IT pros see zero trust as a key element of security strategy

A new survey of over 1,000 IT security professionals finds that 75 percent of organizations recognize zero trust as being important to bolstering their overall cybersecurity posture.

However, the study conducted by Dimensional Research for One Identity also shows only 14 percent have fully implemented a zero trust solution. Another 39 percent of organizations have begun to address this need, and an additional 22 percent say they plan to implement zero trust over the course of the next year.

Barriers to adoption include a lack of clarity on how it can be achieved. 61 percent of security professionals are focusing their implementation on reconfiguring access policies, while 54 percent believe it begins with identifying how sensitive data moves throughout the network. 51 percent are implementing new technology in order to achieve zero trust.

In addition 32 percent of security teams lack a comprehensive understanding of how zero trust should be implemented within their organization. Other key barriers to adoption include competing priorities (31 percent are too busy with other daily priorities), and beliefs that it can hinder business productivity (for example, 31 percent erroneously believe that zero trust security models impact employee productivity).

"Organizations recognize that the traditional perimeter is no longer enough and that they will be best served by prioritizing identity security and taking steps to ensure bad actors are limited once they gain access," says Bhagwat Swaroop, president and general manager at One Identity. "Zero Trust is fast becoming an enterprise imperative because it eliminates vulnerable permissions and excessive access by delivering a continuum of different rights across the organization to ultimately limit attack surfaces if they are breached."

You can get the full report from the One Identity site.

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