Certes launches encryption appliance to protect cloud traffic

Certes Networks has released a new security appliance aimed at protecting network traffic inside IaaS clouds and between customer locations.

Its new vCEP (virtual Certes Enforcement Point) is looking to fill a gap in the market the security company sees in enterprises and governments looking to move to public clouds but are concerned with security issues.

The vCEP is a virtual appliance allowing organisations to protect sensitive network traffic among virtual servers and between clouds without using tunnels. It encrypts network traffic from IaaS cloud infrastructures to data centres across the WAN, and from server to server within the cloud.

Certes said that while the cloud provides a compelling case for cost savings and operational efficiency, the lack of a cloud-compatible security solution has kept IaaS off limits for sensitive and regulated workloads. IT said the new appliance would allow companies to move to the cloud without “the added complexity of regulatory considerations.”

It added that existing products typically use tunnel technologies such as IPSec or SSL/TLS to protect network traffic to the edge of the cloud network, but traffic among servers within the cloud network often remains unprotected. Tunnel-based solutions have limited applicability within cloud networks due to issues with scalability, management and performance.

The Certes platform uses this appliance to employ policies and administer encryption with a single set of controls and policies on multiple traffic layers. Group encryption eliminates the need to negotiate keys on a point-to-point basis, which becomes intractable as the number of endpoints grows.

“Our group encryption and policy and key management technologies, that enable this exciting breakthrough in cloud security, have been proven in over ten years of deployments in wide area network encryption for government agencies, financial organisations, and global enterprises,” said Thomas Gill, Certes Networks chief executive.  

Analysts said that encryption was necessary to defend data moving between clouds and within cloud themselves.

“Encryption is seen as a way to protect critical information as it moves from private clouds to public cloud-based services; however, the need to encrypt network traffic among servers in the cloud to protect it from attacks within the cloud is equally important,” said Neil MacDonald, analyst at research firm Gartner.

“Organisations increasingly realise that in addition to controlling the encryption keys and what is encrypted, they need to authenticate the source of the data and to maintain its integrity as it traverses the shared cloud network,” he added.