Zscaler, a leader in cloud security, found that more than 90% of IT leaders who have started their migration to the cloud have implemented, are implementing, or are planning to implement a Zero Trust security architecture.
Supporting the mass migration to Zero Trust to secure users and the cloud, more than two-thirds (68%) believe that secure cloud transformation is impossible with legacy network security infrastructures or that ZTNA has clear advantages over traditional firewalls and VPNs for remote access to applications.
This is according to The State of Zero Trust Transformation 2023 report, which drew on a global study of over 1,900 senior IT decision-makers at organisations globally, which have already started migrating applications and services to the cloud.
Zscaler’s research shows that against a backdrop of rapid Digital Transformation, IT leaders believe Zero Trust – built on the principle that no user, device or application should be inherently trusted – is the ideal framework for securing enterprise users, workloads and IoT/OT environments in a highly distributed cloud and mobile-centric world.
Approached from a holistic IT perspective, Zero Trust has the potential to unlock business opportunities across the overall digitisation process, from driving increased innovation to supporting better employee engagement, or delivering tangible cost efficiencies.
The leading cloud concerns
IT leaders identified security, access and complexity as top cloud concerns, creating a clear case for Zero Trust to overcome these hurdles. When asked about legacy network and security infrastructures, 54% indicated they believed VPNs or perimeter-based firewalls are both ineffective at protecting against cyberattacks or providing poor visibility into application traffic and attacks.
This further validates the findings that 68% agree that secure cloud transformation is impossible with a legacy network security infrastructure or that ZTNA has clear advantages over traditional firewalls and VPNs for secure remote access to critical applications.
The cloud context – a lack of confidence
While progress on Zero Trust is strong, Zscaler found that globally only 22% of organisations are fully confident they are leveraging the full potential of their cloud infrastructure, so while organisations have made solid initial steps on their cloud journey, there is a massive opportunity to capitalise on the benefits of the cloud.
Regionally, the results vary with 42% of organisations in the Americas feeling fully confident in the use of their cloud infrastructure, compared with 14% of organisations across EMEA and 24% in APAC. While India (55%) and Brazil (51%) are leading on a country level followed by the US (41%) and Mexico (36%), European and Asian countries are less confident: in Europe, Sweden (21%) and the UK (19%) are leading followed by Australia (17%), Japan (17%) and Singapore (16%).
The remaining European countries are lagging behind: The Netherlands with 14%, Italy (12%), both France and Spain at 11% and Germany with 9%. This chasm between the most progressive country being more than six times the most lagging country shows varying confidence levels of the cloud by region and further presents an opportunity for education and closing the skills gap.
