Skip to content

JA7. The Future of Network Security

Statement

Cybersecurity threats with ever-evolving complexities have become pervasive in today’s networks. With the evolution of networks: cloud computing, the Internet of Things (IoT), and the Internet of Everything (IoE), it has become an increasing challenge to secure networks. What does the future hold for network security? Several cybersecurity trends are emerging and seem to point to the future of network security such as Zero Trust (ZT) security, cloud security, and automation.

Task: Write a short essay on your perspective on the future of network security.

Answer

Networks -including the Internet and the Cloud- are important parts of every business; thus, securing them is crucial; but this also means that cyber attacks targeting networks are also increasing. There are broad categories that collectively define the realm of network security, including firewalls, hardware and software security, data encryption, user authentication, and malware protection (Nicole, 2023). The future of network security involves improving at each of these levels to protect networks from cyber threats.

Zero Trust (ZT) is a concept that involves considering all resources and users as untrusted or unauthorized despite being identified and authenticated; this also requires explicit expression of trust through security policies (E.g., IAM policies); when a resource requests something, the context of the request is evaluated against the policies and the decision is made to grant or deny access (Morillo, 2022). This approach is more secure than any traditional user-based permissions as it explicitly defines the access rights of each resource.

Cloud Security is also of increasing importance as the cloud is getting bigger with more people and businesses moving to the cloud. The Cloud is a giant network of data centers that are logically divided into smaller segments; securing these isolated segments while all live in the same physical space is a challenge. With more and more IOE and IOT devices connected directly to the cloud, the mission is even harder as the attack surface is increasing. The future of cloud security involves improvements to the virtualization process including encryption, monitoring, access control, and performance optimization (Booth, 2023).

Automation is another trend that is expected to shape the future of network security. As networks get bigger and the number of connected devices is ever-increasing (e.g., IoT/IoE devices) it is becoming hard to manage and secure such networks manually. Automation can help by deploying Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS), Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS), firewalls, and automated response systems that are pre-configured or self-learning on the work using machine learning algorithms. These systems constantly monitor and analyze the network traffic and make decisions based on the pre-configured rules or the learned patterns (Booth, 2023).

To conclude, there are more trends in network security including AI-driven security, the adoption of blockchain, advancements in encryption, the adoption of security as a service, and increasing sophistication of cyber attacks. The future of network security looks challenging but also promising with security engineers needed more than ever to help secure our increasingly connected world.

References

‌