Today’s
most successful business leaders know that every decision must be aligned to
strategic goals. Whether acquiring another company or engaging in a full-scale
digital transformation, successful businesses always keep their key objectives in
mind. Until recently, the exception to this rule was when seeking network
security policy management automation, because solutions were not flexible
enough to allow each business to automate at its own pace and on its own terms.New
and innovative network security policy management tools have opened the doors
for today’s business leaders to align automation with overarching strategic objectives.
Thanks to the evolution and flexibility of these tools, there are now four
forms of automation for security experts to consider. Each of which help to
improve efficiency and realize savings, while also providing other tangible business
benefits that grow as organizations progress through the forms of automation.1. Automated Design
By automating design, businesses can create efficiencies that lead directly to cost savings. This first form of automation empowers security and IT teams with a basic level of network security policy automation, including network design recommendations and proactive compliance and risk scoring. The efficiencies in network security design and management resulting from this type of automation can reduce the painstaking design process from weeks or days to hours or minutes.2. Automated ImplementationThis
second form of automation drastically reduces the risk of introducing human errors
when implementing network changes or configurations. According to a Gartner
study, 99 percent of security breaches through 2023 will be caused by misconfigurations
due to overworked security staff relying on outdated manual change processes.
By automating rule staging, commitment and documentation, businesses can
relieve the pressure on staff and reduce human-introduced errors. This also allows
them to further trim manual processes and redeploy security personnel to more
strategic initiatives.3. Zero-Touch AutomationZero-touch
automation used to be considered the ultimate form of automation. It allows
security staff to enable the automated system to fully implement routine
processes that enforce network policies. The automated assessment capabilities
built-in to this form of automation can help businesses validate configuration
requirements and alert staff when violations occur, ensuring consistent policy
compliance across multiple platforms and applications. Zero-touch automation also
provides additional business benefits by enabling integration with SOAR tools,
including incident response and threat intelligence platforms.4. Adaptive Network SecurityIndustry
innovations have now led to a fourth and final form of network security policy management
automation, which continuously monitors and adapts network enforcement to move
past the point of implementation. By utilizing adaptive and contextually aware
enforcement tools to auto-detect infrastructure, network and platform changes,
businesses can continuously protect and refine their security policies. This form
of automation offers a cost-effective way to elevate operations by creating and
implementing global security policy changes and corrections in real-time.When
deployed strategically and in combination with each other, these four forms of
automation can propel organizations to previously unimagined heights of
efficiency, efficacy and growth. The key to fully unlocking those new achievements
is through using adaptive network security tools, which allow businesses to
keep their hands on the wheel while selectively freeing up valuable security staff
time and resources. No matter what form of automation is selected, network
security policy management solutions can be a powerful complement to an existing
security team and help every aspect of a network run at the speed of business.
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