Managing a global network of branch offices is an enormous task, made even more complex by the ever-growing challenges of maintaining robust cybersecurity.
The networking team at a prominent financial institution found themselves tasked with a peculiar, yet crucial, assignment by their security team—identifying all network ports that had not been in use for over 30 days so they could be shut down. Given the institution’s worldwide reach and the magnitude of their network, this was far from a straightforward endeavor. Enter Slurp’it, the game-changing network discovery tool.
The Challenge: Pinpointing Dormant Network Ports
Identifying idle network ports is an essential task in safeguarding a network. Open, unused ports can be easily exploited as entry points for unauthorized access or malicious activities. However, conventional approaches often fall short because they can only assess the real-time status of ports, lacking the historical data necessary for more in-depth analysis.
Leveraging Historical Data
Fortunately, the institution had been running Slurp’it for some time, allowing them to gather ample data on their network ports. Slurp’it offers the unique ability to track the number of days for which a port remains in a specific status, providing a valuable historical overview. With this information at their fingertips, the networking team could easily identify inactive ports.
Running a comprehensive report using Slurp’it, the team discovered that approximately 20,000 ports had been lying dormant for more than a month. This was a startling revelation that highlighted both the scope of their network’s vulnerability and the inefficiency of previous tracking methods.
Seamless Network Automation
Equipped with these insights, the team activated their network automation platform, NetYCE, which is designed to interact seamlessly with Slurp’it. NetYCE was able to connect to every device on their global network to shut down all 20,000 identified ports, effectively eliminating the risk associated with these dormant entry points.
The success of this operation resulted in the integration of Slurp’it monitoring capabilities into the institution’s ongoing network security measures. Future instances of dormant ports can now be automatically identified and addressed, significantly reducing the scope for security vulnerabilities.
Conclusion: A New Paradigm in Network Security
This experience wasn’t just a win for the networking team; it was a significant leap forward in how the financial institution approaches network security. The capability to track the historical status of network ports, offered by Slurp’it, turned a complicated, time-consuming task into a streamlined, automated process.
In the ever-evolving landscape of cybersecurity, staying one step ahead is crucial. Slurp’it proved to be that extra step for this financial institution. For more on how Slurp’it can transform your network security measures, visit us at slurpit.io.
As the saying goes, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” With Slurp’it, prevention has never been easier.
