HPE Aruba Bolsters Cyber Defences with AI and Zero Trust

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NYSE: HPE) today announced the expansion of its security-first, AI-powered networking portfolio with the introduction of behavioural analytics-based network detection and response (NDR) capabilities, delivered by HPE Aruba Networking Central.

The company is also enhancing its cloud-based universal ZTNA approach by extending its reach to campus-based local area networks. This new local edge capability brings the same access control policies defined for the cloud directly to campuses and data centres, delivering a superior user experience and consistent enforcement regardless of a user’s location or connection method.

HPE Aruba Networking Central

The new NDR solution leverages telemetry from HPE Aruba Networking Central’s data lake to train and deploy AI models to monitor and detect unusual activity in vulnerable IoT devices that play an increasingly important role in supporting mission-critical business processes. As the opportunity grows for IoT to provide organisations with data to train and activate Generative AI models, so too does the critical need to detect changes in network traffic patterns, connection status or dynamic device attributes that are indicative of a successful compromise.

“Enterprises are increasingly realising that unsecured IoT devices in the network present an observability blind spot in their security solutions. Those devices can be exploited for initiating larger network attacks, and thus are also one of the largest contributors to a growing attack surface,” said Jon Green, Chief Technology and Security Officer, HPE Aruba Networking. “In addition, as security teams increasingly rely on the network to deliver zero trust security solutions, HPE Aruba Networking is providing the ability to leverage a single access control policy for application resources, on-prem or off-prem, that customers can adopt to reduce overlapping and potentially confusing controls.”

“The proliferation of IoT devices is presenting enterprises with significant security challenges that are complex and costly to tackle while posing major risks to business operations. The new network and detection response capabilities are part of HPE Aruba Networking’s commitment to delivering a security-first, AI-powered networking approach to our customers, enabling them to critically strengthen IoT security in their network,” said Nick Harders, APJ SASE Director, HPE Aruba Networking. “We are also bringing our cloud-based SSE to campuses to deliver consistent security and user experience, be it in the cloud or in the local area network.”

Also, to accelerate threat response, HPE Aruba Networking Central combines attack detection with new policy recommendations to protect against threats by intercepting potential attacks. To ensure recommendations will not disrupt network operations, teams can also preview changes to their security policies before implementation as part of their enforcement and response workflow.

“Companies need AI-powered behavioural network detection and response, universal security policies, and edge-to-cloud enforcement to protect users, devices, and applications at scale – a key consideration as AI assets throughout the enterprise increasingly become attack targets,” said Maribel Lopez, founder and industry analyst at Lopez Research.

These new tools further expand HPE Aruba Networking’s security portfolio, following the new solutions unveiled at the RSA Conference in May, which included AI-powered security observability and monitoring capabilities within HPE Aruba Networking Central, and the

company’s first SSE firewall-as-a-service. Also at the conference, HPE Aruba Networking was recognised for one of the “Coolest Cybersecurity Products at RSAC 2024.”

HPE Aruba Networking Central and HPE Aruba Networking SSE will be on display at Black Hat USA 2024, taking place August 7-8, 2024, at booth #1160. In addition, HPE will be showcasing secure compute management and Zerto rapid air-gapped recovery solutions that complement network security controls for comprehensive protection against cyber threats like ransomware.