Zero-trust: Who is Leading the Wave?
Read on to see how Forrester Research has gone about the rankings on this one
Zero-trust is fast becoming a buzzword, especially given that several companies that talk big about data also appear to be involved in the growing AI-led chatbot business that often runs contrary to data security and transparency. In its latest report on zero-trust platform providers, Forrester has ranked Palo Alto Networks, Microsoft and Check Point Software Technologies.
The report for the third quarter of 2023 has studied zero-trust platforms that offer a unified and comprehensive approach and listed among others Trend Micro, Google, Cloudflare, Akamai Technologies and Cisco as strong performers while Fortinet, Absolute Software and Broadcom have been described as contenders and Forcepoint and VMware and challengers.
Challenges to zero-trust journey
In its Wave Report for Q3 of 2023, Forrester says that several organizations are suffering from vendor sprawl, overlapping capabilities and security gaps in their zero-trust journey. The analysts behind the report further suggest the need to consolidate controls, enable interoperability, and integrate technologies without compromising on capabilities.
The report also notes that the zero-trust platforms must address this issue through integration of disjointed functions and by providing supplementary capabilities and services to enrich cross-functional operations that can simply zero-trust adoptions. This is mission critical for enterprises in the early stages of their zero-trust journey, the report says.
It also goes on to emphasize that though no single platform or solution can offer all capabilities required for an effective zero-trust architecture, these platforms that aspire to be so must combine several zero-trust functionalities instead of looking for individual set of tools that can be plugged into the platform.
What companies could do for zero-trust
In terms of specifics that could be accomplished by platforms aiming to achieve zero-trust status, the report says they should provide centralized management and usability with a universal UI and UX. Such a platform can provide native services for cyber hygiene that ensures zero-trust best practices that aligns with global standards.
In addition, companies should provide flexible deployment models that support hybrid architectures with vendors being able to curate their offerings for cloud-based, virtual and on-premises environments. In addition, companies need to incorporate zero-trust network access or micro-segmentation capabilities natively to allow core zero-trust principles such as least privilege, access denials and comprehensive visibility.
Forrester also notes that the leaders mentioned in its latest report were investing in AI and machine learning capabilities that could have long term impact on zero-trust platforms.
