Security News > 2021 > February > Forrester report highlights Zero Trust Edge model for networking and security infrastructure
In a new report, analysts from Forrester touted the Zero Trust Edge model as a way for organizations to unify networking and security infrastructure while also securing and enabling remote workers.
"The Zero Trust Edge model is a safer on-ramp to the internet for organizations' physical locations and remote workers. A ZTE network is a virtual network that spans the internet and is directly accessible from every major city in the world. It uses Zero Trust Network Access to authenticate and authorize users as they connect to it and through it," Holmes wrote.
"Both networking and security teams have struggled to meet new requirements for using cloud and supporting home workers, because the old approaches were based on onsite dedicated software or hardware appliances, unreliable on-premises controls and policy repositories, limiting hardware-centric approach and disjointed security and networking silos."
"Zero Trust protects businesses from customers, employees, contractors, and devices at remote sites connecting through WAN fabrics to a more caustic, open, dangerous, and turbulent environment," the report said, defining the Zero Trust Edge concept as a solution that "Securely connects and transports traffic, using Zero Trust access principles, in and out of remote sites leveraging mostly cloud-based security and networking services."
"The Zero Trust Edge model is disruptive-nay, transformative-to the way security and networking have traditionally been consumed. Always in a constant state of evolution, cybersecurity functions have been quicker to move to the Zero Trust Edge. Legacy networks will be much slower."
"No one I've talked to has done it and honestly, these are still early days for the model. So, we'll solve the tactical problem first with ZTNA. We'll move on to the larger security challenges next. And finally, we'll address the network. In the end, remote users, retail branches, remote offices, factories, and data centers will be connected to ZTE networks that will use Zero Trust approaches and technologies to authenticate, sanitize, and monitor connections through the network and into the internet and public clouds."