The Fast Mode spoke to Brian McDonald, Director of Product Development at Mutare on new encryption technologies and their impact on today's networks. Brian joins us in a series of discussions with leading vendors in the traffic management, service assurance, traffic monitoring, analytics, policy control and network security space, assessing various attributes of encryption, its benefits as well as the challenges it poses, specifically loss of visibility that makes networking increasingly complex.
Tara: How does encryption affect telecom operators in managing their networks?
Brian: Encryption can have a significant impact on telecom operators in managing their networks. One of the main ways it affects them is by making it more difficult to monitor and manage the traffic flowing through their networks. Encrypted traffic is unreadable to operators, making it difficult to detect and troubleshoot issues, such as network congestion or security breaches. Additionally, encrypted traffic can also increase the load on network infrastructure, as operators may need to invest in additional resources to decrypt and inspect the traffic. However, encryption also provides many benefits such as security and privacy for the users, which is important for the operators to consider as well.
Network encryption, while benefiting the security of personal or corporate information, can impact network performance and affect optimization parameters. Operators must find technology solutions for their routing, throughput and optimization goals and metrics.
Tara: What are some of the means telecom operators can adopt to gain visibility into encrypted traffic?
Brian: Some companies are utilizing machine learning with specific models to discern patterns, traffic flows, optimization paths, and content use cases. The advent of machine learning and AI will shepherd a new breed of software tools to protect PII, but also provide insight as to use cases, anomalies, etc. Technology is already being used to gather content intelligence, pattern recognition, and traffic workflows within and without organizations. These cutting edge technologies are necessary for a comprehensive solution for encrypted telecom network visibility.
This interview is a part of The Fast Mode's Real-time Visibility for Encrypted Traffic segment, featuring 30+ leading IP networking solution providers and their views on the impact of encryption on traffic visibility. A research report on this topic will be published in February 2023 - for more information, visit here.
