{
  "id": 9301178,
  "title": "Why security belongs in the network",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/23/why-security-belongs-in-the-network-9301178",
  "topic": "tech",
  "section": "Tech",
  "published": "2026-09-23T08:00:00.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "The Register",
    "slug": "the-register",
    "url": "https://www.theregister.com/security/2026/09/23/sponsored-why-security-belongs-in-the-network/5296790"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "In the modern digital landscape, security is an integral part of the network. Every attack emits a trace across the network, from the initial reconnaissance phase to lateral movement and data exfiltration. This underscores the importance of the network as a primary source of security intelligence. However, network visibility alone is insufficient. Since the network connects every user, device, application, and workload, it is also the ideal location to verify identity, apply consistent policy, and contain suspicious activity nearby.\n\nTo effectively integrate security into the network, organizations must adopt integrated network security. This approach involves embedding traditional security functions directly into the network fabric, enabling routers, switches, and access points to function as cybersecurity defenders. They identify and prevent threats rather than simply routing and filtering traffic.\n\nToday's enterprises face several challenges due to the dissolution of network perimeters. Assets once confined within the headquarters LAN have dispersed across various locations, including the cloud, edge-based equipment, and on-premises servers. Bolting additional security tools onto existing infrastructure to protect these assets is unsustainable. It leads to increased license costs, overlapping and conflicting tools, and potential gaps that attackers can exploit. This fragmented security approach also results in slow coordination between teams, driving up costs and hindering security efforts.\n\nIntegrating security into the network offers several benefits. Standardization is achieved by encoding a uniform approach directly into the network, allowing for consistent policy application across the organization. This eliminates fragmentation and policy drift. Agility becomes crucial, especially in the AI era, as attackers utilize this technology to move swiftly and at scale. The ability to implement and adjust policies centrally enables rapid adaptation to the evolving security landscape. Additionally, a single source of truth simplifies the process by eliminating the need to aggregate insights from multiple sources.\n\nSimplification is another advantage, as the \"implement once, run everywhere\" principle enables the encoding of zero-trust principles into the network foundation. The NIST standard SP 800-207 promotes asset-level protection instead of the traditional one-authentication approach. Zero trust, a comprehensive security discipline, becomes more immediately and ubiquitously effective when implemented at the network foundation. Micro-segmentation, a zero-trust security measure, further isolates network parts to prevent lateral movement and limit the blast radius from any attack.\n\nNetwork-based security also supports robust security for complex disciplines like SASE and SD-WAN. Collaborative security is enhanced through a common fabric for networking and security, allowing network and security teams to work closely together. Historically, these teams operated in isolation, creating a gap exploited by attackers. Bridging this gap strengthens intrusion detection and prevention.\n\nArtificial Intelligence (AI) plays a significant role in integrated network security. AI is integrated into the network, with machine learning identifying patterns in network activity and informing AIOps systems that predict issues and maintain network reliability and performance. AI's pattern recognition and predictive capabilities also bolster security by detecting and thwarting attacks before they escalate. However, malicious actors also leverage AI to enhance their assaults. Organizations must keep pace with AI advancements to effectively defend against these threats.\n\nTo begin integrating security into your network, assess your organization's primary security risks, whether it involves expanding zero trust, supporting hybrid work, or defending against AI threats. There is no single starting point, but some options include unified SASE for secure access and simplified networking and security, hybrid mesh firewalls for consistent policies across various network domains, universal zero-trust network architectures supporting every identity, device, and workload, and AIOps that leverage AI to improve visibility, accelerate troubleshooting, and automate operations. These entry points lead to a unified and robust network security framework.",
  "summary": "SPONSORED EXPLAINER: Merging security into the network makes enterprise protection more agile",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 2,
    "also_reported_by": [
      {
        "outlet": "The Register Science",
        "title": "Why security belongs in the network",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/23/why-security-belongs-in-the-network",
        "published": "2026-09-23T08:00:00.000Z"
      }
    ]
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}