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Smart Isolation – The Best of Both Worlds

What is Smart Isolation?  A way to isolate skyscrapers from earthquakes? A feature to restrict ephemeral Wi-Fi access points from resources on local networks?  How can isolation be smart when it’s binary – no air gap means no isolation?   Before I go into why Isla 6 introduces Smart Isolation, an industry first, and why we think Smart Isolation is the best of both worlds, let me share a favorite story about a smart approach to isolation.

Eating breakfast in the bathtub may seem odd until you take the view of a mother raising 3 young boys. Putting the boys in the bathtub to eat their breakfast cereal isolates the rest of her house from their mess. By moving meal time from the high chair to the tub, cleaning up the boys after breakfast becomes a breeze. Simply finish bathing them and the boys are ready to get dressed. Drain the tub and it’s ready for the next meal. While I’d like to take credit for this innovative use of isolation, the mother of a good friend of mine developed this “smart isolation” technique.

Smart Isolation works a bit like my friend’s breakfast isolation. It’s risk-based isolation. First you identify if there is a high risk of the person making a mess while they eat. If the risk is high, or you don’t know, choose a high level of isolation (the bath tub). If the risk is low, use the kitchen table. If you trust the person, let them eat on the couch while watching TV (no isolation). Isolation increases with risk.

Isla 6 smart isolation technology intelligently renders pages and elements locally or remotely depending on risk levels. Isolated pages are fetched and executed in a remote disposable browser, with risky elements being remotely rendered and safe elements, such as text, locally rendered in the browser. Risk identification is powered by Cyberinc Threat Intelligence Service (CTIS) and can also be administratively managed. That’s risk-based isolation.

How much should be invested in cybersecurity?

Using a cost-benefit analysis like the Gordon-Loeb model , the cost of high security is high when you consider the cost in reduced usability and productivity. Consider an extreme example. It’s easy to protect your users from the internet if you don’t let them connect. But when you consider the cost, what good is being safe if you can’t do your work? Less draconian high security solutions come with a poor user experience (UX). For organizations without high security and compliance requirements, the cost of security due to poor UX still outweighs the benefits. That’s the promise of Smart Isolation, to deliver the best of both worlds. High security when the risk is high while optimizing the UX when the risk is low without changing the UX. That’s risk-based isolation without a UX disadvantage.

Learn more about Smart Isolation here

The post Smart Isolation – The Best of Both Worlds appeared first on Cyberinc Blog.

*** This is a Security Bloggers Network syndicated blog from Cyberinc Blog authored by John Klassen. Read the original post at: https://blogs.cyberinc.com/smart-isolation-the-best-of-both-worlds/