How to Safely Enable Microsoft Apps on the Network

A Platform Approach to Network-Based Application Security

Attackers do not care where your applications and data reside. The challenge organizations face is how to best protect the highly distributed Microsoft® infrastructure from cyberattacks, across the network, the cloud and endpoints.

A natively integrated next-generation security platform, comprised of a next-generation firewall, threat intelligence cloud and advanced endpoint protection, empowers organizations to adopt a security posture rooted in prevention. On the network, physical and virtualized form factors can be deployed and extended into the cloud, offering key capabilities required to safely enable Microsoft applications, including Azure® and Office 365® environments.

1. Identification & Control

The next-generation firewall natively classifies all network traffic – applications, threats and malware – regardless of port, encryption or evasive techniques employed. Clearly identified application functions can be used as the basis for security controls and policy to dramatically reduce the organization’s attack footprint and minimize risk. In addition, security professionals can map application usage to user and device type to increase traffic visibility and control to safely enable the use of any Microsoft application crossing the network, regardless of user or device type.

2. Prevent Known & Unknown Threats

Inspecting and blocking known threats, such as vulnerability exploits or malware, and identifying and blocking unknown threats are key capabilities for safely enabling ­Microsoft applications on the network. The next-generation firewall, featuring real-time threat prevention and content control, coupled with the threat intelligence cloud, ­offers protection from threats, both known and unknown. The content control capability limits unauthorized data transfer and detects and blocks a wide range of threats, while the threat intelligence cloud identifies unknown malware, zero-day exploits, and advanced persistent threats (APTs) through static and dynamic analysis in a scalable, virtual ­environment, automatically disseminating updated protections­ globally in near-real time. This dramatically improves businesses’ future threat ­sprevention capabilities.

3. Consistent Protection

To achieve consistent protection of your valuable data, regardless of location, the next-generation firewall can be deployed in a purpose-built platform, with the ability to scale from a branch office location to a high-speed data center, or in a virtualized form factor to support cloud-based computing needs. Security policies can then be extended to control which devices can access which applications and network resources, resulting in a comprehensive security policy – from the organization’s network boundary to wherever users and devices are located.

Read the Securing Your Microsoft Environment whitepaper.