Juniper Security Extended To 'Every Port Of Connection On The Network'

'We are building a threat-aware network that extends beyond traditional technologies, and the key component to connected security is extending security to those points of connection,' says Samantha Madrid, Juniper's vice president of security business and strategy.

True protection can only be achieved through the convergence of security with the entire network infrastructure, according to Samantha Madrid, vice president of security business and strategy for Juniper Networks.

"Only then will you have the true visibility and insight into what is happening is on the network, and who and what is on your network," she said.

That's why Juniper's Security Intelligence framework, known as SecIntel, is being integrated into the company's EX Series and QFX Series switches, Madrid said in a keynote at Juniper’s partner and customer summit, NXTWORK 2019, in Las Vegas.

[Related: Juniper, Mist Systems Connect Wired, Wireless Environments With A Dash Of AI]

The extension builds on Juniper's Connected Security platform that it unveiled in April with the goal of extending security to all points of connection to the network to safeguard all users, infrastructure and endpoints, Madrid explained. Juniper in July said it was extending SecIntel threat intelligence to its MX series routers.

Juniper has spent 20 years evolving security and while it has been able to detect new threats, its ability to enforce threat detection remained stuck to the perimeter technologies, like firewalls, proxies or endpoint software, Madrid said.

"We are building a threat-aware network that extends beyond traditional technologies, and the key component to connected security is extending security to those points of connection," she said.

With the extension of SecIntel into Juniper's EX Series and QFX Series switches, partners and end customers can make every port of connection on the network—whether it’s a router, switch, access point or firewall— threat-aware, Madrid said.

For partners, that means selling security as part of the networking offering, instead of selling security separately or as an add-on sale, Bikash Koley, CTO of Juniper, told CRN.

"Security used to be an attach. We are increasingly building solutions for our partners where it’s not a box of toys you are selling. It's truly a put-together offering," Koley said.

Ashley Stephenson, CEO of Corero Network Security, a Marlborough, Mass.-based Juniper technology partner that is focused on DDoS protection, applauded Juniper's move to push intelligence out to more Juniper products.

"That really fits into the partnership that we have with them—this idea that the edge of the network and components of the network are going to be made more intelligent. Before, if you had 20 Juniper routers deployed in your network, [the routers] would let DDoS right through. Now, once you enable this offering, those edge routers participate in monitoring for those attacks and then block that traffic from entering the network," Stephenson said.

Juniper also said Tuesday that NSS Labs, an independent cybersecurity product testing firm, recommended Juniper in its 2019 Data Center Security Gateway Test Report. The report evaluated Juniper’s SRX5400 with one SPC3 card, running AppSec and IDP, which was assessed by NSS Labs on security effectiveness, performance, stability, reliability and total cost of ownership. Juniper scored 100 percent on evasion block rate, 99.62 percent on exploit block rate and an average secured throughput of 13.962 Gbps.