Zero trust and SASE frameworks have been crucial in assisting enterprises in securing a growing remote workforce. Read on to know more…
The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated the use of remote work technologies in day-to-day operations. In-person meetings, sales calls, and industry events have replaced by Microsoft Teams, Webex, Zoom, and other collaboration tools. Other technologies, on the other hand, have been quietly working to support distributed workforces. As long as remote workforce exist, these technologies will continue to advance.
According to S&P Global study released in June 2020, 80 percent of companies surveyed have introduced or expanded universal work-from-home policies in response to the crisis, and 67 percent expect them to remain in place either permanently or for the foreseeable future. As more people continue to work from home, the number of connections grows, as does the potential attack surface.
Crucial Combo
However, as a result of the surge in remote work, Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) and Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) frameworks are also on the radar of enterprise technology agendas.
The concept of zero trust has been around for at least a decade and it boils down to this: Don’t trust anything you don’t need to trust. To establish the trust, you need to verify constantly. Nowadays, there are several discrete Zero Trust projects that exists focusing on networks, users, devices or servers. To grant network access, zero trust prioritises user and device authentication — a security approach which is relevant to remote workforces that diminishes the traditional network boundaries.
SASE framework on the other hand is built on cloud architecture, can scale to accommodate more remote workers. The SASE paradigm combines networking and network security services, as well as Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB), FireWall as a Service (FWaaS), Data Loss Prevention (DLP), and other services, into a single comprehensive, integrated solution that covers all traffic, applications, and users.
Defensive Security Strategy
SASE and Zero Trust both enable a novel approach to edge security: a defensive security strategy. An inspection at the service edge is required by the model. The basic idea is to understand an employee’s, student’s, or contractor’s identity which is based on their access identity. However, they are never on the network, and trust is assigned depending on where they are in the network topology.
A proxy like this would give access to web services no matter where they were located, including services hosted local corporate networks.
By providing secure access via proxy and taking such an approach helps internal web applications be hidden and not exposed to the internet. This eliminates the need for a VPN because by using only Zero Trust, web applications can be accessed from anywhere via proxy in a secure way. Because of the flexibility of deploying security inspection at the edge, security inspection can be performed at a local edge node regardless of shifts in the location of computing.
Furthermore, because multi-cloud architecture is the norm, installing security at the edge makes more sense than attempting to create consistent controls utilising heterogeneous capabilities available from various Cloud Security Providers (CSPs).
Without Zero Trust, there is no SASE
We need to embrace an approach that helps users and allow stronger and more flexible security as we see a significant transition for enterprises of all sizes moving to a more modern user-centric model, where the cloud and mobile are at the centre of attention. The model we’ve been waiting for has arrived, and it’s called SASE!
This new method will allow enterprises to easily control their security and connectivity from a single platform. However, it’s important to remember that the Zero Trust model is a cornerstone of SASE, and it’s one of the reasons it’s classified as “unified.” Implementing Zero Trust as a stand-alone strategy gets enterprises most of the way there in terms of security, but when this approach is delivered as a service with other functions, SASE emerges.
Concluding Words
Implementing security frameworks like SASE and Zero Trust requires reducing complexity while boosting visibility and ease of management. These frameworks are intended to secure the company and its employees. People want to work for an organisation that allows them to work from anywhere and gives them the flexibility and secure digital experience they need to execute their jobs well.
Instead of assuming that Zero Trust and SASE frameworks as separate security utilities, they will complement one other in the future to create a breakthrough offering for enterprises.