The Bottom Line: IT and Business leaders have realized that Zero Trust is a well thought-out journey rather than an overnight destination and enterprises are finally getting serious about making Zero Trust a reality. But designing a Zero Trust architecture, embedding a Zero Trust mindset and maintaining a Zero Trust environment will require significant efforts and a continuous investment in technology, people and process. This is not the time to sit back and relax.
Our latest Cybersecurity Pulse study shows that enterprises are planning to increase their Zero Trust investment in 2022 in three main areas: protection, education and quantification.
- Strengthening security measures at the network and application levels will be given the highest priority by cybersecurity executives in 2022. Threat prevention and containment will be high on the agenda. Seventy percent (70%) of respondents will increase their investments in network security by more that fifteen percent (15%). Most enterprises are planning to embark on multiple and multi-year initiatives to protect the usability and integrity of their infrastructure, with the ultimate goal of preventing the entry and proliferation of a wide range of potential threats within their networks. Sixty-two percent (62%) of respondents will also significantly increase their investments in application security, across cloud, SaaS, on-premises applications. This is a clear sign that cybersecurity executives are now looking to effectively secure the entire stack top to bottom. Sixty percent (60%) of respondents will continue to invest in strengthening their identity and access environment. This is a also a clear sign that most enterprises looking toward a Zero Trust architecture are considering identity and access management as a central and critical component of their overall Zero Trust strategy.
- Deploying tech-enabled protective measures is essential, but cybersecurity executives have also realized that this needs to be accompanied by significant efforts to boost cybersecurity awareness campaigns and trainings. Sixty-two percent (62%) of respondents will increase their investments in training and awareness programs. Enterprises are planning to put employees at the centre of their Zero Trust strategy with more engaging and personalized learning platforms to make cybersecurity a “business as usual” learning activity.
- The objective of a Zero Trust initiative is to obviously improve the enterprise’ security posture. But goals must inevitably be measured and cyber risk exposure must be translated into a language that board and executive teams understand. More and more cybersecurity executives are now being mandated to continuously and consistently measure the effectiveness of their Zero Trust initiatives. Sixty percent (60%) of respondents are planning to increase their investments in that area, which is a clear sign that senior leaders are looking for more visibility with respect to the return on investment of their Zero Trust initiatives.
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