Safety measures, when it comes to providing network security by means of endpoint authentication and authorization, are always preferable, and in regulated industries mandatory. Traditionally, network access control (NAC) solutions used to provide local area network (LAN) security by allowing or blocking network access based on set security policies. In today’s world, NAC has evolved to address the vast variety of challenges for the next generation of networks.
While Pulse Policy Secure provides standard-based advanced network protection and features, it is very important for security professionals to get complete visibility of the network; who is accessing, what device type are they using, etc. It also requires that ensure that only the right user with the right devices to get access to the right corporate resources.
The first step towards safeguarding your network is knowing that various network security options exist and NAC is part of the overall plan. Moreover, it is important to plan your deployment by creating comprehensive policies for assigning roles/realms, enforcement methods, and remediation actions for non-compliant endpoints. Once the policies are in place, implementation is ready to begin.
Let’s look at various aspects of a NAC deployment.
Visibility
With the increase of network devices it has become difficult for administrators to get the identity of the connected endpoints. With the help of the Profiler feature on Pulse Policy Secure, administrators can overcome the problem of little visibility of endpoints. Profiler provides contextual details about every endpoint connected to the network including both managed and unmanaged devices. It also increases visibility by identifying and classifying devices by MAC address, IP address, location and OS type/function etc.
Enforcement and Network Security
Traditional security approaches focus on protecting the entire network. It has become vital to provide network security on the basis of device type and state, and user. Role-based access is given based on those two factors. It is important to find out which individual users accessing resources. Network security can also be accomplished by applying dynamic enforcement policies configured on Policy Secure to mitigate the risk of end user access and automatically remediate non-compliant devices.
Compliance
With the wide variety of devices introduced by BYOD and IoT, there is a need at every enterprise to quickly identify the source of threats and mitigate the risks of losing organisation’s sensitive data. Pulse Secure’s Host Checker evaluates every endpoint and ensures that it is compliant. These compliance checks can be custom items like files or processes. Host Checker can verify that latest anti-virus, patches and system firewall are deployed in order to minimise the risk at the endpoint.
In addition, Pulse Policy Secure also provides simplified guest access management, end-user device onboarding, and flexibility in deployment options. For more information on Pulse Policy Secure, please visit HTTPS://WWW.PULSESECURE.NET/POLICY-SECURE/OVERVIEW.