Operations | Monitoring | ITSM | DevOps | Cloud

2021 marked the fifth consecutive year of record-breaking security attacks. Zero-Day attacks skyrocketed, with 66 exploits found to be in use, more than any other year on record and almost double 2020’s figure. Meanwhile, a staggering 66% of organizations have suffered at least one ransomware attack in the last year, with the average ransom payment soaring by 63% to $1.79 million (USD).

With remote and hybrid working now commonplace for organizations, many IT departments are weighing up the pros and cons of moving to a Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) model to replace traditional VPN, or other remote access approaches. While the benefits of moving to ZTNA are compelling: improving user experience, providing enhanced security, reducing management overhead, and increasing visibility and control, it can often be a challenge to select the best approach for your business.

There’s no question that centralized identity and access management (IAM) helps companies reduce risk and prevent attacks. But, as this week’s Okta attack shows, centralized IAM doesn’t eliminate all risks. Attackers with access to IAM data can use this information to easily access downstream systems or modify permissions to grant elevated access to malicious parties.

According to Gartner, by 2023, 60% of enterprises will phase out their VPN in favor of Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA). In this blog, discover the four key advantages of ZTNA vs VPN. VPN (Virtual Private Network) has been the dominant solution securing remote access for users and has been considered a good solution for almost three decades. VPN benefits included keeping data secure, protecting online privacy, and reducing bandwidth throttling.

“End of life, end of support, pandemic-induced shipping delays and remote work, scanning failures: It’s a recipe for a patching nightmare.”, federal cybersecurity CTO Matt Keller says. Ensuring a high level of security for your IT infrastructure and being sure you have not missed something is hard to arrange during these days. A zero-day exploit happens when hackers identify a software weakness or a security gap and take advantage of it to perform a cyberattack.

With hybrid work environments on the rise, enterprise networks are dealing with multiple remote connections, increasing the risk of breaches and other attacks. One way to mitigate these risks is by implementing Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA) into the enterprise network. Unfortunately however this does not address the full set of threats to the enterprise, as many of the zero-trust service providers and on-premises network solutions do not address the voice network.

I am excited to announce the launch of our latest network security offering known as Ivanti Neurons for Secure Access (nSA). This new cloud-based management solution will allow our existing L3 VPN customers using Connect Secure to take the next step in their journey toward a zero trust architecture. And this all can happen while still utilize existing Connect Secure VPNs that are already setup and configured.

Like zero trust security, being a cyber defender is a personal mindset. One can argue that it might be a form of paranoia, but being situationally aware while connected online is a nice behavioral attribute to have given today’s internet climate with the barrage of news regarding ransomware and data breaches.