Citrix, CrowdStrike, More Join Google Cloud BeyondCorp Alliance

Google Cloud has added new partners – including Citrix, CrowdStrike, Jamf and Tanium – to its BeyondCorp Alliance. It also unveiled solution updates with BeyondCorp Alliance partners Check Point Software Technologies, Lookout, Palo Alto Networks, Symantec and VMWare.

Google has been working on zero trust for more than a decade. Earlier this year, it introduced BeyondCorp Remote Access. The cloud-based offering helps make access to internal applications easier and more secure. Furthermore, it offers similar context-aware access controls for apps in Google Workspace and Cloud Identity.

Last year, it assembled the BeyondCorp Alliance, a group of partners that share its zero-trust vision. These partners are key to its effort to further promote this technology.

BeyondCorp Alliance partners add capabilities in device management, endpoint security and gateways.

Zero Trust a Must in the New Normal

Sam Srinivas is director of product management at Google Cloud.

Google Cloud’s Sam Srinivas

“Zero trust is becoming an imperative for the new normal,” he said. “Businesses do not want to start over, deploying many new security products during an already stressful time. And the BeyondCorp Alliance can help customers integrate existing products or solutions into their zero-trust strategy to speed up adoption and strengthen security. These partners also see zero-trust solution providers like Google Cloud getting strong engagement with customers, and want to be part of the capabilities being offered. As we were a pioneer in this space, many of these partners’ zero-trust vision aligns with ours, and it makes sense to partner so that our joint customers can benefit.”

Among the new partnerships:

• Citrix is extending its collaboration with Google Cloud to include BeyondCorp. The first step is bringing together Workspace and BeyondCorp. All applications in a customer’s environment can be exposed through Workspace, adding BeyondCorp’s VPN-less access and policy enforcement.
• CrowdStrike will deliver real-time endpoint security assessments regardless of location, network or user. BeyondCorp adopters can prohibit access from untrusted or compromised hosts.
• Jamf is working to extend its device compliance capabilities to organizations using Google Cloud and BeyondCorp. Customers can ensure that only trusted users are accessing company data.
• With BeyondCorp, Tanium is specifically partnering to provide enterprise-grade zero trust by tying remote access control to device identity through Tanium Endpoint Identity.

Increasing Adoption

“Increased adoption of zero-trust solutions will increase demand for the product capabilities they offer,” Srinivas said, “We know that many of our customers have invested significantly in dedicated tools and strategic relationships with security vendors that we partner with. Being part of our zero-trust solution will help ensure they are an integral part of this must-have capability. We want to meet customers where they are on their security journey, allowing them to preserve investments, as well as benefit from zero trust capabilities not available on other clouds.”

The BeyondCorp offering allows the customer to make access decisions based on user identity and device trust, he said. The customer may already have a preferred endpoint security offering, which they can leverage for device trust via the vendor’s BeyondCorp alliance partnership.

“A critical aspect of operating securely in the new normal is being able to leverage device security information and data to help companies make informed access decisions as part of their security posture for zero-trust access and control,” Srinivas said. “Getting this security posture right is a key advantage because, today, most employee devices are often outside the corporate network. In fact, many users are both outside the corporate network and may be using a device that is not issued by the enterprise.”

“Partners who share our vision are an essential part of how we help our customers modernize their security approaches in place to deliver a better, safer normal,” said Sunil Potti, vice president and general manager of Google Cloud Security.