Written by Jacob Lee July 31, 2019

Why End Users Should be Priority #1 When Selecting a Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) Solution

The introduction of modern Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) solutions represents a giant leap forward in IT security to help enterprise organizations adapt to the new world of hybrid cloud, BYOD and 3rd party users accessing corporate applications and servers on premise or in the cloud.

Traditional VPN remote access solutions are now considered legacy, outdated and not ideal for most modern cloud and hybrid environments due to broad network access security liabilities, operational complexities, poor user experience and high costs. Per IDG’s Security Priorities 2019 report 47% of enterprise organizations are researching Zero Trust technologies this year with 36% of security budget allocated specifically to new access controls. There’s clear momentum that enterprises are adopting a zero trust ‘least privilege access’ solution to replace their legacy VPNs.

Before embarking on the Zero Trust Journey an important question to ask is how do I rollout a new Zero Trust Network Access implementation without impacting user experience?

Employee productivity takes precedence over security controls in most organizations. End users can view IT security as a roadblock to productivity or a black box that mandates new restrictive controls without explanation. This impacts morale and some users will do their best to work around corporate enforced security controls to make their life easier.

End users want a seamless experience and employees want to use their own devices. But most users do care about corporate security. No one wants to be the reason their company is breached.

After several real-world conversations with enterprise customers who have lived through successful Zero Trust implementations, I’ve listed below the top things to consider when planning a Zero Trust Network Access implementation and selecting a solution:

1. Enable a Seamless User Experience – End users want a seamless experience. They want to authenticate with their existing SSO tool (w/ MFA) and instantly gain access to their work resources whether they are a finance worker accessing corporate applications that are hosted on-premise or a DevOps engineer accessing servers and CI/CD repositories in the public cloud.
2. Embrace BYOD – Employees want to use their own devices. Most workers today are not interested in having a second corporate issued phone, laptop or tablet. They want to use what they are comfortable with to access corporate resources and do their jobs.
3. Empower End Users and Provide Transparency – Most users do care about corporate security and most would like to understand how they can enhance their security posture. No one wants to be the reason their company is breached. If a user’s security posture is compromised they want to know why? Is it due to malware on their device? Do they need to apply the latest patch to their laptop? Is there something they can do to fix this without losing access to their applications or opening a ticket with security?

In order to gain broad employee adoption of a modern Zero Trust Network Access solution all of the above should be considered. Bringing the user experience as a primary factor into the equation when selecting a Zero Trust Network Access solution will help bridge the gap between IT security helping increase employee sentiment and ensuring a successful rollout.

Banyan is the first Zero Trust Network Access platform bringing to market an innovative solution that bridges the divide between user experience and zero trust security. We’ve built our platform from the ground up with end users in mind with a focus on:

• Integrating with an organization’s existing security toolsets. Banyan provides a seamless user experience. No rip and replace or ‘one size fits all’ approach to implementing a Zero Trust framework. Most companies have made significant investments in IAM, SSO, MDM and EDR and want to leverage tools already in place. Let your users access corporate resources with the same work flow they’re already accustomed to.
• Enabling a user friendly Zero Trust BYOD policy across the enterprise. Provide users with the capability to access corporate resources on network or in the cloud with their personal laptops or phones for iOS, MacOS, Android and Windows all while enforcing least privilege Zero Trust Access to protect sensitive data.
• Allowing users to take ownership of their security posture. Banyan exposes transparent information to employees via our TrustScoring which allows them to understand and enhance their security posture on their own. Banyan TrustScoring provides easy to understand metrics on a 0-100 scale so employees can become empowered and take ownership of their security posture which in turn increases enterprise security. TrustScoring metrics can also be tailored specifically to organizations’ security policies.

Interested in learning how your organization can adopt Zero Trust? Come check out Banyan Security at VMworld 2019 or register for our Black Hat 2019 Customer Dinner with Adobe’s top notch security team who are pioneers in implementing user friendly Zero Trust Network Access within a large enterprise.

You can also visit https://banyansecurity.io to schedule a demo and register for a free trial.