The shift to remote work has organizations grappling with how to protect business-critical data. Nearly 80% of companies see data leakage as the greatest potential threat. Despite this, 86% of companies are likely to support remote work in the future. Zero Trust and Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) have emerged as a security methodologies. But, is Zero Trust really effective at protecting data leakage?
Limitations of Zero Trust Network Access
Everyone accepts that trusting remote workers to do the right thing is not viable for protecting company data. Consequently, we hear a lot about Zero Trust access to networks to support today’s distributed workforces. Although there is nothing wrong with this approach per se it is worth remembering that ZTNA only secures access to the network and applications. It does nothing to protect the data itself.
It is all too easy for distributed workers using productivity tools to overstep their privileges and cause a data breach through negligence and oversharing. The recent breach of UK Special Forces personal data via WhatsApp is a case in point. In this instance the personal details of 1,182 British soldiers were shared in a spreadsheet that was freely accessible to any member of the 80,000 strong British Army.
For all the productivity benefits of collaboration apps an event like the UK Special Forces incident wipes out any gains in an instant. Insider threats using collaboration apps can stem from four categories of individual namely overprivileged users, ordinary users/employees, contractors and suppliers. They may each be responsible for two kinds of threat – those that are accidental and those committed on purpose. According to the 2021 Verizon Data Breach Investigation report privilege abuse and data mishandling, such as emailing confidential information to the wrong distribution list, are a primary concern for companies with large numbers of remotely distributed employees.
So what can be done to better protect remote work collaboration and information sharing, which by all accounts is here to stay?
Join us for a Webinar on Thursday, July 22 to learn:
- Key challenges, security threats and technology gaps identified in the new 2021 State of Remote Work Security report*
- The impact of remote work on meeting GDPR and data privacy mandates
- How Zero Trust Data Access provides the key to modern information security
*All attendees will receive a copy of the full report
