reduce network latency for IoT devices, for example. Likewise, it can ensure that the network has sufficient bandwidth for high-definition video streaming or cloud storage.

Permissions Management

Improve your security posture with comprehensive and granular visibility to enforce the principle of least privilege access across your multi-cloud environment. The Permissions Management dashboard gives you a high-level overview of your permission profile and locates the highest-risk identities and resources. For example, users with BYOD policies may have multiple devices granting them varying access levels to critical data. This access could be compromised if these devices do not maintain sound operating systems and security hygiene or are used in a non-secure location. Permissions Management can automatically detect these anomalous activities and provide context-rich reports and cyber kill chain analysis to speed up investigation and remediation.

Reduce risk by eliminating unnecessary access with the ability to right-size permissions based on historical activity, remove direct role assignments, and create new roles based on least privilege. Additionally, you can enable identity on demand to grant permissions to individuals based on their specific needs and time of need for a limited period.

Ensure compliance with regulations such as PCI or HIPAA by reducing risk and ensuring that only the necessary people can access your sensitive information. Any organization that connects to the internet needs robust access control and the tools that come with it, especially as work continues to shift away from traditional office environments and toward remote and mobile work.