UPDATED 11:00 EDT / FEBRUARY 17 2016

NEWS

Illumio aims its self-adapting security platform at malicious insiders

With over 40 percent of enterprise data leaks now estimated to originate from within the corporate network, security vendors are starting to pay more attention to the threat of malicious insiders. The latest player to jump aboard the bandwagon is the Accel Partners-backed Illumio Inc., which today introduced new user authorization functionality for its cloud-based breach prevention service.

The Adaptive Security Platform sets itself apart with a high-level management console that provides the ability to regulate how backend infrastructure is accessed using natural language instructions. The syntax is a simpler alternative to the custom code that many competing services require in order to achieve the same effect, which takes a considerable amount of time to write. Worse, the complexity of the chore increases the risk of an administrator slipping up and creating a loophole that hackers can exploit to breach their organization’s systems.

Such vulnerabilities typically emerge not during the initial definition of a security policy but rather when the infrastructure that it’s meant to protect changes. In theory, traditional network protection software makes it possible to update access rules before every such modification, but in practice, keeping constant track of an entire enterprise worth of systems and applications is nigh-impossible. Illumio’s Adaptive Security Platform solves the issue by completely automating the implementation of access restrictions defined through its console.

If, for example, an organization wishes to scale its Exchange Server implementation in order to accommodate an influx of new hires, then the startup’s service can individually apply the security policies set for the deployment to every additional server brought into the mix. The Active Directory integration launched this morning extends the functionality to the workforce itself in order to prevent users from accessing sensitive systems they’re not supposed to. The addition aims to nullify the risks that are created when an employee is transferred to a new department but still retains their old permissions, or administrators neglect to lock a disgruntled staffer out of the corporate network after they’re let go.

Illumio can thus potentially save a lot of trouble for large organizations with upwards of thousands of employees. The Adaptive Security Platform is already popular among the enterprise crowd, with Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC, NetSuite Inc and Plantronics Inc. listed among its users.

Image via Illumio

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