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八月 24, 2022

Eliminating Zero Trust Complexity

Jill Bradshaw

Facing persistent and increasingly sophisticated malicious cyber campaigns, the Executive Order on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity was issued in May of 2021 with the goal of modernizing cybersecurity defenses and protecting federal networks.  The EO requires the federal government move to zero-trust architectures.

The EO states "Incremental improvements will not give us the security we need; instead, the federal government needs to make bold changes and significant investments in order to defend the vital institutions that underpin the American way of life."

This isn't the first time the federal government has been mandated to strengthen cybersecurity programs. Back in 2002 and later amended in 2014 Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) required federal agencies to implement a mandatory set of processes and system controls to bolster cybersecurity programs.

And many programs and mandates over the years have been enacted with this same goal- to modernize and secure our federal systems, but yet here we are in 2022 where cybersecurity still requires a major overhaul to keep pace with advisories. 

 

Federal Zero Trust efforts are at risk of failing

Despite the mandate to move to Zero Trust, Gartner predicted recently that while 60% of organizations will embrace Zero Trust as a starting point for security by 2025 they expect more than half will fail to realize the benefits. Combine this with the fact that the average government agency faces more complexity and risk than the average business organization, the cultural and technology shift for agencies will be even greater.

 

Security complexity amplifies the problems

When a significant portion of the federal workforce is remote or working in the field, the lines of where to draw your defenses are blurred. Data is now everywhere—in websites, cloud apps, and private apps. Remote employees, partners, and contractors using unmanaged devices leave agencies vulnerable.  Cyber thieves and nation states are not letting up, and they’re using every trick to get through the door. The old portfolio of point products weren’t built for this. Zero Trust can’t be another compliance exercise; federal cybersecurity solutions must work together flawlessly. Policies must be consistent and enforced across all environments. Visibility, analytics, and automation must exist across your Zero Trust architecture. To truly transform, agencies must unify Zero Trust security across environments, enabling them to manage one set of policies, in one console, connected to one endpoint agent.

 

Forcepoint ONE Unifies Crucial Security Services to jumpstart Zero Trust adoption

Forcepoint ONE is an all-in-one cloud platform that simplifies security— providing a unified platform that enables agencies to truly transform today’s security architectures to jump start Zero Trust adoption that is manageable and efficient. With this platform, agencies can move more quickly towards Zero Trust and Security Service Edge (SSE, the security component of SASE) adoption because Forcepoint has unified crucial security services, including Secure Web Gateway (SWG), Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB) and Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA).

This means reduced complexity. We give you one platform, one console, and one agent, with many solutions. Enabling agencies to gain visibility, control access, and protect data on managed and unmanaged apps and all devices, from one set of security policies.

 

Forcepoint ONE Zero Trust platform combines three foundational gateways:

1) Secure Web GatewayThis is the service that monitors and controls any interaction with any website. This includes blocking access to websites based on category, blocking download of malware, blocking upload of confidential or sensitive data to personal file sharing accounts and detecting and controlling shadow IT. The Forcepoint ONE SWG features a unified agent that runs locally on Windows and devices to enable smart routing of web traffic, offering up to 2x the throughput of our SWG competitors.

2) Cloud Access Security BrokerForcepoint ONE CASB controls access to managed cloud applications. The cloud-native solution’s FedRAMP-authorized architecture supports agentless devices and provides built-in data loss and malware protection.

The Forcepoint ONE CASB can be configured to integrate with any SIEM tool that supports syslog, or to integrate with any on-premises data loss prevention (DLP) systems that supports ICAP. It also supports two-way integration between Forcepoint ONE and selected Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) platforms. Finally, Forcepoint ONE CASB can use classification metadata from any data classifier in a DLP match pattern.

3) Zero Trust Network AccessThis gateway controls access to private applications hosted behind a firewall—something it does without the need for virtual private networks (VPNs).

Like CASB does for traditional cloud apps, ZTNA provides data loss and malware protection for private web applications.

 

Watch the following Global Governments demo videos to explore some use cases that this technology can help agencies with today as you move toward Zero Trust security:

G2 Demo Series | How Forcepoint ONE prevents data leakage

 

G2 Demo Series | How Forcepoint ONE controls content access on managed devices

 

G2 Demo Series | Quick and easy ZTNA in Forcepoint ONE

 

G2 Demo Series | How Forcepoint ONE handles application control

 

G2 Demo Series | How Forcepoint ONE handles Role-based access control

 

G2 Demo Series | Forcepoint ONE zero-day threat protection

Jill Bradshaw

Jill Bradshaw is a Senior Product Marketing Manager with Forcepoint’s Global Government & Critical Infrastructure team. She has more than 15 years of experience in technology industry with focus on security and networks, the majority of that time focusing on solutions for global government...

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About Forcepoint

Forcepoint is the leading user and data protection cybersecurity company, entrusted to safeguard organizations while driving digital transformation and growth. Our solutions adapt in real-time to how people interact with data, providing secure access while enabling employees to create value.