Zero trust crucial part of successful cybersecurity strategies, research finds

Zero trust is a core element of a contemporary cybersecurity strategy, according to new research from One Identity.

The global survey findings unpack the current state of zero trust awareness and adoption across the enterprise.

According to the Dimensional Research-conducted survey of 1,009 IT security professionals, zero trust is a main security priority for most organisations, but comprehensive understanding and adoption of the Forrester-founded framework remains inconsistent.

As zero trust awareness continues to rise, One Identity reveals that only 1 in 5 security stakeholders are confident in their organisations' understanding of zero trust.

Furthermore, while 75% of organisations recognise zero trust as being critically or very important to bolstering overall cybersecurity posture, only 14% report that they have fully implemented a solution.

Another 39% of organisations have begun to address this important need, and an additional 22% noted that they plan to implement zero trust over the course of the next year.

Among key barriers to widespread zero trust success is a lack of clarity on how adoption can be achieved.

In fact, the study finds that ​​61% of security professionals are focusing their implementation on reconfiguring access policies, while 54% believe it begins with identifying how sensitive data moves throughout the network.

In total, a substantial 32% of security teams lack a comprehensive understanding of how zero trust should be implemented within their organisation.

Other key barriers to zero trust adoption include competing priorities (31% are too busy with other daily priorities), and beliefs that zero trust can hinder business productivity (for example, 31% erroneously believe that zero trust security models impact employee productivity).

One Identity president and general manager Bhagwat Swaroop says, "Organisations recognise that the traditional perimeter is no longer enough and that they will be best served by prioritising identity security and taking steps to ensure bad actors are limited once they gain access.

"Zero trust is fast becoming an enterprise imperative because it eliminates vulnerable permissions and excessive access by delivering a continuum of different rights across the organisation to ultimately limit attack surfaces if they are breached.

One Identity delivers unified identity security solutions designed to help customers strengthen their overall cybersecurity posture and protect the people, applications and data essential to business.

The company's Unified Identity Security Platform brings together Identity Governance and Administration (IGA), Identity and Access Management (IAM), Privileged Access Management (PAM) and Active Directory Management and Security (ADMS) capabilities to enable organisations to shift from a fragmented to a holistic approach to identity security.

It provides 360-degree visibility across all identities (human, machine, and proliferating accounts caused by changes in how and where we work), the ability to verify everything before granting access and adaptive security controls to help organisations reduce risk from cyber attacks, and limit damage from breaches.