Defending Against Disruptive Attacks
The modern work-from-anywhere environment is defined by distributed employees and connected partners, security skills shortages, and advanced cyberthreats. As these factors and others collide to drive complexity and risk, organizations are demanding innovations that not only reduce the possibility of breaches and defend against disruptive attacks, but also improve performance and end user experiences.
Challenges Zero Trust Addresses
To address challenges, organizations are increasingly turning to Zero Trust (ZT). This strategic approach to defending enterprise networks calls for limiting the level of access granted to users and devices across systems and data to only those that are positively verified. This “need-to-know” approach to networks and information provides greater assurance that data will remain protected against attackers and that systems will be subjected to fewer cyber-related disruptions.
Zero Trust was introduced in 2010 by Forrester analyst John Kindervag. Over the years, it has given rise to a raft of technologies that support the approach. These span Cloud Security Access Brokers (CASB), Secure Access Services Edge (SASE) platforms, Micro Segmentation, multi-factor authentication tools, and Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) solutions, just to name a few.
ZTNA Delivers Security, Efficiency, and Performance
Of all these technologies, ZTNA is coming to be accepted as the pillar that enables end users to leverage their devices to access systems and data with the highest level of security, efficiency, and performance. The challenge that enterprise security and risk leaders now face isn’t whether ZTNA is right for them, but rather how to select, deploy, and manage a ZTNA solution that will help them to overcome their organizations’ unique set of obstacles while scaling to meet growing demands.
Security ZTNA Leaders
To help organizations identify leading ZTNA offerings, global analyst firm KuppingerCole published the 2022 Leadership Compass: Zero Trust Network Access report. Complete with a historical overview and an in-depth analysis of what effective ZT and ZTNA delivers, it includes an objective and unbiased review of the Absolute Software Secure Access product portfolio, our integrated ZTNA solution. Powered by our patented Persistence® technology, it not only delivers secure access and improved end user experiences, but also a level of resilience and self-healing that ensures maximum performance while reducing down time and eliminating opportunities for internal and external threats to tamper with or turn off the application.
Absolute’s internal research shows that both cloud and on-prem security applications are subject to disruptions driven by technology issues and tampering, sometimes falling well below the required level of performance needed to maintain effective levels of security and compliance. With our Persistence technology extended into our ZTNA solution, our customers experience up-time that well exceeds industry and compliance standards to reduce the risk of costly and disruptive security incidents and data breaches.
How Absolute Ranks
Named as an “Overall Leader” in the report, KuppingerCole reviewed us among a field of 13 competitors, which it evaluated for all-around functionality, innovation, market presence, and financial position.
Notably, KuppingerCole analyst Alexei Balaganski called attention to both Absolute’s security and performance capabilities:
- Absolute Secure Access (ZTNA) offers a more intelligent way to deliver secure remote access, protecting users and resources while improving the experience of working remotely. This entails full visibility outside the corporate perimeter, continuous risk assessments using multiple data points to power access policies, and restricted access to enterprise resources, no matter where they’re hosted.
- Absolute Secure Access (ZTNA) presents rich insights on the real-time experience of remote and mobile workers, providing both proactive and reactive ways of improving it. This covers diagnostics on device and network to empower helpdesk teams, rich analytics on network performance outside the corporate perimeter (from cellular to public Wi-Fi), real-time geolocation dashboards, as well as reputation and categorization of domains visited by remote workers.
Additionally, the report gave Absolute a “5 out of 5” rating for Security, Deployment, and Interoperability, along with a “4 out of 5” rating for Functionality and Usability. Key strengths recognized are:
- Tight integration between endpoint and network security solution stacks
- Specifically designed and optimized for mobile workers and devices
- Technology is firmware-embedded by many device manufacturers (which now includes more than 600 million devices*)
- Seamless support for hybrid (ZTNA+VPN) scenarios
- Automated policy creation and enforcement at the endpoint, providing lateral movement restriction and threat protection
In addition to being named an overall leader, the Absolute Secure Access ZTNA solution is recognized as a leader in four additional report categories, including Product, Innovation, Market, and Technology.
Read the Report
To read the full report and learn more about why the Absolute Secure Access product line may be right for your organization’s ZTNA requirements and how it stacks up against top competitors, download here.
*Noted by Absolute Software internal analytics, not mentioned in the published report.
