Outbound network controls restrict which destinations a system can contact and what traffic it can send. They may use firewalls, proxies, DNS filtering, or cloud network policies to allow only approved services, protocols, and ports.
These controls help limit unauthorized communication and data leakage, including attempts by malware or an over-privileged tool to send sensitive information outside an organization. In practice, defenders can restrict development environments and automated agents to necessary destinations, log allowed and blocked connections, and alert on unexpected traffic. They complement identity and access controls: even if a process can read data, network restrictions can prevent it from transmitting that data to an unapproved endpoint.