Increasingly distributed information-technology environments are throwing a lot of new challenges at security professionals. Traditional security barriers aren’t sufficient to protect the expanding surface area for attackers. Some suggest baking security into the network itself offers the best defense.

“Security needs to start converging together with networking,” said Ken Xie (pictured), founder and chief executive officer of Fortinet Inc.

Internet of things edge and mobile devices and multiple clouds are creating a vast number of entry points for hackers. In the old world, companies tried to secure what was within the walls of its data center with firewalls. Now, their data centers aren’t confined, but dispersed and fluid. There is data flowing out to the cloud, and mobile users all over the world are coming in. A new “security-driven network” is necessary to secure the vast terrain over which data is traveling, according to Xie.

Xie spoke Peter Burris (@plburris) and Lisa Martin (@LisaMartinTV), co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the Fortinet Accelerate event in Orlando, Florida. They discussed how security-driven networking addresses distributed-IT and edge vulnerabilities (see the full interview with transcript here). (* Disclosure below.)

3G security goes with the data flow

We have now entered the third generation of security, Xie pointed out. This is not about building a static security wall around data. Rather it is about security that can follow data in motion. “You need to make sure security follows the data — that’s the new trend,” he said. “That’s where the infrastructure [of] security needs to involve the networking side, the end point side and the cloud.”

One reason we badly need secure endpoints is that much compute is shifting away from cloud toward the edge, he explained. Edge devices need to be able to compute data securely on the spot. E-commerce, autonomous driving, virtual reality, and augmented reality applications cannot send data back to cloud to compute on as a result latency issues.

“When you do VR and AR, if even you slow down by two microseconds, people feel dizziness; they fell sickness,” Xie stated.

Fortinet increasingly positions itself as a learning company to help pros tackle these evolving security and networking challenges.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Fortinet Accelerate event. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for Fortinet Accelerate 2019. Neither Fortinet Inc., the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE