Security | Threat Detection | Cyberattacks | DevSecOps | Compliance

As you look back on the state of cybersecurity in 2022 and set your security priorities for 2023, Zero Trust Data Access should top your New Year’s Resolutions list. Zero trust was probably the most talked about security trend last year and for good reason – it is clear no matter how much we layer our defenses hackers, malicious insiders and simple negligence are impossible to eradicate.

In the first part of this blog series, I took a look at how an understanding of digital strategy and digital risk is key to starting a security transformation journey. And in the second, I dug further into how a secure access service edge (SASE) architecture with security service edge (SSE) capabilities and zero trust principles can help mitigate the types of digital risk. In this final part, I will outline a few key use cases to show all of these elements in action.

Challenge Accepted is a podcast from Arctic Wolf that has informative and insightful discussions around the real-world challenges organizations face on their security journey. Hosted by Arctic Wolf’s VP of Strategy Ian McShane and Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) Adam Marrè, the duo draw upon their years of security operations experience to share their thoughts and opinions on issues facing today’s security leaders.

In the first part of this blog series, I took a look at how an understanding of digital strategy and digital risk is key to starting a security transformation journey. In this post, I am digging further into how a secure access service edge (SASE) architecture with security service edge (SSE) capabilities and zero trust principles can help mitigate the types of digital risk I outlined in part one.

We are pleased to announce that Netskope Private Access (NPA) is now available to test drive, meaning you can experience a truly modern zero trust network access (ZTNA) solution firsthand with no commitment and no software to download or install. Selecting and implementing the right ZTNA solution is a crucial part of the SASE journey, and our goal is to make your process of evaluating Netskope Private Access as easy as possible.

Zero trust is a security approach which replaces the traditional network edge. Since network resources can be anywhere – on-premises, in the cloud, or a hybrid of both – zero trust is built towards an identity-centric approach. This places people and resources at the heart of the security architecture.

Every single blog you read on cybersecurity has at least one mention of the Zero Trust approach to cybersecurity (even this one 😊). Alas, don’t consider that Zero Trust is yet another hyped word that will soon vanish into thin air. Zero Trust, originally dubbed more than a decade ago, came up as a necessity to defend systems, networks, data and people against the increasing sophistication of attackers that rendered implicit trust a vulnerability.

Zero trust, if implemented well, is recognized by the industry as the best way to support remote and hybrid work, especially as workers everywhere connect to SaaS applications to stay productive. But securing an entire organization goes way beyond SaaS apps. Legacy apps running on-premises or in private clouds are still critical for many organizations, especially for those who have made hefty investments in storage and network appliances to support these important applications.

Zero Trust is the term for an evolving set of cybersecurity paradigms that moves an organization’s defensive measures from static, network-based perimeters to instead focus on users, assets, and resources. It is a security mindset where every incoming connection is treated as a potentially malicious request until explicitly verified. This concept was introduced by John Kindervag, one of the world’s foremost cybersecurity experts, and emphasizes three principles.