What Tools Are Essential To Protect Your Organization
As soon as the local network of a company or a public authority is connected to the Internet, ensuring cybersecurity becomes the priority of CIOs. Employees will browse the Internet where dangers are omnipresent. Under these conditions, what are the tools that can guarantee secure browsing and reduce the risks associated with cyber threats? When companies are generalizing the use of cloud services, it is more essential than ever to make the right choices regarding web security tools or risk having to accept the conditions of ransomware.
What Are Cyber Threats
We often speak of malware or “malicious software”: spam, viruses, Trojan horses, ransomware, phishing attacks, etc. If viruses are less publicized today thanks to the generalization of anti-virus software on workstations, phishing attacks are now the most feared. Because they will seek to deceive end users through infected links hidden in “real-life” emails, for example, a user will receive an email that looks like a message from his bank, perhaps even after he has connected to it, asking him to update his information, which a hacker will recover. If the computer is infected, the organization’s entire network is likely to be infected within minutes! Some sectors are particularly affected, such as health, for example.
Web Filtering, Therefore, Remains An Essential Point Of The Cybersecurity Strategy
Internet filtering is essential to ensure web security via two key tools: the Proxy and the Firewall. Combining the two tools is crucial to forming a secure web gateway between users and the Internet. The Firewall will ensure incoming/outgoing access authorizations.
At the same time, the Proxy will take care of all the filtering operations either via allowlists to authorize known sites or via blocklists which will block access to dangerous sites. Safelisting only allowing sites validated as safe is arguably the best way to protect against cyber threats. The blocklist will ban specific hazardous sites but will not be able to know them all, so it can let the user navigate to the short URL of a Phishing attack, for example.
These two tools are also essential because they make it possible to limit the vulnerability resulting from security flaws in the operating systems. Even if publishers regularly publish fixes, patches or other codes correcting security vulnerabilities, it is important not to wait for these patches because, in the event of a zero-day attack for which the patch is not yet known, the network computer could be exposed: the combination of Proxy and Firewall is the correct answer.
Proxy And Firewall The Two Essential Web Security Tools
Firewalls and Proxies have evolved rapidly in recent years to deal with increasingly sophisticated attacks, and some malware even embeds artificial intelligence to adapt to end-user behavior. The important thing is to make the two tools work well together and not try to use only one of the 2, diverting it from its primary function. The Firewall remains the barrier to managing the inputs/outputs on the computer network. Still, the Proxy will ensure all the filtering operations between the Internet and the local network to allow employees to navigate optimal security conditions.
patches or other codes correcting security vulnerabilities, it is important not to wait for these patches because, in the event of a zero-day attack for which the patch is not yet known, the network computer could be exposed: the combination of Proxy and Firewall is the correct answer.
