What Is a Virtual Network?
A virtual network is a software-defined abstraction of network resources that operates independently of physical hardware. Virtual network appliances route traffic based on policy-driven routing decisions across the network whereas hardware-based networks rely on device-specific configurations and static routing protocols, thus offering far greater agility and ease of management.
With virtualization, two software-defined networks using the same physical infrastructure may be logically isolated from each other. On the other hand, two locations that are geographically distant from one another may reside in the same virtual network.
How Do Virtual Networks Work?
Users can define custom routing rules, access control policies, and network configurations for their virtual networks. These rules determine how traffic is handled within the virtual network.
This means that virtualized networks are highly adaptable, making them ideal for organizations following DevOps design principles that may result in frequent changes to applications and network architecture.
One of the solutions to securely connect geographically-distributed virtual or physical networks is virtual private networks (VPNs). VPNs encrypt all traffic between the two endpoints, allowing it to travel over untrusted networks without concerns about eavesdropping. With a VPN tunnel between endpoints on two corporate LANs, the two virtual networks can act as a single, virtualized network, including the use of internal, private IP addresses.
Virtual networks are highly scalable and elastic. New virtual networks and network resources can be created or removed as needed, without the constraints of physical hardware limitations. This scalability is particularly valuable in cloud environments where resource demands can fluctuate.
Overall, virtual networks provide the flexibility, agility, and control needed to tailor network environments to specific requirements, whether in data centers, cloud computing, or enterprise networks.
The Need for Security for Virtual Networks
However, the ability to redefine the network architecture doesn’t eliminate potential network security threats. Some reasons why virtual networks require network security solutions include the following:
- Compromised Systems: Virtual networks enable an organization to define the systems connected by the virtual network. However, if an attacker has access to one of these systems, they may access other assets within the protected virtual network.
- Lack of Integrated Security: VPNs and other networking technologies using software-defined networking (SDN) principles to manage and optimize the performance of wide area networks (WANs) have no ability to identify malicious content or other malicious activities.
- Cloud Provider Security Solutions: These offer mainly packet filtering security and not protections against sophisticated attacks. Additionally, cloud provider security solutions are generally not able to protect the cloud infrastructures of another cloud provider.
To summarize, virtual networks define the borders of a network and the communications between the systems inside of the virtual network. However, they lack internal network visibility or the capability to prevent malware, malicious content, or threat actors that are active inside their virtual networks.
Virtual Network Security with Check Point CloudGuard
The dynamic nature of cloud virtual networks empowers organizations to create agile, responsive, and efficient network infrastructures that can rapidly adapt to changing demands, optimize performance, and enhance the overall user experience in cloud computing environments. This poses unique security challenges in comparison with traditional hardware-based networks and needs security designed and built for them.
Check Point CloudGuard Network Security offers enterprise-grade network security for virtualized network infrastructure in cloud environments. CloudGuard takes a prevention-focused approach to security, offering automated, unified network security for public, private, and hybrid cloud environments, all from a single-pane-of-glass. To learn more about CloudGuard Network Security and how it can help to enhance the security of your organization’s cloud-based virtual networks, sign up for a free demo today.
For users of Microsoft Azure Virtual WAN, Check Point also offers CloudGuard Network Security for Azure Virtual WAN. This solution is designed to take full advantage of the features, automation, and cost efficiencies of Microsoft Azure Virtual WAN while providing advanced security features tailored to public cloud environments.
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