According to Fortinet Global Zero Trust Report almost half of respondents reported significant challenges related to a lack of integration between zero-trust solutions deployed on-premises and in the cloud.
Fortinet has announced the findings from its global 2023 State of Zero Trust report. The results provide an overview of the current state of zero-trust security efforts and the progress IT teams have made following the pandemic-initiated need to secure remote workers. The report also delves into the continuing challenges many organizations face in securing a hybrid workforce.
John Maddison, EVP Products and CMO, Fortinet said, “The Fortinet 2023 State of Zero Trust Report shows that although more organizations are implementing a zero-trust strategy, they still face challenges related to integration. To successfully implement zero trust, organizations need solutions that are designed to converge networking and security and have the ability to span multiple environments, such as Fortinet Universal ZTNA and Universal SASE.”
According to the report, organizations of all sizes are working to implement zero-trust strategies. Since the last survey in 2021, companies have deployed more solutions as part of their zero-trust strategies. The number of respondents that report being in the process of implementation is 66%, up from 54% in 2021. Companies are working to enable zero trust everywhere to minimize the impacts of a breach. Nearly half of respondents (48%) indicated that a lack of integration between the zero-trust solutions deployed on-premises and in the cloud is the most significant issue they need to address. Other reported challenges relate to end-to-end policy enforcement, application latency, and a lack of reliable information to help select and design a zero-trust solution.
Solutions must cover both on-premises and remote users with a consistent application access policy and success has been mixed. Many companies need to secure access to applications both on-premises and outside of the network, and nearly 40% of respondents report still hosting more than half of their applications on-premises. It’s notable that 75% also have encountered issues because of relying on cloud-only ZTNA.
The report also identifies that the top priorities for SASE solutions vary, but “security effectiveness” is the most significant, with 58% placing it in their top three priorities. According to 89% of respondents, SASE integration with their on-premises solutions is also very or extremely important.
