{"id":16375,"date":"2025-12-08T12:12:16","date_gmt":"2025-12-08T12:12:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dmsretail.com\/RetailNews\/segmentation-remains-a-foundational-security-concept\/"},"modified":"2025-12-08T12:12:16","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T12:12:16","slug":"segmentation-remains-a-foundational-security-concept","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dmsretail.com\/RetailNews\/segmentation-remains-a-foundational-security-concept\/","title":{"rendered":"Segmentation Remains a Foundational Security Concept"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The 2025 Cisco Segmentation Report, with 1,000 respondents, was released last month and has prompted me to think more deeply about the evolution of the decades-old cybersecurity concept and how it continues to adapt to meet the needs of modern enterprises. I previously wrote that while 79% of respondents consider segmentation a top priority, only 33% implement it fully. The survey results also revealed interesting insights into why segmentation remains a foundational concept.<\/p>\n

The evolution of segmentation and the development of different segmentation approaches make the concept ideal for implementing a proactive approach to enterprise cybersecurity today. For years, organizations have utilized macro-segmentation to divide networks into smaller sections, which helps limit the spread of successful attacks while enhancing overall resilience. And now, augmenting macro-segmentation with micro-segmentation implementations allows security teams to split environments into separate networks AND isolate specific workloads based on behavior or identity. This dual segmentation approach is well-suited to protect today\u2019s distributed, cloud-first network infrastructure and the applications, data, and users that rely on these critical networks.<\/p>\n

This is the first part of a three-part series that delves deeper into the survey results and what they reveal about the current state of segmentation.<\/p>\n

Macro-Segmentation (On It\u2019s Own) Is Not Enough to Meet Today\u2019s Cybersecurity Challenges<\/h2>\n

Macro-segmentation alone is insufficient due to recent changes in modern application architecture. Modern applications are no longer monolithic, and they are no longer constrained by a subnet or VLAN. As a result, these applications are decentralized and composed of multiple workloads. This new decentralized architecture has boosted application performance, scalability, maintainability, and reliability; however, it has made it challenging to understand what\u2019s happening at the workload level.<\/p>\n

However, the lack of visibility and control at the workload level makes traditional security approaches (including macro-segmentation) challenging. It\u2019s no wonder that cybersecurity teams are struggling to protect today\u2019s highly distributed, cloud-first digital infrastructures.<\/p>\n

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