Okta report shows Zero Trust security approach continues to gain momentum

The data comes from Pulse Q&A, which surveyed 700 security decision makers at the director level or higher at various organizations. Pulse collected the responses from these decision-makers in early 2022.

The survey indicates that industry vertical, company size or location does not limit the existence of Zero Trust initiatives. All survey respondents, regardless of industry or size, stated they are working towards Zero Trust policies in the future.

That said, having a Zero Trust policy in place is especially vital to the edge computing industry. Edge devices may be located on a network’s periphery and not within the relatively “safer” confines of an organization’s cloud or data center. Thus, it is more imperative than ever for companies with edge computing to have a defined Zero Trust policy. In other words, only minimal, specific access to devices and data on the network periphery should be permitted.

Some of the other key findings from the report include:

• 31% of surveyed organizations said that Zero Trust policies for data are a critical priority, 44% said it is a high priority and 19% said it is a moderate priority
• 31% of surveyed organizations said that Zero Trust policies for devices are a critical priority, 40% said it is a high priority and 22% said it is a moderate priority
• 24% said of survey companies said that Zero Trust for networks was a critical priority, 43% said it was a high priority and 27% said it was a moderate priority
• 88% of G2000 companies have already implemented a secure API access Zero Trust initiative and 42% plan to within the next 12-18 months.
• Over 85% of survey respondents said they had allocated a moderate or, in some cases, a considerable year-over-year budget increase for Zero Trust initiatives.

The report also provides insights into organizations’ challenges when implementing Zero Trust security. Some of the most common challenges include lack of budget, lack of skilled personnel, and user resistance.

Analysis

As security breaches continue to increase internationally, more organizations understand the importance of implementing a Zero Trust security initiative. It has gone from basically an idea to a security priority for organizations within only a few years. The report shows that companies recognize the importance of a Zero Trust policy and are willing to spend the time and money to implement these types of policies sooner rather than later. Companies in the edge computing ecosystem should acknowledge this trend by marketing the security features of their products and services that fit in with the Zero Trust paradigm.

Article Topics

device management  |  edge security  |  IAM  |  network security  |  Okta  |  Zero Trust  |  ZTNA