Zero Trust Is Mainstream: What That Means for Your Organization

According to recent research by Forrester, 2023 witnessed a staggering number of breaches, exposing over 1.5 billion records globally. The top 35 breaches of 2023 were distributed across various industries, with the public sector and healthcare sector bearing the brunt, followed by financial services and insurance, utilities and telecommunications, among others.  

These incidents serve as a wake-up call for organizations to rethink their security strategies and adopt a proactive approach to cybersecurity. Against this backdrop, cybersecurity leaders are reimagining their approach to security, with Zero Trust emerging as the best strategy to mitigate risks and safeguard critical assets.

In this blog post, learn what mainstream adoption of Zero Trust means for your organization in 2024.

Zero Trust is now a mainstream security strategy

Although Zero Trust has long been considered a best practice strategy, it’s taken time for government leadership and businesses to act on building Zero Trust architectures. Now, Forrester's Security Survey, 2023 indicates that 72 percent of security decision-makers at enterprise organizations (1,000 or more employees) are planning to or currently deploying a Zero Trust initiative, and 78 percent have invested resources into a Zero Trust security strategy.  

Zero Trust is becoming mainstream and is finding its way into a variety of different initiatives and technologies organizations are using to build more resilient networks.

This significant move toward Zero Trust illustrates a fundamental paradigm shift in cybersecurity away from traditional perimeter-based security models to a breach containment approach that acknowledges breaches are inevitable.

Zero Trust change can be an organizational sticking point

Despite the momentum behind Zero Trust adoption, organizations face several challenges that can impede implementation efforts. According to the Forrester survey, the most common roadblocks for enterprise organizations include:

• Lack of key personnel: 47%
• Conflicting priorities: 46%

• Outdated technologies: 46%
• Lack of knowledge: 44%
• Budget: 41%

Addressing these challenges requires a concerted effort from cybersecurity leaders, including recruiting and retaining skilled personnel, aligning security objectives with broader business goals, investing in modern security solutions and infrastructure, providing training and education initiatives, and securing adequate funding for cybersecurity initiatives.

Microsegmentation is foundational to any Zero Trust architecture

2023’s top breaches show that cyber resilience is business critical. Organizations must ensure they can maintain operations and protect critical assets during inevitable breaches. The best way to achieve cyber resilience is through Zero Trust — a globally validated strategy based on the mantra of “never trust, always verify.”

Zero Trust Segmentation (ZTS), also called microsegmentation, is a key pillar of Zero Trust, and you can't achieve Zero Trust without it. ZTS provides a consistent approach to microsegmention across the hybrid attack surface, enabling organizations to see and reduce risk across the cloud, endpoints, and data centers. ZTS is easy and simple in comparison to attempting segmentation with static, legacy firewalls.

Forrester’s survey shows that nearly half of all enterprise organizations surveyed have implemented ZTS. 27 percent are implementing ZTS, with 18 percent planning to implement it in the next year. Organizations are seeing ZTS as key to their Zero Trust strategies with far-reaching implications across their security initiatives.  

The way forward with Zero Trust

As cybersecurity leaders grapple with the evolving threat landscape, Zero Trust has emerged as a guiding principle to navigate these challenges. By adopting a Zero Trust approach and its foundational technologies like ZTS, organizations can enhance their security posture, mitigate risks, and safeguard critical assets against cyber threats.  

Illumio is a Leader in The Forrester Wave™: Microsegmentation Solutions, Q3 2024. Access the report now.

Contact us today to learn more about how Illumio can help you build Zero Trust Segmentation as part of your organization’s Zero Trust journey.