The drive towards Zero Trust Networking

The adoption of cloud technologies and applications has left the traditional perimeter and on-premise approach to security no longer fit for purpose. Employees aren’t based just in the office anymore – they’re working from home, now at a scale never before seen. This shift to the cloud and a modern, and likely long-term, way of working requires a modern approach to security, one driven by a ‘Zero Trust’.

At Xalient, we have deep expertise and experience in helping organisations move towards Zero Trust, with a range of services and solutions to secure your organisation’s shifting security perimeter and manage access and identity to your global network to ensure the overall security of your people, your assets and your firm’s reputation. Never before has the need to secure your network been more vital or more urgent.

Xalient can help you get there quickly, securely and in a way that delivers an agile and fit for the future, security posture.

What is Zero Trust?

Traditional security models assume that everything inside of a company’s network can be trusted. With the increased sophistication of modern attacks and insider threats, this is no longer the case.

The Zero Trust approach, by default, restricts a user’s access to business resources and applications until they’ve verified exactly who they are and therefore what level of access they should have. Rather than being designed purely to protect the perimeter, Zero Trust is instead rooted in the principle of “never trust, always verify”.

Zero Trust is the central tenet of Xalient’s Security and networking solutions and services portfolio.

Zero Trust Use Cases

Benefits of Zero Trust.

  • Decreases risk and improve visibility – IT teams can use Zero Trust to understand who already has access to their network and who and what is trying to gain access.
  • Meets compliance requirements – Zero Trust mitigates the opportunities for your network to be exploited.
  • Increases agility – Zero Trust isn’t constrained by the limits set by static network constructs. Like your workforce, security is flexible and mobile, with any restrictions or blocked communications being isolated rather than company-wide.
  • Security – ensures your organisation is secure in today’s cloud-enabled world.
Zero-Trust Readiness Accelerator

Software-Defined Perimeter.
Making the theoretical possible.

Software-Defined Perimeter (SDP) was developed to allow access to applications on a need-to-know, zero-trust basis. An SDP brokers a connection between a user and the applications they’re trying to access, only granting that access if they meet the necessary criteria.

Xalient security experts work with industry-leading cloud security vendors to define security strategies for our clients, develop and deploy solutions and manage secure networks on your behalf.

Benefits include: secure, easy access from anywhere, improved employee productivity, greater business agility and security.

 

Secure Web Gateway

The secure perimeter has all but disappeared. The acceleration of remote working, and the adoption of cloud delivered applications means an agile approach to keeping users safe and productive is required. Security delivered from the cloud is the answer.

In addition to applying and enforcing enterprise acceptable use policies, a SWG protects an enterprise’s end users from web-based threats. Instead of the enterprise’s end-user directly accessing a website, traffic is diverted through an SWG which performs URL inspection and filtering, malicious content inspection, imposes web access controls and other security policies.

Providing this functionality in the cloud and in software, removes the requirement to force all web traffic through a central physical appliance or perimeter firewall to impose policy.

The SWG can be found in module 3 (SSE) of the Xalient Zero Trust Framework.

The Xalient Zero Trust Framework

Functional examples of SD-Perimeter can be found in modules 3 (SSE) and 4 (Apps & Data) of the Xalient Zero Trust Framework; specifically Secure App Gateway and CASB (Cloud Access Security Broker) respectively.