Cloud Native Security—Enforce at Speed, Stop East-West Threats

There’s an old saying: “Ignorance of the law is no excuse.” In the world of cybersecurity, I’d offer a modern corollary: “The need for speed is no excuse for poor enforcement.”

We all know why the cloud won. Speed. Agility. Innovation at scale. (Not cost)

Kubernetes? Speed. Automation. Portability.

The open internet? It became the de facto global network for commerce, collaboration, and code—all because speed mattered more than control. Until it didn’t.

At RSA last month, it was standing room only. Hundreds of vendors—household names and hungry newcomers alike—were shouting the same message: “Protect the enterprise from the internet.” But here’s the truth no one wants to say out loud:

The Internet is your enterprise network, and every VPC connected to it is like a traditional data center with ZERO security.

Yes, investments in platforms like Palo Alto, CrowdStrike, Zscaler, and Wiz are critical. But they weren’t built for the east-west movement of cloud native data. They can’t stop a breach at egress. And they can’t provide real-time enforcement inside the cloud—where the majority of sensitive data now lives. And if you believe the CSPs are protecting your data–you’re unfortunately believing an old myth that is being exposed daily with daily enterprise data breaches increasing by 4300% daily in the past five years. (Currently, it’s 110 per day on average in 2024.) And if you think your AWS firewall is protecting you – it was given a 5.39% effectiveness score out of 100 by CyberRatings.

This is where security has to evolve.

It’s time to move beyond static policies and siloed teams. Security, Cloud Platform, and Cloud Networking teams need to converge—because the threats already have. That’s why we built the Aviatrix Cloud Native Security Fabric (CNSF): to provide enforcement at the speed of cloud, without slowing down innovation.

Security must be strong and frictionless.

It must enforce dynamic, traditional, and container-based applications without dragging down DevOps.

It must be cloud native.

We don’t get a pass because the business needs to move fast.

The stakes are too high. Consumer trust is on the line. Shareholder value is at risk. Your career and personal equity might be, too.

Just ask the former CISO of Uber, who was sentenced to three years in prison for covering up a breach. That’s not a cautionary tale from the dark web. That’s a headline from the real world. And it’s a signal: Security is no longer optional. It’s existential.

It’s time to move faster—but with control.

It’s time to share data—but with enforcement.

It’s time to trust the internet—but with protection built-in.

Learn more about prioritizing both security and speed in networking.