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A new report has outlined the ongoing uptake of the zero-trust security model, and while more organisations recognise the need for the model, there are still some hills to climb.
The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent widespread adoption of remote working have clearly been key drivers. A trust-no-one approach is perfect for organisations with a spread-out workforce, operating from personal devices in a range of locations, from home offices to coffee shops.
In fact, many elements of zero-trust solutions have seen a marked increase in their use since 2021. For instance, 75 per cent of the 570 security and IT professionals polled by Fortinet have implemented secure web gateways, a big increase from the 45 per cent adoption rate of two years ago.
Other technologies, such as cloud access security brokers and network access control, have seen similar increases in deployment, though multifactor authentication has only been taken up by 52 per cent of respondents. Still, that is more than double the 2021 figure.
However, the picture isn’t entirely rosy, with full implementation of the zero-trust solutions actually falling behind. In 2023, 28 per cent of respondents believe they have a complete strategy in place, far behind the 40 per cent who felt similarly in 2021.
“These numbers indicate that perhaps making zero-trust work was a little more difficult than anticipated,” Fortinet’s report read. “It’s possible that many organisations that believed they had fully implemented a zero-trust solution are now rethinking that assessment. Some challenges probably didn’t become obvious until a number of solutions were in place. Getting isolated point solutions to work together is notoriously difficult, and troubleshooting workarounds can consume significant IT resources.”
Some of the challenges that organisations are facing include not having enough information on how to select a solution, which has gotten worse since 2021, and a lack of budget to invest in zero-trust methods.
The biggest challenge, however, is latency issues, with 33 per cent of respondents citing network speed as a problem.
Another issue is making use of solutions from different vendors.
“Vendor and solution sprawl has led to unexpected security gaps and high operating costs,” the report said, “and according to the survey, 90 per cent of organisations now rank vendor and solution consolidation as extremely or very important”.
And getting those solutions to play nicely with each other is another challenge, with 88 per cent of those polled saying that product interoperability is a key concern.
David Hollingworth has been writing about technology for over 20 years, and has worked for a range of print and online titles in his career. He is enjoying getting to grips with cyber security, especially when it lets him talk about Lego.
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