By Introduction:
SD-WAN refers to Software-Defined Wide Area Network and has emerged as one of the topmost mainstream technologies helping organizations streamline their operations while minimizing costs, enhancing their performance, and scale rapidly. SD-WAN management will be one of the top priorities of software and IT professionals in the recent future. This is amongst the highly innovative technological solutions that will drive business growth in the IT sector and make things more agile.
However, with every new technology, there are issues of security and vulnerability. As a result, the software, IT, and cybersecurity professionals will be keen to examine the various security loopholes and find suitable solutions to address them.
What is SD-WAN?
Since you already know what SD-WAN stands for, we will discuss the technology a little bit in detail. It has emerged as a revolutionary technology since it helps organizations minimize their utilization of expensive links like MPLS (Multi-Protocol Label Switching) and adopt inexpensive connections like broadband and cellular instead. Hence, the entire WAN management of a company gets dramatically simplified.
Advantages of employing SD-WAN:
Some of the visible benefits of SD-WAN are-
- SD-WAN offers a significant edge by helping IT professionals reduce costs. They can abandon expensive routing technologies in favor of inexpensive ones.
- It also helps reduce WAN overhead.
- SD-WAN management enables organizations to abstract hardware layers and reduces hardware dependencies for network teams.
- With the pandemic normalizing work from home, the enormous stress on VPN solutions can be mitigated by SD-WAN, which will provide the same quality of service (QoS) to remote workers akin to in-house settings of office. At the same time, secure communication is an upside of this technology.
However, SD-WAN is still in an adoption phase for most organizations.
Kinds of organizations that will benefit from SD-WAN management:
SD-WAN will be the most promising technology for more prominent organizations or those that have several locations. Business verticals that will benefit the most from this technology include banking and finance, IT and other technology companies, and retail outfits that operate in many locations.
Due to security issues and concerns over sensitive data safety, bank security and networking teams using Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP), cloud documentation and management software, and video conferencing have been routing large amounts of traffic using expensive MPLS or private links. The VOIP and video conferencing generate massive internet traffic while the SaaS does not have an Intrusion Detection and Prevention System (IDPs) in place, resulting in increasing the cost. The use of SD-WAN will route the same traffic through local broadband connections and reduce the costs.
Security threats for SD-WAN:
Since organizations adopting SD-WAN will be routing their traffic through unsupervised and unmonitored local interfaces and uncontrolled channels, there could be a high risk of cybercrimes and attacks. Using SD-WAN means organizations will venture into locations and expand their perimeter to a point where it ceases to exist and provides several surfaces from which cyber attackers can gain entry.
How to mitigate such safety concerns?
Organizations adopting SD-WAN should look at security issues proactively. The best posture for organizations will be bundling network and security considerations together in the form of solutions like Managed Security Services (MSS), Managed Threat Detection and Response Services (MTDR), and even seeking trusted consultation from experts.
Conclusion:
Adopting a more innovative and proactive approach towards security solutions will help organizations realize the cost savings of SD-WAN without falling into the loopholes of vulnerability. Secure SD-WAN will only lead to the seamless implementation of the technology for organizations.
