The Internet Has Become Your Enterprise Network, And That Changes Everything

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Cloud security is facing a fundamental paradigm shift that most organizations haven't fully recognized. According to Aviatrix CEO Doug Merritt, we're overlooking a staggering 50-80% of our attack surface by failing to properly secure cloud workload communications.
The problem stems from three critical changes in how computing works today. First, the internet has essentially become our enterprise network – when your application calls an S3 bucket, that communication happens over the internet, not a controlled private network. Second, the traditional security perimeter hasn't disappeared; it's atomized from a handful of entry points to thousands or even hundreds of thousands of mini-perimeters. Every VPC, Kubernetes cluster, and API endpoint now requires its own security strategy. Third, modern workloads are largely ephemeral rather than long-lived, making them harder to secure with traditional approaches.
This security challenge is further complicated by multi-cloud environments, where security policies must consistently follow workloads across cloud boundaries. Meanwhile, the rise of generative AI creates both defensive opportunities and heightened risks, as attackers leverage these same technologies to map enterprise environments and find vulnerabilities with unprecedented speed and effectiveness. As Merritt explains, "Attackers think in graphs" – constructing comprehensive maps of your organization's resources to identify any possible entry point.
The solution requires a paradigm shift in how we approach cloud security. Aviatrix advocates for a "cloud native security fabric" built on zero trust principles specifically designed for cloud workloads. This approach focuses on four critical elements: controlling egress to prevent command-and-control communications, implementing east-west macro-segmentation to block lateral movement, applying micro-segmentation for granular control, and ensuring comprehensive encryption to protect data even if network infrastructure is compromised.
Ready to rethink your cloud security approach? Discover how zero trust principles can be applied to your cloud workloads to close critical security gaps and protect your most valuable digital assets.

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Chapters

1. The Internet Has Become Your Enterprise Network, And That Changes Everything (00:00:00)

2. [Ad] PodMatch (00:15:58)

3. (Cont.) Untitled Episode (00:16:35)