What is intrinsic security?

VMware has labelled its approach to cybersecurity as “intrinsic security”, but what does this mean and what are the benefits over more traditional security solutions?

For many organisations, cybersecurity is too often an afterthought, involving many products, tools and interfaces, along with all of the associated management complexities.

Intrinsic security is a fundamentally different approach to securing the organisation. It is not a product or tool aimed at addressing the latest threat, but a strategy for leveraging the  infrastructure and control points in new ways - in real time - across any app, cloud or device,  making it possible to shift from a reactive security posture to a position of strength.

In other words, rather than relying on a standalone product for each capability, intrinsic security maximises controls that are directly built-in to the infrastructure.

VMware elected to build in security from the outset, from endpoint to the cloud, with complete visibility of applications, users and devices in a way that shrinks the attack surface. This is achieved by using intelligent automation, which adapts policy as needed and optimises resources, allowing cybersecurity experts to focus on delivering value.

The development of the intrinsic security approach was driven in part by the fact that security is typically a bolt-on for the majority of organisations. Research has shown that security teams are often not involved until after the infrastructure has been built and applications deployed and this leads to organisations using 80 different security products on average! 

Security is also often threat-centric, typically focusing on threat hunting without first having a thorough understanding of the environment. VMware’s approach is to gain an understanding of applications, data and the supporting infrastructure in order to establish an effective security posture. 

The intrinsic approach seeks to transform five traditional points of vulnerability into security controls, with the Carbon Black technology (acquired by VMware in late 2019) integral in this. The control critical points for the intrinsic security strategy are:

• Workload security – protecting workloads from advanced threats through embedded security in the hypervisor, with Carbon Black Workload playing a key role
• Cloud security – obtaining real-time insight into cloud resources, misconfigurations, threats and change activity 
• Network security – using Carbon Black Workload to mitigate risk, ensure compliance and enable lower costs, while simplifying the operational model of firewalls
• Identity and access management – integrating access control, application management and multi-platform endpoint management into a single platform to secure the digital workspace using VMware Workspace ONE Intelligence and Carbon Black 
• Endpoint security – consolidating multiple endpoint security capabilities and simplifying the security stack for faster and more effective security operations with the Carbon Black Endpoint Standard

In summary, the intrinsic approach by VMware is one of simplicity - building more security into the platform with the goal of a single security agent running across the entire enterprise. This is achieved by integrating security at the design stage, ensuring that it is unified and focused on the applications rather than the threat.