Nile Releases Zero Trust-as-a-Service Aimed at Delivering Ransomware Protection Natively Without Operational Headaches – Source: securityboulevard.com

Nile is working to make Local Area Network (LAN) invulnerable by design; its latest effort to stop ransomware and lateral movement attacks. The networking-as-a-service vendor, on Thursday, announced the launch of Nile Trust Service, an add-on solution that it said will end the need to deploy a medley of localized point security solutions and provide a built-in alternative.

“An average enterprise uses 70 plus security tools. Imagine giving them more tools to use,” Suresh Katukam, co-founder and chief product officer, said.

Katukam, who is 25 years a networking veteran with 40 patents to his name, has studied the industry with keen eyes. In his conversation with CISOs, he senses that despite the profusion of tooling, companies are unconfident about their security posture.

Nile is co-founded by Katukam and his partners – former CEO of Cisco, John T. Chambers, and Cisco alum, Pankaj Patel, with the mission to “democratize” secure connectivity. Nile Access Service, it’s subscription-based network as a service (NaaS) offer, makes it possible to bring up a network without specialized skills, or the need to own or maintain the infrastructure.

“No documentation, no training required; just a simple mobile app,” Katukam said.

Nile Trust Service, based on Nile Access Service, is a service offering that will mobilize zero trust security with a set of purpose-built features. At its core is a zero-trust infrastructure that isolates identities down to a blast radius of one limiting the impact of attacks. Each device and user are confined to a “segment of one” that renders the rest of the network out of bounds in the event of a breach.

The goal is to make the network a “black box” for rogue entities, Katukam told during an interview this week with Gestalt IT, a division of Tech Field Day.

The architecture design makes it impossible for bad actors to discover the network topology or the users on it, masquerading as legit identities which enables orchestration of lateral movement.

“Every user is isolated by design.”

The traffic is directed to a policy enforcement point where it is examined and appropriately routed.

Nile also proofs the network from “man in the middle” (MITM) attacks with certificate-based authentication.

Other features included are end-to-end encryption that renders all communication unreadable by default and automatic security updates that ensures that the environment stays safe and secure continually.

Nile Trust service will implement a second layer of protection with zero-trust access features like secure authentication, single sign-on (SSO), multi-factor authentication (MFA), and RADIUS.

Behavioral mechanisms activated behind the scenes will monitor and analyze users based on login time, device in-use, and more, to fight MAC spoofing and other insider threats, said Katukam.

The “trust no one” approach will also ensure that authentication re-verification checks are performed automatically for every returning user and device.

Additional functions like cross-domain identity management (SCIM), advanced firewall, and granular microsegmentation will make certain that malware and infections are swiftly discovered and arrested at the source.

With the new service, Nile will also allow users to enforce universal security policy for remote and campus users, as well as IoT and OT devices, for a universal zero trust framework.

The raft of security capabilities rolled into one solution and delivered as a service, will help rein in cost and operational overheads typical with multi-vendor solutions for enterprises, the company said.

In another update, the company announced partnership with Palo Alto and Microsoft that will now allow it to integrate Prisma Access, a SASE solution, and the Entra family of identity and network access solutions, with Nile, furthering the universal zero trust endeavor.

Check out Nilesecure.com for more product information.