Juniper Cloud Workload Protection controls application execution, monitors for signs of attacks, and takes steps to block them. Credit: Thinkstock Juniper Networks continues to grow its enterprise cloud-security family with a new product that promises to protect application workloads in any cloud or on-premises environment. The company rolled out Juniper Cloud Workload Protection package–a lightweight software agent that the company says controls application execution and monitors application behavior to help businesses spot and fix anomalies. The idea is to provide protection from attackers looking to exploit application vulnerabilities, said Kate Adam, senior director of security product marketing for Juniper Networks. “When application code is written, it sometimes contains errors which present opportunities that attackers can use to exploit the underlying resources and process or workloads that power the application, such as databases and data collectors,” Adam said. “Just look at the latest public breaches. Most, if not all of them involve the successful exploitation of one or more application vulnerabilities.” Cloud Workload Protection deploys in Docker, Kubernetes, and Amazon Web Services’ Fargate container-deployment services at the container, host, or VM level. In addition, there is a small application-specific component that is loaded at runtime, similar to what is used in application performance-monitoring solutions, Adam said. The agent moniors application functions and its calls to services to understand what the app was intended to do, then looks for deviations from that vs. what’s happening in real-time. The deviations are likely potential exploits, and many times vulnerability remediation is done automatically without admin intervention, Adam said. The agent also notifies Juniper’s sRX virtual firewalls, which can further augment risk-mitigation by enforcing segmentation. Automated threat response with built-in, real-time telemetry helps security teams detect threats and block them across the entire network, Adam said. The new agent is part of Juniper’s overarching Connected Security architecture that features myriad enterprise security components from its central Security Director and Policy Enforcer to threat detection offering up a software-defined containment system to protect networks and reduce security concerns, Juniper says. Cloud Workload Protection will be available in September. Related content opinion Can your cloud backup provider fail? Cloud backup providers aren’t infallible. Be sure to ask hard questions of providers about their storage redundancy, geo-replication, data integrity measures, and disaster recovery capabilities. By Curtis Preston Apr 19, 2024 7 mins Backup and Recovery Cloud Computing Data Center news Cisco marries AI and security with cloud-based data center offering Cisco announces AI-based Hypershield, a self-upgrading security fabric that's designed to protect distributed applications, devices and data. By Michael Cooney Apr 18, 2024 5 mins Network Security Data Center how-to Shredding files on Linux with the shred command The shred command is a good option for removing files from a Linux system in a way that makes them virtually impossible to recover. By Sandra Henry-Stocker Apr 18, 2024 4 mins Linux news Intel announces edge AI processors New edge-optimized processors and FPGAs will power AI-enabled devices in vertical industries including retail, industrial and healthcare. By Andy Patrizio Apr 18, 2024 3 mins CPUs and Processors Edge Computing PODCASTS VIDEOS RESOURCES EVENTS NEWSLETTERS Newsletter Promo Module Test Description for newsletter promo module. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe