Policy Enforcer Components and Dependencies

The Policy Enforcer management interface is a component of Junos Space Security Director and requires the following to be configured and deployed:

• Junos Space Platform—Junos Space is a comprehensive network management solution that simplifies and automates management of Juniper Networks switching, routing, and security devices. Junos Space Virtual Appliance includes the complete Junos Space software package as well as the Junos OS operating system. It requires users to create a virtual machine (VM) in order to deploy the appliance.

• Security Director—Junos Space Security Director provides centralized and orchestrated security policy management through a web-based interface. Security administrators can use Security Director to manage all phases of the security policy life cycle for every SRX Series physical and virtual device.

• Policy Enforcer—Policy Enforcer itself is installed on a VM and uses RESTful APIs to communicate with both Security Director and Juniper Networks Advanced Threat Prevention Cloud (Juniper ATP Cloud). Policy Enforcer contains two components:

  • Policy Controller—Defines the logical grouping of the network into secure fabric, automates the enrollment of SRX Series devices with Juniper ATP Cloud, and configures the SRX firewall policies.

  • Feed Connector—Aggregates the cloud and customer feeds and is the server for SRX Series devices to download feeds.

• Juniper ATP Cloud—Juniper ATP Cloud employs a pipeline of technologies in the cloud to identify varying levels of risk, and provides a higher degree of accuracy in threat protection. It integrates with SRX Series gateways to deliver deep inspection, inline malware blocking, and actionable reporting.

  Juniper ATP Cloud’s identification technology uses a variety of techniques to quickly identify a threat and prevent an impending attack, including:

  • Rapid cache lookups to identify known files.

  • Dynamic analysis that involves unique deception techniques applied in a sandbox to trick malware into activating and self-identifying.

  • Machine-learning algorithms to adapt to and identify new malware.

• SRX Series device—SRX Series gateways provide security enforcement and deep inspection across all network layers and applications. Users can be permitted or prohibited from accessing specific business applications and Web applications, regardless of the network ports and protocols that are used to transmit the applications.

Figure 1 illustrates how the components in the Policy Enforcer Deployment Model interact.

Figure 1: Components of the Policy Enforcer Deployment Model

Figure 2 shows an example infected endpoint scenario to illustrate how some of the components work together.

Figure 2: Blocking an Infected Endpoint

Policy Enforcer can track the infected endpoint and automatically quarantine it or block it from accessing the Internet if the user moves from one campus location to another. See Figure 3.

Figure 3: Tracking Infected Endpoint Movement

In this example, Juniper ATP Cloud identifies the endpoint as having an IP address of 192.168.10.1 and resides in SVL-A. The EX Series switch quarantines it because it has been labeled as an infected host by Juniper ATP Cloud. Suppose the infected host physically moves from location SVL-A to location SVL-B. The EX Series switch (in SVL-B) microservice tracks the MAC address to the new IP address and automatically quarantines it. Policy Enforcer then informs Juniper ATP Cloud of the new MAC address-to-IP address binding.

Policy Enforcer can also quarantine infected hosts even if those hosts are connected to third-party switches, as shown in Figure 4.

For Policy Enforcer to provide threat remediation to endpoints connecting through third-party devices, it must be able to authenticate those devices and determine their state. It does this using a tracking and accounting threat remediation plug-in to gather information from a RADIUS server and enforce policies such as terminate session and quarantine. For more information, see Policy Enforcer Connector Overview

Figure 4: Third-Party Switch Support