Where is Your Zone-to-Zone Connectivity Matrix?

If you’re like most of the complex IT shops we talk with, you probably don’t even have a current security matrix to store anywhere – file cabinet or data folder. The connectivity matrix is essentially the company security posture, but almost no one has a comprehensive way to visualize and easily understand the connectivity status […]

If you’re like most of the complex IT shops we talk with, you probably don’t even have a current security matrix to store anywhere – file cabinet or data folder. The connectivity matrix is essentially the company security posture, but almost no one has a comprehensive way to visualize and easily understand the connectivity status between the various configured security policies (zone-to-zone policies). This puts them in a dangerous position of risk because you can’t fix what you don’t know is broken.

The lack of precise insight into which firewall zones should or shouldn’t have connectivity with other zones undermines basic network security. And zero trust? Good luck implementing and enforcing that stringent security approach. Without visibility into interzone connectivity, it’s a near-impossible feat — especially because networks are always growing and changing.

Your network teams and security engineers can now use the Forward Enterprise platform to access a graphical representation of security zone connectivity. They can get a current view of the complex zone-to-zone interactions occurring in your network presented in one easy-to-understand visualization. It only takes a glance to see which zones have full, partial, or zero connectivity; color-coded status indicators to represent flow outcomes, so teams can confirm compliance at a glance:

Green: fully connected
Yellow: partially connected
Red: fully isolated - blocked by security policies (ACLs)
Grey: fully isolated - no routing policies

How simple is that? Now, your teams can have a single source of truth for interzone connectivity and policy compliance that’s always up to date and always super clear. Check out our use case to learn more about how our easy-to-use, zone-to-zone connectivity matrix feature in the Forward Enterprise platform can help you confirm that your interzone connectivity posture is sound and that you’re ready to start building a zero trust environment.

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