What is Web Isolation?
Moving to the Cloud: The SASE Puzzle Part 1
Web Isolation, also known as browser isolation, refers to a technology that keeps web browsing activity inside an isolated environment to protect from malware. Cloud access and the use of the internet is a non-negotiable for employees to do their job to the best of their ability. There are always present threats throughout the internet, and these potential threats can have a great impact on your organization; however, blocking and/or restricting web access may not be the most effective way to protect your environment. While you cannot possibly block or restrict every site, implementing web isolation is a viable solution to prevent threats from the web.
How it Works
Through web isolation, web traffic is executed in an isolated virtual environment, either locally hosted on the workstation itself or remotely on a remote server. This can occur on-premise or in a cloud-based environment. Then, it connects to each browser running within a container. Web Isolation can also apply controls like read-only for suspicious sites, which is a way to protect against phishing.
Web Isolation or Remote Web Isolation?
Remote web isolation is web isolation that simply occurs remotely; so, remote web isolation moves browsing activity from the user’s computer to a remote server. This remote server can be hosted in the cloud or located on-premise within an organization’s network.
Why is Web Isolation Important?
This security allows users to browse to any website, even a malicious site, without the risk of being infected. If any malicious objects were executed, they would be executed in the isolated virtual environment and not the user’s actual workstation, keeping them safe from the attack. A new clean virtual environment can be created every time the user opens a new session, and then destroyed (along with any malicious objects) once the connection is closed.
Overall, web isolation enables safe access to risky web content while protecting sensitive data. In this way, your organization can have more open internet policies.
Connecting Web Isolation to SASE and Cloud-based Security
As a part of the SASE puzzle, web isolation provides secure end user web browsing. The goal of SASE is to secure an organization’s environment no matter where their workforce is; therefore, whether your employees are completely on-premise or remote, web isolation has the flexibility to protect internet browsers wherever, whenever.
Additionally, Zero Trust requires all users to be authorized and continuously validated before accessing corporate applications and data, and web isolation is one way to put this into practice. Implementing Zero Trust is all about verifying and re-verifying the end user, which is the core of web isolation.
At Braxton-Grant, we are experts at evaluating your current environment and looking for solutions to close your security gap. We are here to be a trusted advisor for your cybersecurity needs, and have engineers from the field with years of experience and a toolkit of lessons learned. Having a partner experienced in common challenges goes a long way in terms of solution evaluation and deployment.
If you are looking to implement web isolation for your organization, reach out to Braxton-Grant today to learn how we become an extension of your team, work toward your goals, and be a trusted resource with deep experience that you can leverage.
