Let’s be trustworthy. Most individuals don’t belief zero belief.
For customers, once they hear the phrases ‘zero belief’, it sounds prefer it would possibly take longer to log into work. And for those who’re in IT or IT safety, you will have extra merchandise to purchase and combine into your current — already difficult — safety stack. And naturally, then there are the audits.
Possibly that’s why so many zero belief tasks are stalled.
Regardless of the way you slice it, zero belief entry is an elusive however fascinating aim for a lot of organizations, and but most groups haven’t achieved zero belief maturity1 — particularly for securing distant work.
At Cisco, we’ve got designed our answer in a approach that overcomes frequent obstacles by powering a safe, in-office expertise wherever. And we all know as a result of we’ve got been on our personal zero belief journey with our person communities and IT groups for years now.
Cisco on Cisco: Zero belief entry at scale
We began with an enterprise rollout of Cisco Duo for our remote-first workforce again in 2020, and we’re at present deploying Cisco Safe Entry. Cisco’s large and numerous IT infrastructure consists of:
- 1 million IP linked “issues”
- 27,000 Cisco video units
- 62,000 cell units
…throughout massive campuses, small workplaces, houses, buyer websites, roaming customers, and extra.
Fast time to worth
Throughout our first part in 2020, we rolled out Duo for phishing-resistant multi-factor authentication (MFA) and system posture throughout our huge person group in solely 5 months, which considerably diminished helpdesk tickets and endpoint compromises.
Extra not too long ago, we deployed Cisco Safe Entry, our Safety Service Edge (SSE) answer which is optimized for serving to ease the transition from legacy VPN structure to Zero Belief Community Entry (ZTNA) with VPN-as-a-Service (VPNaaS). We’re simply getting began, however we’ve already seen worth.
As a result of Safe Entry eliminates the necessity for a number of groups to investigate networking and safety information, and since it sidesteps complicated duties like IP-user mapping, we’ve seen a 25% discount in imply time to troubleshoot person connectivity points. Up to now, a single area on-prem VPN enablement course of would take weeks to a month. Now through the use of the VPNaaS functionality inside Safe Entry, our groups can allow 5 areas in simply 3 hours.
Fast time to productiveness
Right here’s what it’s like for a typical Cisco remote-first worker:
- Whether or not at their breakfast desk or within the workplace, they login ‘passwordlessly’ on their laptop computer (by way of Home windows Hi there or Mac TouchID) after which Cisco Duo — behind the scenes — takes that OS-level belief to all use instances (cross-browser, embedded browser).
- By being absolutely context-aware, Cisco Duo acknowledges this as typical person exercise, decreasing person interplay wanted for authentication. That stated, any modifications to system posture and different contextual threat attributes will immediate our customers to reverify belief by way of risk-based authentication (e.g., Verified Push).
- Distant staff can mechanically and transparently entry each wanted software, some by ZTNA, others by Cisco’s VPN-as-a-Service. They don’t even have to consider how they may entry an app … it simply works, due to Cisco Safe Entry.
- When our workers are off our company community, their web entry is transparently protected by quite a lot of built-in cloud-delivered safety instruments offering DNS-layer safety, safe net gateway, CASB, DLP, distant browser isolation and extra.
Challenges with early SSE merchandise
Sadly, the first-to-market SSE options weren’t designed for the remote-first office. As a substitute, most of those distributors began as level merchandise (e.g., CASB, NGFW, SWG, and many others.) after which bolted-on extra performance to qualify as SSE distributors and seize zero belief price range.
The underlying structure is brittle in consequence, with a disjointed and siloed administration expertise and a scarcity of identity- and context-awareness. These challenges decelerate zero belief adoption, making it troublesome for groups to ship the identical constant and safe expertise for all staff connecting to all types of functions.
- Lack of visibility: Who’re my customers, what are they accessing, which insurance policies are required, which units are managed vs. unmanaged, what’s their end-to-end digital expertise?
- Consumer frustration: Excessive latency, dropped connections, complicated authentication and app entry workflows, and insufficient efficiency — even with frequent workplace functions — and no approach of realizing the place the efficiency points lie
- Sophisticated administration: A number of brokers, consoles and insurance policies make it tougher to implement the precise zero belief entry coverage in all places
- Pricey surprises: Organizations can’t merely cease supporting VPN, as some apps don’t work effectively with ZTNA; plus, evolution to zero belief by yourself schedule is a greater method than being pushed right into a dangerous VPN rip-and-replace
Given the challenges with these options, it’s no shock that organizations are scuffling with their zero belief initiatives. Finish customers and IT groups alike want a greater zero belief expertise.
Cisco Zero Belief Entry
Our Cisco Zero Belief Entry answer is totally different: Our structure is purpose-built to present an in-office expertise, in all places. It’s a pressure multiplier, because it delivers the {industry}’s most simply managed robust id safety, coupled with main Safety Service Edge (SSE) capabilities.
Past blissful customers, these are the methods your IT and IT safety groups will profit:
- SSE deployment is eased with a single shopper — The multi-functional Cisco Safe Consumer is a single installer, serving to to boost interoperability and decrease value. Its modular options embody ZTNA, VPNaaS and off-corporate-network SWG and DNS-layer safety safety.
- Safer — and less complicated — multi-factor authentication — At this time, attackers typically don’t hack into enterprises — they merely log in. Duo evaluates id conduct and attributes earlier than, throughout and after login to make sure safe entry and modify authentication energy mechanically primarily based on contextual threat.
- Fewer assist calls — In contrast to different ZTNA options utilizing legacy protocols with efficiency limitations, Cisco’s underlying inner transport (Vector Packet Processing, or VPP) is quicker and extra dependable with trendy protocols together with QUIC and MASQUE.
- No administration updates, no web site visits — All components of the Zero Belief Entry answer are cloud-managed, and, apart from shopper exercise, all safety is cloud-delivered, globally.
- Ongoing administration simplified — In comparison with options which have separate consoles for web entry safety, ZTNA, and VPN, Cisco’s Zero Belief Entry collapses these capabilities into one, growing visibility, enabling extra complete safety insurance policies, and saving you treasured time.
- Superior cell assist — Our partnerships with main cell system producers, like Apple and Samsung, have led to industry-first working system-level integration for extra reliable connectivity.
Begin making zero belief simpler, efficient and environment friendly
Solely Cisco Zero Belief Entry gives robust id safety coupled with a complete, easy-to-manage SSE. This allows you to ship a constant in-office expertise in all places, guaranteeing that safety doesn’t hinder productiveness.
And since our Cisco Safe Entry SSE answer has not solely ZTNA, however built-in VPNaaS as effectively, you possibly can undertake your zero belief journey in your timeline, not one that’s dictated by the restrictions of different distributors.
Uncover extra about Cisco Zero Belief Entry, and the way it can remodel your safety method, by registering for an upcoming workshop or exploring a product tour of Cisco Safe Entry.
1Primarily based on analysis from Cisco’s newest Safety Outcomes for Zero Belief report
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