Enterprise endpoint protection needs to move to zero trust

As enterprise boundaries have become more flexible, older authentication models of security have begun to look increasingly outmoded.

A new survey of 150 IT security decision makers carried out by ThycoticCentrify finds that 71 percent of contributors agree that a distributed workforce makes a zero trust security strategy even more critical.

However, fewer than one in five contributors have fully implemented zero trust. But where it is in place it's working well, with contributors scoring zero trust's effectiveness at over eight out of a possible 10 on average.

In addition 75 percent of contributors agree to at least some extent that endpoint privileges have a key role to play in zero trust cyber security strategies.

Joseph Carson, chief security scientist at ThycoticCentrify says:

It's encouraging to see the majority of respondents tell us their Zero Trust journey is underway. However, this is just a start. Companies can't just focus their security resources on securing network perimeter when the network perimeter no longer exists.

The research shows that better management of access privileges is needed with continuous verification. As security teams assess their threats and think about how to keep their organization running smoothly, an overhaul and continuous monitoring of privileges should be seen as a top priority. The new perimeter is with identities and access.

The sudden shift has in many cases meant enabling remote working, and boosting employee productivity has been given slightly higher priority than improving the cyber security of remote workers.

The most frequently reported cyber security issue is an increase in the sophistication of cyber security attacks. The majority of contributors think that the security challenges they have had to deal with in the past year would have been lessened if endpoint privileges had been more closely managed.

Around a third of organizations have granted power user status or local/domain administration rights to their remote workers. Also 37 percent of contributors only partially use Application Control measures, and 14 percent don’t use them at all.

You can find out more on the ThycoticCentrify site.

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