Zero Trust allows organizations to monitor all resources and activity from a centralized
platform. With continuous verification, organizations gain visibility into precisely who
accesses what and when — flagging suspicious behaviors. This security model uses
identity and context-based policies that verify and authorize access per session,
ensuring users receive the least privileges required t complete tasks.
Reduced Risk of Data Breach
What is ZTNA ? Zero trust network access (ZTNA), also known as the software-defined
perimeter (SDP), is a set of technologies and functionalities that enable secure access
to internal applications for remote users. Zero Trust aims to reduce the chance of a
damaging data breach. This is achieved by inspecting and verifying every user, network
call, file access, email transmission, and more to detect suspicious activity. Monitoring
and logging all activity provides a bird’s eye view of the security landscape for instant
insights and allows the security system to respond to threats proactively in real-time.
Zero Trust uses contextual awareness and multifactor authentication to ensure that only
the right users can access internal systems, databases, and customer-facing apps. This
strengthens security while enabling business-oriented connectivity regardless of the
communication environment. Stricter security often evokes the idea of employees facing
more bureaucracy and barriers to getting work done, but Zero Trust offers a seamless
end-user experience. This has the added benefit of improving brand reputation that a
damaging cyberattack could tarnish. Consumers are willing to buy from companies that
take data privacy seriously, and Zero Trust is a critical ingredient in protecting that
customer relationship. This can result in long-term financial benefits.
Increased Visibility
Zero trust requires verifying identity and device context before allowing access to
applications or services. This helps to reduce the impact of a data breach and prevents
attackers from hiding in the network by limiting access to the minimum required to
perform an attack. It also enables businesses to implement measures such as MFA or
single sign-on (SSO), which reduces the risk of stolen credentials and improves user
experience. Zero Trust Network Access also supports the Least Privilege Principle by
granting users the most miniature set of permissions needed to perform their tasks,
which minimizes the potential for attacks against privileged accounts. This is especially
important for service accounts that are typically not monitored but are commonly
leveraged by attackers to gain access to a corporate network. Using a Zero Trust
Network Access solution also makes it easier to support anywhere-work models.
Employees can work remotely and securely from any device if they can authenticate
appropriately with the correct credentials on a compliant device. This is a significant
improvement over traditional VPNs, which can be cumbersome and slow to use or
require users to enter multiple passwords.
Enhanced Security
With Zero Trust, security is applied at the source, protecting data from unauthorized
access. “never trust, always verify” may seem like a heavy lift in BYOD and hybrid work
environments. Still, the long-term benefits outweigh any initial implementation burden.
The right ZTNA solutions ensure that all devices and applications are continually
verified, authorized, and validated. This includes devices outside the corporate network,
cloud workloads, and data. It also enforces the principle of least privilege to ensure that
credentials, including those for non-human accounts (such as service accounts), are
only granted the minimum necessary access level. This helps minimize the impact if
hackers or malicious insiders compromise one of these accounts. With proper
monitoring, Zero Trust also makes it easier to detect suspicious behavior and respond
quickly. For example, you’ll see the time, location, and application involved in each
access request. This information can be used to flag suspicious activity and take the
appropriate action, such as halting communication or terminating sessions.
Enhanced Performance
Today’s organizations face many threats and challenges that can compromise data,
cloud, and remote access. A zero-trust approach provides a platform to secure all
business applications and workflows without changing how your employees work. This
allows your teams to collaborate securely from home, in an airport or hotel room, at the
gym on their devices, or anywhere else. By implementing Zero Trust, your security
architecture assumes no one or anything is trusted and continuously verifies user
identity and device security. This eliminates complex passwords and enables single
sign-on for all apps, folders, and data. It also removes the need for a VPN and makes it
easier for remote workers to enroll in new devices, hold meetings, and improve
productivity. A Zero Trust architecture requires upfront investment in your tools and
employee time to get up and running. Still, the cost savings associated with improved
productivity and reduced burden on IT teams pay off over time. In addition, the scalable
platform and simplified management reduce IT costs, including licensing fees for
perimeter-based tools.
Reduced Costs
The primary benefits of Zero Trust are enhanced network security and defense against
internal and external threats. It also scales efficiently to hybrid and remote work
environments by granting access strictly on a need-to-know basis. In addition, the
solution encrypts data at rest, in transit, and while in use to prevent it from being
compromised or exposed. Implementing a Zero Trust strategy requires some initial
investment in tools and employee hours to get up and running, but the long-term cost
savings will be significant. Reduced staffing and solutions-based overhead, optimized
hosting and management fees, and reduced licensing costs for perimeter-based tools
will all contribute to the bottom line. In fact, according to a recent study, fully deployed
Zero Trust saved companies 43% in data breach costs. That is a lot of money to be put
toward other business priorities!