Zero Trust Network Access

CF: In terms of zero trust network access (ZTNA), how does what Perimeter 81 offers differ from your competitors?

GR: If we look at the lT industry in general, there’s always been buzzwords or topics that people have jumped upon. So there’s what I call a bandwagon approach. SD-WAN is one. Then, of course, you’ve now got secure access service edge (SASE). Zero trust is, of course, the big conversation starter or relevant topic. Zero trust for us is done in a number of ways. We have a cloud management platform, which is more around orchestration management. But when we really get down to how we do it, we actually protect and secure the user. Our job is not to go to an application or an appliance level, but go to a user. So what can he or she have access to in our network. The way in which we do this is we’ve got things like device posture checks. People like you and I, we’ve all got mobiles or cells that none of us can live without. We can allow different posture checks on those devices. Are they running the right iOS versions? Are they running the right malware or antivirus on that device? And if the answer to any of those don’t fit the agenda of the company, you’re not coming into our corporate network. But what we can do is mitigate another element where we can do things like agentless models. So for clients or maybe contractors that are coming into the network or want to come into the network, we simply give them a virtual image of the desktop and the apps that they can and can’t search. But the one thing we’re not doing is allowing that individual to necessarily come in and touch the network. And this is where, of course, exploits are always more vulnerable.