The Zero Trust approach to cybersecurity is relatively new - with 82% of companies adopting it in the last three years - but as the network perimeter dissolves, it has quickly become critical to many organisations who are struggling to secure their workforce’s Technology. This Microsoft report looks at how far along global companies are in their zero trust journey and the barriers to implementation they face.
- Organisations’ most common motivations for adopting Zero Trust included improving overall security (47%), enhancing the end user experience (44%), and building cooperation across security teams (38%).
- 76% of organisations surveyed have begun to put zero trust into practice, and 35% believe they have finished the work of implementing it. The US is leading Zero Trust adoption, Germany is the lowest rate of full implementation (see infographic)
- No clear starting point for Zero Trust exists, giving permission to start implementation anywhere across security risk areas (identities, endpoints, apps, network, infrastructure, data, automation & orchestration). Fewer than 15% of organisations start in the same area
- The most common benefits to organisations who implement Zero Trust include increased security and compliance (37%), faster threat detection and mitigation (35%), increased protection of customer data (35%), enhanced and accessible security analytics (34%), and improved ability to contain breaches (32%)
- The vast majority of businesses (73%) predict their zero trust budget will increase in the next two years, while only 1% say it will decrease and the rest anticipate it will stay the same.
- Organisations face a range of barriers to zero trust adoption. Resource challenges, such as a lack of time, and leadership challenges, such as insufficient support from the C-suite, top the list. Technological issues included integrating security solutions and reconciling with legacy systems. Vendor issues encompassed the need for support from vendors in the implementation process as well as identifying the right vendors. Budget constraints were also a challenge identified by 45% of participants.
