Embracing Zero Trust for a Secure Digital Transformation

Zscaler, a client of Business Reporter, discusses the importance of Zero Trust in the modern IT world. With communication between third parties, home offices, workloads or IoT and edge devices becoming network-independent, traditional security architecture can no longer ensure secure connectivity. Zero Trust operates on the principle that no user or application is inherently trustworthy and uses policy-based access permissions to ensure only authorized sources can communicate with dedicated destinations.

Although often viewed as a security tool, Zero Trust offers significant potential as a business enabler in a landscape of digital transformation and hybrid work environments. In-state of Zero Trust Transformation 2023, a study conducted by Zscaler, only 22% of more than 1,900 senior IT decision-makers who have begun migrating to the cloud are completely confident in realizing the full potential of their cloud infrastructure, signaling that there is still room for improvement.

Cloud concerns aside, decision-makers were much more optimistic about the role Zero Trust plays in the organizational transformation process. Almost all surveyed IT leaders, over 90%, have implemented or are currently implementing Zero Trust security architecture. Zero Trust is helpful in improving threat or attack detection on web applications and security for sensitive data, securing remote access, securing connectivity for a hybrid workforce, and reducing the cost and complexity of legacy network security.

Furthermore, the study revealed that user experience is critical to productivity in hybrid work environments. In many companies with traditional network structures, employees find themselves confronted with inconsistent access conditions for local and cloud-based applications and data. This inconsistency is a top reason for more than half of companies implementing or planning a Zero Trust-based hybrid work infrastructure. It is therefore essential for organizations to implement Zero Trust-based secure communication streams of users, applications or machines to realize the full potential of digitalization.