Zero Trust

In this report, we take a summary look at three of these – secure access service edge (SASE), zero trust network access (ZTNA) and XDR (extended detection and response) – and how the unanticipated events of 2020 are shaping their adoption.

We expect that the WFH boom created by the COVID-19 pandemic will spark initiatives to modernize enterprise security.

The impact of this outbreak, and the sudden and radical shift in the nature of the workplace it is precipitating, has decided implications for security across the board. In this and subsequent reports, we will examine the role of technology in dealing with the emerging pandemic, and how it can help organizations cope with the crisis.

Last year, overall information security (infosec) M&A was up for the fourth straight year to a total of 141 deals, which eclipsed the all-time record of 132 transactions set in 2015 and was up from 131 acquisitions in 2018.

Within security, Microsoft has a unique opportunity: Windows is ubiquitous on endpoints, Office 365 is an equally ubiquitous productivity suite, capabilities from Exchange to the Power portfolio add to its enterprise presence, and Azure has become a major contender among cloud providers.

Quantum key distribution guarantees the secure transmission of a key, but it is still susceptible to other attacks – if an unauthenticated malicious caller rings the holder of the key, for example, and persuades the holder to email it to them, the benefit of quantum technology goes out the window.

Historically, the fundamental security model was to erect a ‘perimeter’ around the corporate network and assume anyone inside was ‘trusted’ and anyone on the outside was ‘untrusted.’ Cue worn out security clichés and metaphors: ‘crunchy on the outside, soft and chewy on the inside,’ ‘moat and castle,’ among others.

We predicted that it was only a matter of time before network security vendors added identity management capabilities to combat both the eroding network perimeter as well as the existential threat to their established VPN and network security businesses posed by new innovations such as zero trust and software-defined networking (SDN).