Juniper Security VP: Networks Must Be Threat Aware

Samantha Madrid, VP of security business and strategy at Juniper Networks, joined the company about 18 months ago with a very specific security strategy: change how we secure networks by making the network itself threat aware.

This requires architectural change instead of relying on firewalls, endpoint products, and web proxies, she says. And, like other cybersecurity challenges these days, it comes into sharper focus in light of the computer engineering definition pandemic.

“You have a lot of hospitals isolating their networks, building these standalone triage facilities where they can do large-scale testing and posture assessment for their community, and that right there tells you that you have to make the network more threat aware,” Madrid said. These rapidly spun-up facilities may not be able to deploy a web proxy or endpoint security technology or other standalone security products, she added. But they will include a wireless network with routing and switching. “So if you have those technologies that are part of standing up a network quickly, and you have advanced threat intelligence integrated and that is a layer that protects you,” Madrid said.