Over the last several years, it seems that little time passes between breaking news stories of new network security breaches that put millions at risk.

The latest astronomical failure? A heist of 80 million customer and employee records from health insurance company Anthem. The data breach reminds us (again) about the glaring risks of exposed personal information.

Cost Of Inadequate Network Security Rising To New Heights

As security breaches continue to put citizens at risk, government leaders are taking aggressive action. 47 states have enacted legislation that will increase the already-rising cost of a single breach.  In fact, network engineers will soon be civilly liable for any security breach of their network.

The incentive to address every hole in your network security is as great as it’s ever been.

Insure Or Ensure Your Network?

The British insurer Lloyd’s is one of several companies that made a collective $2.5 billion in premiums for insurance policies covering businesses in the event of a damaging data breach.  Premium revenues have grown by roughly 25% since 2013 and 150% since 2011. Lloyd’s CEO, Inga Beale, estimates that “cyber attacks cost businesses as much as $400 billion a year, including the damage itself and subsequent disruption to the normal course of business.”

What’s incredible is that while organizations are insuring their businesses, many are failing to ensure their network security by addressing fundamental issues.

For example, SPAN ports have been mistakenly accepted as suitable instruments for collecting and visualizing network data. Their misguided use dates back to the ’90s and stems from a marketing concept to sell more switches.

The Inherent Risks Of Depending On SPAN Ports

SPAN ports have always been unreliable in securing the detection of data breaches. They fail to give you complete network visibility and copy 100% of your traffic. The entirety of your network traffic is critical to utilizing the monitoring and security tools you’ve invested in.

If data fails to be captured because of oversubscription or dropped packets – two prevalent issues with SPAN – it could veil a potential security breach. Without this information, the attack may go undetected. Moreover, attackers are able to hack switches and hide information from your monitoring tools, increasing the difficulty of protecting sensitive information.

Proactive Network Security With TAPs

A network TAP, by contrast, has no IP address and is unable to be hacked. It’s certainly true that security breaches are inevitable, but a TAP gives you immediate knowledge of a network security breach, empowering you to address the attack immediately and limit the damage.

Real-time visibility is key to proactively managing your security. Make complete network visibility a priority and protect not only your company, but also yourself.