The Future of Zero Trust and SASE is Now! Watch on-demand

close
close
  • Why Netskope chevron

    Changing the way networking and security work together.

  • Our Customers chevron

    Netskope serves more than 3,000 customers worldwide including more than 25 of the Fortune 100

  • Our Partners chevron

    We partner with security leaders to help you secure your journey to the cloud.

Highest in Execution. Furthest in Vision.

Netskope recognized as a Leader in the 2023 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Security Service Edge.

Get the report
Netskope recognized as a Leader in the 2023 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Security Service Edge.
We help our customers to be Ready for Anything

See our customers
Woman smiling with glasses looking out window
Netskope’s partner-centric go-to-market strategy enables our partners to maximize their growth and profitability while transforming enterprise security.

Learn about Netskope Partners
Group of diverse young professionals smiling
Your Network of Tomorrow

Plan your path toward a faster, more secure, and more resilient network designed for the applications and users that you support.

Get the white paper
Your Network of Tomorrow
Introducing the Netskope One Platform

Netskope One is a cloud-native platform that offers converged security and networking services to enable your SASE and zero trust transformation.

Learn about Netskope One
Abstract with blue lighting
Embrace a Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) architecture

Netskope NewEdge is the world’s largest, highest-performing security private cloud and provides customers with unparalleled service coverage, performance and resilience.

Learn about NewEdge
NewEdge
Netskope Cloud Exchange

The Netskope Cloud Exchange (CE) provides customers with powerful integration tools to leverage investments across their security posture.

Learn about Cloud Exchange
Netskope video
The platform of the future is Netskope

Intelligent Security Service Edge (SSE), Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB), Cloud Firewall, Next Generation Secure Web Gateway (SWG), and Private Access for ZTNA built natively into a single solution to help every business on its journey to Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) architecture.

Go to Products Overview
Netskope video
Next Gen SASE Branch is hybrid — connected, secured, and automated

Netskope Next Gen SASE Branch converges Context-Aware SASE Fabric, Zero-Trust Hybrid Security, and SkopeAI-powered Cloud Orchestrator into a unified cloud offering, ushering in a fully modernized branch experience for the borderless enterprise.

Learn about Next Gen SASE Branch
People at the open space office
Designing a SASE Architecture For Dummies

Get your complimentary copy of the only guide to SASE design you’ll ever need.

Get the eBook
Make the move to market-leading cloud security services with minimal latency and high reliability.

Learn about NewEdge
Lighted highway through mountainside switchbacks
Safely enable the use of generative AI applications with application access control, real-time user coaching, and best-in-class data protection.

Learn how we secure generative AI use
Safely Enable ChatGPT and Generative AI
Zero trust solutions for SSE and SASE deployments

Learn about Zero Trust
Boat driving through open sea
Netskope achieves FedRAMP High Authorization

Choose Netskope GovCloud to accelerate your agency’s transformation.

Learn about Netskope GovCloud
Netskope GovCloud
  • Resources chevron

    Learn more about how Netskope can help you secure your journey to the cloud.

  • Blog chevron

    Learn how Netskope enables security and networking transformation through security service edge (SSE)

  • Events and Workshops chevron

    Stay ahead of the latest security trends and connect with your peers.

  • Security Defined chevron

    Everything you need to know in our cybersecurity encyclopedia.

Security Visionaries Podcast

Challenging Norms of Women in Cyber
This episode underscores the urgent need for a shift in attitude and acknowledgement of diversity as an essential aspect of cybersecurity organizations.

Play the podcast
Challenging Norms of Women in Cyber Podcast
Latest Blogs

Read how Netskope can enable the Zero Trust and SASE journey through security service edge (SSE) capabilities.

Read the blog
Sunrise and cloudy sky
SASE Week 2023: Your SASE journey starts now!

Replay sessions from the fourth annual SASE Week.

Explore sessions
SASE Week 2023
What is Security Service Edge?

Explore the security side of SASE, the future of network and protection in the cloud.

Learn about Security Service Edge
Four-way roundabout
  • Company chevron

    We help you stay ahead of cloud, data, and network security challenges.

  • Leadership chevron

    Our leadership team is fiercely committed to doing everything it takes to make our customers successful.

  • Customer Solutions chevron

    We are here for you and with you every step of the way, ensuring your success with Netskope.

  • Training and Certification chevron

    Netskope training will help you become a cloud security expert.

Supporting sustainability through data security

Netskope is proud to participate in Vision 2045: an initiative aimed to raise awareness on private industry’s role in sustainability.

Find out more
Supporting Sustainability Through Data Security
Thinkers, builders, dreamers, innovators. Together, we deliver cutting-edge cloud security solutions to help our customers protect their data and people.

Meet our team
Group of hikers scaling a snowy mountain
Netskope’s talented and experienced Professional Services team provides a prescriptive approach to your successful implementation.

Learn about Professional Services
Netskope Professional Services
Secure your digital transformation journey and make the most of your cloud, web, and private applications with Netskope training.

Learn about Training and Certifications
Group of young professionals working

Why the Evolution of Zero Trust Must Begin with Data Protection

Aug 11 2021

The need for “Zero Trust” today is no longer the same as what we talked about years ago when the term was first coined. Back then, businesses only had a handful of remote workers signing in to the corporate network. The common wisdom of the day dictated that you couldn’t implicitly trust the authentication of those remote users any longer because they weren’t on the company LAN and the common solution was installing two-factor authentication.

Things have changed since then. The actual definition of zero trust today is much broader than the idea of going from “zero” to “full trust.” It’s more than just not trusting authentication because the user isn’t on your network any longer. You also can’t trust the devices they’re running. You can’t trust the applications they’re using. And you can’t trust the network they’re traversing. 

There are many more potential trust risks today too. There are also many more real threats—the FBI saw a 400% increase in cyberattacks seeking to exploit new opportunities in the first few months of the pandemic. But at the same time, there is also a much higher demand for official business being done outside the organization. In 2021, the percentage of remote employees is expected to double, and nearly three-fourths (74%) of companies plan to permanently shift workers to work from home after the pandemic ends. 

Despite the implicit “zero,” zero trust can’t be an all-or-nothing proposition. If the business cannot authenticate the user, then that user cannot be given access to company resources. If the majority of the workforce is working from home, using their own devices, applications, and home networks—literal enforcement of zero trust would effectively translate to “zero work gets done.” This is why any useful evolution of zero trust principles must include data protection.

Brave new world, brand new problems for protecting data

Organizations are moving ever-increasing amounts of data out into the cloud. The use of software-as-a-service (SaaS) has dramatically impacted the volume and nature of network traffic. Previously, the majority of internet traffic was accessing static information sites, but now more than half of internet traffic related to SaaS and cloud apps contains business-critical data. This shift in network traffic has resulted in a network reversal—diverting traffic away from on-premises security appliances in the data center, and directly to the cloud.

Unless you have forced hairpinning of all the network traffic from managed devices through your data center, users will go directly to the cloud-based applications—leaving organizations completely blind to the transaction (without a monitoring proxy). 

Lack of visibility is a very real problem. While cloud-based applications serve pressing business needs, security teams can’t manage the risk of something they can’t clearly see. Further complicating the problem, most users access applications on more than one device (personal laptop, tablets, phones, etc.). 

The attack surface has broadened because of the rising volume of data that now resides outside of data centers (in the cloud) and a vast number of users that are working remotely. This not only increases opportunities for cyberattacks, but it also complicates data security and regulatory risks. Understanding data flows, as required under many of the privacy regulations, requires constant discovery of cloud services and the ability to “geofence” data so it doesn’t cross international borders. A strong data protection program is required to be able to inspect the traffic, determine if it is regulated data, and then enforce restrictions to stay compliant with the laws.

So, how do you ensure proper data protection in this kind of world with zero trust? 

Putting data at the center of your architecture using SASE

A modern security model should center around data, rather than legacy approaches designed around protecting an on-premises site. Putting data at the center of your security model means moving controls out of the data center and instead placing them around data and users. And that’s really the essence of building a secure access service edge (SASE) architecture.

When properly designed, the SASE architecture provides a framework to completely rethink your network security strategy and cloud data protection. SASE converges network and security functions into a single entity. Both network and security shift to the cloud as services, away from the data center, and closest to the point of data access. The “perimeter”—if we can even call it that—then becomes a dynamically policy-based edge that can be provisioned when and where you need it.

The big change here is that it’s not just protecting assets in the cloud using security-as-a-service. It’s really a narrowing down of the platform as well—simplifying the stack. SASE means you’re bringing together security-as-a-service and network-as-a-service and running them across carrier-grade network systems.

The foundation of SASE starts with a Next Gen SWG

A software-based Next Generation Secure Web Gateway (NG SWG) is really the heart of a SASE architecture, around which you can build on different network and security services. Next Gen SWGs bring together data leakage prevention (DLP), web security, and a cloud access security broker (CASB) into one platform. Once integrated, NG SWGs can monitor and protect the data flowing to and from all critical business systems.

It’s here where we can start to approach data protection for a zero trust world. You have devices, users, and networks that you don’t have trust in. But you need to connect them to your private applications, as well as your SaaS, web, and IaaS workloads. A SASE architecture that enables visibility and analytics, as well as automation and orchestration capabilities, can allow users to work from anywhere while still getting access to everything they need—without putting the organization at undue risk.

This article was originally published at Toolbox Security.

author image
James Christiansen
James Christiansen is Netskope’s vice president of cloud security transformation and leader of the Global Chief Strategy Office. He is focused on enhancing Netskope’s global clients understand the challenges and solutions of cloud deployments by helping drive thought leadership in cloud security transformation.

Stay informed!

Subscribe for the latest from the Netskope Blog