The era of Zero Trust Security is here, accelerated by NGA solutions and driven by the needs of digital businesses for security strategies that can keep up with the rapidly expanding perimeters of their businesses. Internet of Things (IoT) networks and the sensors that comprise them are proliferating network endpoints and extending the perimeters of growing businesses quickly.
Inherent in the DNA of Next-Gen Access is the ability to verify the user, validate the device (including any sensor connected to an IoT network), limit access and privilege, then learn and adapt using machine learning techniques to streamline the user experience while granting access to approved accounts and resources. Many digital businesses today rely on IoT-based networks to connect with suppliers, channels, service providers and customers and gain valuable data they use to grow their businesses. Next-Gen Access solutions including those from Centrify are enabling Zero Trust Security strategies that scale to secure the perimeters of growing businesses without interrupting growth.
How Zero Trust Security Fuels New Business Growth
The greater the complexity, scale and growth potential of any new digital business, the more critical NGA becomes for enabling ZTS to scale and protect its expanding perimeters. One of the most valuable ways NGA enables ZTS is using machine learning to learn and adapt to users’ system access behaviors continuously. Insights gained from NGA strengthen ZTS frameworks, enabling them to make the following contributions to new business growth:
- Zero Trust Security prevents data breaches that cripple new digital business models and ventures just beginning to scale and grow. Verifying, validating, learning and adapting to every user’s access attempts and then quantifying their behavior in a risk score is at the core of Next-Gen Access’ DNA. The risk scores quantify the relative levels of trust for each system user and determine what, if any, additional authentication is needed before access is granted to requested resources. Risk scores are continuously updated with every access attempt, making authentication less intrusive over time while greatly reducing compromised credential attacks.
- Securing the expanding endpoints and perimeters of a digital business using NGA frees IT and senior management up to focus more on growing the business. In any growing digital business, there’s an exponential increase in the number of endpoints being created, rapidly expanding the global perimeter of the business. The greater the number of endpoints and the broader the perimeter, the more revenue potential there is. Relying on Next-Gen Access to scale ZTS across all endpoints saves valuable IT time that can be dedicated to direct revenue-producing projects and initiatives. And by relying on NGA as the trust engine that enables ZTS, senior management will have far fewer security-related emergencies, interruptions, and special projects and can dedicate more time to growing the business. A ZTS framework also centralizes security management across a digital business, alleviating the costly, time-consuming task of continually installing patches and updates.
- Zero Trust Security is enabling digital businesses globally to meet and exceed General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliance requirements while protecting and growing their most valuable asset: customer trust. Every week brings new announcements of security breaches at many of the world’s most well-known companies. Quick stats on users affected, potential dollar loss to the company and the all-too-common 800 numbers for credit bureaus seem to be in every press release. What’s missing is the incalculable, unquantifiable cost of lost customer value and the millions of hours customers waste trying to avert financial chaos. In response to the need for greater oversight of how organizations respond to breaches and manage data security, the European Union (EU) launched General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which goes into effect May 25, 2018. GDPR applies not only European organizations, but also to foreign businesses that offer goods or services in the European Union (EU) or monitor the behavior of individuals in the EU. The compliance directive also states that organizations need to process data so in a way that “ensures appropriate security of the personal data, using appropriate technical and organizational measures,” taking into account “state of the art and the costs of implementation.”
Using an NGA approach that includes risk-based multi-factor authentication (MFA) to evaluate every login combined with the least privilege approach across an entire organization is a first step towards excelling at GDPR compliance. Zero Trust Security provides every organization needing to comply with GDPR a solid roadmap of how to meet and exceed the initiative’s requirements and grow customer trust as a result.
Conclusion
Next-Gen Access enables Zero Trust Security strategies to scale and flex as a growing business expands. In the fastest growing businesses, endpoints are proliferating as new customers are gained, and suppliers are brought onboard. NGA ensures growth continues uninterrupted, helping to thwart comprised credential attacks, which make up 81% of all hacking-related data breaches, according to Verizon.