It’s been three years since the pandemic forced organizations to adopt remote-first work arrangements. Fast forward to today, and many of them are still seeking the right blend of remote and hybrid work arrangements. Adopting Zero Trust policies can address several issues that keep your client’s IT teams up at night including having applications split between on-premises, cloud and SaaS deployments, as well as data distribution across multiple locations. Fortinet’s Zero Trust Report is based on a global survey of IT decision-makers aimed at better understanding how far along organizations are in their zero-trust journey. Here’s what we learned.

There has been an uptick in the number of companies deploying solutions as part of their zero-trust strategies. The latest report found that the number of respondents that report being in the process of implementation is 66 percent, up from 54 percent in 2021. While this is great news, respondents also shared that they grapple with implementation challenges. Interoperability between solutions, achieving consistent visibility across their environments and addressing application latency issues were the key roadblocks they faced in deploying successful zero-trust initiatives.

Survey respondents also said that while they’ve attempted to secure both on-premises and remote users with a consistent application policy, the results have been mixed. Many solutions like zero-trust network access (ZTNA) and secure access service edge (SASE) are cloud-only. However, companies need to secure access to applications on-premises and outside of their network. The report found that nearly 40 percent of organizations still host more than half of their applications on-premises. And 75 percent of survey respondents reported having encountered issues by relying on cloud only ZTNA solutions. 

Despite these initial roadblocks, the survey respondents are focused on finding the right hybrid ZTNA strategies and are prioritizing what they cover including:

• Web applications (81 percent)
• On-premises users (76 percent)
• Remote users (72 percent)
• On-premises applications (64 percent)
• SaaS applications (51 percent)

Download your copy of Fortinet’s Zero Trust Report to gain more insights including:

• How well zero trust and ZTNA are understood
• The perceived benefits and challenges in implementing a zero-trust strategy
• How to successfully build and deploy a zero-trust strategy

You can also learn how to deploy a stronger Zero Trust initiative for your clients’ remote and hybrid users with Fortinet Zero Trust Network Access.