“Goodbye VPNs, Hello Zero Trust Network Access: Basics for Lawyers” by Sensei’s Sharon Nelson and John Simek was recently featured as a guest blog post in the Massachusetts Law Office Management Assistance Program’s (Mass LOMAP) blog. Mass LOMAP helps attorneys licensed, or soon to be, in Massachusetts to implement professional office practices and procedures.
Excerpt:
Cybersecurity is critical for lawyers, and among the latest concerns are shortcomings of the standard virtual private networks (VPNs). Find out why 76% of firms intend to accelerate their shift to Zero Trust.
Virtual private networks (VPN) are very standard these days. But they are riddled with vulnerabilities – and subject to a “man in the middle attack.” They have wreaked havoc in 2020 in a work-from-home environment.
Enter zero trust network access (ZTNA).
An October 2020 Forrester study (commissioned by Cloudflare) offered some key findings.
Working from home compelled firms to transform how they operated in the cloud. However, 80% of the IT decision-makers interviewed said their companies were unprepared to make the transformation. Existing IT practices made it difficult to support employee productivity without security compromises.
As a result, 76% of the decision-makers said their firms intend to accelerate their shift to the Zero Trust security framework. More than three-quarters (76%) of decision-makers polled said their companies’ security practices were “antiquated” and needed to shift towards Zero Trust Network Access.
The report found that 82% of the firms said they were “committed” to migrating to a Zero Trust security architecture. To achieve this goal, close to half (49%) of the firms elevated the role of CISO to board visibility while 39% had a Zero Trust oriented pilot for 2020.
The migration towards Zero Trust faces various challenges, with 76% of the firms identifying Identity and Access Management (IAM) as the major challenge.
