IT organizations shifting to intelligent, zero trust models to accommodate future of work: Study

Implementing security used to be simple: Build a perimeter and protect the resources inside. But as apps are increasingly moving to the cloud and work is happening anywhere, things have become more complicated, and the traditional architecture of castle and moat no longer works. IT organizations around the world realize this, and according to the results of a Pulse survey conducted by Citrix Systems, are abandoning traditional approaches to securing information and devices in favor of modern ones that enable them to overcome these challenges and deliver the future of work.

“In a world where resources can be accessed anywhere, anytime from any device, traditional security models focused on locking systems down won’t cut it,” said Fermin Serna, Chief Information Security Officer, Citrix.  “What is needed is an intelligent, people-focused approach that allows organizations to secure all the tools, apps, content, and devices that employees need and prefer to use in a simple experience that can be customized to fit their personal preferences and evolving work styles.”

A Modern Approach…

The Citrix-Pulse survey supports this notion. Of the IT executives and managers in North America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Asia Pacific region who responded to the measure,

• 64% indicated that they are aiming to shift from their current VPN strategy
• 71% said they are looking to a zero trust, cloud-based model as a replacement

…Driven by Experience

And employee experience will figure prominently in their plans.

• 97% of those surveyed cited employee experience as a key influence on their strategy going forward, and
• 75% said they are looking to improve the user experience through their design and execution

“Employee experience is critical to delivering business innovation and growth, and security must support it,” Serna said. “As the Citrix Pulse survey found, savvy organizations recognize this and are evolving their security postures to provide access to applications and information in a contextual and transparent way that empowers employees rather than frustrating them.”

Organizations like Synopsys. “We are moving beyond traditional VPN solutions and now provide our employees and partners with zero trust and secure access to their infrastructure on corporate managed or BYO devices,” said Sriram Sitaraman, Chief Information Officer, Synopsys.

And it is using solutions from Citrix to do it. Citrix provides a powerful set of secure access solutions that combine a full cloud-delivered security stack integrated with identity-aware Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) to protect employees without getting in their way, as well as a complete Secure Access Services Edge (SASE) stack of services that includes:

Citrix Secure Internet Access - A comprehensive, global cloud security service that addresses the security requirements of modern enterprises. This includes secure web gateway, next-generation firewall, cloud access security broker (CASB), DLP, sandboxing and AI-driven attack detection.

Citrix Secure Workspace Access - A VPN-less solution that delivers zero trust access to corporate web and SaaS applications accessed from managed and BYO devices.

Delivered as part of Citrix Workspace, Citrix secure access solutions enable companies to:

• Enhance security and productivity through identity-aware, zero trust access to all cloud and internet-based applications and virtual desktops.
• Leverage machine learning and artificial intelligence to provide real-time insights into user behavior and automate the process of preventing cybersecurity breaches
• Identify specific security incidents, atypical activity and policy violations using built-in forensics and detailed search into all traffic and user behavior
• Protect against all threats, everywhere leveraging more than 100 global points-of-presence, powered by over 10 threat intelligence engines
• Provide full coverage for all popular Cloud and SaaS properties, devices and operating systems, leaving no gap for access security coverage
• Manage everything through a single pane of glass

"By unifying access to all our corporate applications, Citrix has not only helped tighten the security posture around our apps, but also improved our overall employee experience,” Sitaraman adds.