What Are the Best Security Practices for Modern Network Design?
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Incorporating network detection and response (NDR) and identity-based access controls further strengthens visibility and ensures only trusted devices connect. Aligning with frameworks like NIST or ISO 27001 can help maintain compliance and standardize security policies across environments. Together, these practices reduce risk while maintaining performance. Adding centralized monitoring helps detect issues early and maintain consistent policy enforcement across hybrid and cloud environments.
Dan Ryan
Principal Solution Architect
Dan Ryan is a Principal Field Solution Architect specializing in wireless networking at Connection and a Certified Wireless Network Expert (CWNE #351). With nearly two decades in enterprise networking, he helps organizations design and operate reliable, scalable wireless networks that advance business goals. Dan is passionate about education, frequently speaks at industry events, and is known for making complex wireless concepts clear and practical.Read Full Transcript
Advanced networking technologies obviously can provide powerful capabilities. We've spoken about that already. But they also introduce security complexities that require fundamental shifts in how organizations approach cybersecurity.
The first of these is this expanded attack surface. Think of all these new entry points that potential threats have these days. I mean, there's the obvious things like IoT devices, cloud environments, remote workers. But we also now have all these things like API endpoints, all of these new management interfaces that we're introducing. And then on top of that, automated systems. All of these things become potential vulnerabilities.
Organizations now need to implement security by design, not as an afterthought. And as part of this, zero-trust architecture has become essential with advanced networking. The traditional perimeter-based security that we had before assumed everything inside the network was trusted. But modern environments, they don't have perimeters, right? They extend across cloud environments, those remote workers, and even now partner connections. So there's no real single perimeter to secure.
Every user, device, application—they have to be continuously verified no matter where they are located. And on top of that, encryption is obviously a requirement as well. And that drastically increases complexity. Data now has to be protected not just in transit between locations, but now we have to worry about encrypting it between things like microservices and across all of these cloud platforms.
Introducing more complexity there, we now need to manage all these encryption keys that are required and the certificates. And at scale, that requires automated tools and obviously policies.
Another requirement that is coming up is visibility and monitoring. But that also has its own unique challenges. Think about advanced networking which enables these dynamic environments where services are spun up and down automatically, traffic patterns are changing constantly, and all of this causes traditional monitoring tools to kind of lose their effectiveness.
Organizations now need monitoring platforms that can adapt to these new and changing environments and provide real-time visibility and threat detection across all of these distributed infrastructures.
Identity and access management—we kind of touched on this already—become critical as well when network functions are software-based. Administrative access to network automation tools, those API credentials for orchestration platforms, and service account management all require careful attention. Compromised credentials in software-defined environments can have far, far more severe consequences than in traditional network breaches.
Compliance is another one and complexity increases as well. So advanced networking often involves data flowing across multiple cloud providers and also jurisdictions, making it a challenge to maintain regulatory compliance and data residency requirements.
Success these days requires treating security as an integral part of network design, not as a separate consideration. Organizations that take that security-first approach will obviously have less complexity and achieve better performance all while reducing their overall risk.
Advanced networking technologies obviously can provide powerful capabilities. We've spoken about that already. But they also introduce security complexities that require fundamental shifts in how organizations approach cybersecurity.
The first of these is this expanded attack surface. Think of all these new entry points that potential threats have these days. I mean, there's the obvious things like IoT devices, cloud environments, remote workers. But we also now have all these things like API endpoints, all of these new management interfaces that we're introducing. And then on top of that, automated systems. All of these things become potential vulnerabilities.
Organizations now need to implement security by design, not as an afterthought. And as part of this, zero-trust architecture has become essential with advanced networking. The traditional perimeter-based security that we had before assumed everything inside the network was trusted. But modern environments, they don't have perimeters, right? They extend across cloud environments, those remote workers, and even now partner connections. So there's no real single perimeter to secure.
Every user, device, application—they have to be continuously verified no matter where they are located. And on top of that, encryption is obviously a requirement as well. And that drastically increases complexity. Data now has to be protected not just in transit between locations, but now we have to worry about encrypting it between things like microservices and across all of these cloud platforms.
Introducing more complexity there, we now need to manage all these encryption keys that are required and the certificates. And at scale, that requires automated tools and obviously policies.
Another requirement that is coming up is visibility and monitoring. But that also has its own unique challenges. Think about advanced networking which enables these dynamic environments where services are spun up and down automatically, traffic patterns are changing constantly, and all of this causes traditional monitoring tools to kind of lose their effectiveness.
Organizations now need monitoring platforms that can adapt to these new and changing environments and provide real-time visibility and threat detection across all of these distributed infrastructures.
Identity and access management—we kind of touched on this already—become critical as well when network functions are software-based. Administrative access to network automation tools, those API credentials for orchestration platforms, and service account management all require careful attention. Compromised credentials in software-defined environments can have far, far more severe consequences than in traditional network breaches.
Compliance is another one and complexity increases as well. So advanced networking often involves data flowing across multiple cloud providers and also jurisdictions, making it a challenge to maintain regulatory compliance and data residency requirements.
Success these days requires treating security as an integral part of network design, not as a separate consideration. Organizations that take that security-first approach will obviously have less complexity and achieve better performance all while reducing their overall risk.
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