Mobilizing a Zero Trust Security Model: SMBs Are Charting a New Course

Introduction 

Companies of all sizes have realized that to thrive in the digital economy, their systems, services, and employees need to be securely connected. And with today’s growing distributed workforce, they know that relying on the corporate network perimeter isn’t a viable security strategy.

This revelation didn’t just arise with the rapid shift to remote work brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, although that did encourage many organizations to move more quickly on these strategies. From enterprises to small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), companies have been moving towards a more distributed model for some time, and many are advancing with decisiveness and speed toward a Zero Trust security model.

What is Zero Trust?

At its core, the concept of Zero Trust is simple: there should no longer be a trusted internal network and an untrusted external network. Instead, all network traffic needs to be considered untrusted, and organizations should operate on the principle that every single user or device that wants access to their data needs to be verified. Only then can information and infrastructure be as protected as possible.

Zero Trust was originally coined by Forrester Research analyst John Kindervag over a decade ago. But as organizations, workforces, and networks become increasingly distributed, it has never been more applicable than it is at this moment—and it will continue to be the security strategy of choice for the foreseeable future.

Today, 67% of SMBs have a Zero Trust security initiative in place, or have it planned for the next 12 to 18 months. Additionally, a large number of these companies have already adopted