Zero Trust is a top cyber security priority for firms in the Asia Pacific over the next 12 to 18 months, with IT leaders considering it a vital aspect of their security strategies, according to a survey performed by BeyondTrust and iTNews Asia.
The director of solutions engineering for BeyondTrust in APJ, Scott Hesford, says that although it appears like every vendor is talking about zero trust, you can’t actually purchase it all at once.
In order to secure everything within and outside of the workplace environment, a more comprehensive organizational strategy is increasingly important. To ensure that human or non-human entities, such as assets or scripts, are who and what they claim to be and have the necessary authorizations for the activities they’re trying to execute, they must be verified. Identity is crucial to it.
According to NIST, Zero Trust admits that risks exist both inside and outside of conventional network boundaries (the National Institute of Standards and Technology). It does away with implicit faith in any one element, component, node, or service in favor of constant operational picture verification using real-time data from several sources to ascertain access and other system responses.
Implementing Zero Trust principles by limiting privileges has grown increasingly important due to the transformation of the traditional workplace, where a major chunk of the business has seen an explosion of remote workers and vital third-party distant connections.
The survey revealed that adopting Zero Trust is primarily motivated by two goals: data protection and endpoint security. Hesford claimed that this is an admission by IT leaders throughout Asia that the value of their company’s data to cybercriminals is considerable. Hesford also acknowledged that for many, having too many local administrative rights continues to be an issue that needs to be addressed on a priority basis.
Regarding Zero Trust, Asia-Pacific leaders have a good sense of reality. More than 95% of respondents acknowledge that they are still learning and have a long way to go in terms of principles like least privilege.
“The data shows that leaders understand there are challenges ahead. But by starting or continuing with a Zero Trust mindset they are best positioning themselves to secure their remote workforces and offices from the myriad of threats targeting businesses across the Asia Pacific.” said Hesford.
