Indian firms warm up to Zero Trust

THE NEW PARADIGM IN CYBERSECURITY | IT leaders see it as the ideal security framework to keep threats at bay

- SUDHIR CHOWDHARY

THE INTERNET HAS evolved rapidly in the last decade, leading to sweeping changes in how organisations function. Today, productivity, automation, enhancement, and customer expectation have become parts of the core strategy in every organisation. Even the perimeter is no longer confined to the office but has extended to cover people's homes and their devices. This has led to a dramatic change in the threat landscape. Just to put a few numbers, cybersecurity spending is projected to reach $219 billion in 2023. Researchers predict cybercrime to cost the global economy $10.5 trillion by 2025.

Rajesh Thapar,chief information security officer (CISO) at Axis Bank, says, "Earlier, security professionals largely knew the threats they were facing, which guided an organisation's security strategy. Now organisations deal with potential attack vectors all the time and one of the key objectives to protect is by minimising the risk of unknown unknowns." He emphasises the importance of implementing a Zero Trust framework. "Microsoft has given us a lot of tools to identify and detect if there is any suspicious event or breach somewhere," he adds.

The new buzzword?

What is Zero Trust architecture, and how does it help customers stay secure? As organisations continue to embrace and adapt to an evolving hybrid working landscape, they are faced with significant security challenges as employees spend more time outside the traditional network perimeter where visibility, control, and consistency are harder to enforce, says Anand Jethalia,country head-cybersecurity, Microsoft India and South Asia.