Jon Kane, Channel & Alliances Director EMEA at Gigamon, discusses the importance of Zero Trust adoption and how the channel can enable success for their customers

Zero Trust is a growing trend in cybersecurity. However, the term has previously been labelled a ‘buzzword’, with many admitting they have little understanding of what a Zero Trust framework includes. In fact, a growing number of IT and security leaders across EMEA are concerned about what it entails; 44% of those surveyed in 2022 claimed they worry it requires too much oversight and resources – up from 23% in 2020.

Yet at the same time, implementing a Zero Trust architecture seems to be a solution many want to prioritise. According to studies, 70% think it would be unwise not to consider Zero Trust in the current climate of rising cyber-attacks. As the threatscape continues to evolve and cloud security remains a concern on every IT professional’s mind, end-users require increasing support from partners across the channel to embark on their journey to attaining Zero Trust. This is where the channel can become the allies and trusted advisors, their customers desperately need.

Zero Trust is a mindset
First off, it’s crucial that organisations across the IT channel understand Zero Trust is not a product nor a technology, it’s a mindset. In order to bolster security resilience, teams need to shift away from the assumption that any user or asset within the network perimeter can be trusted. Indeed, the core aim of Zero Trust is to remove any implicit trust in a network and, in its place, require each individual case to be assessed before granting access.

Unlocking security success for customers therefore means channel partners acting as savvy advisors, differentiating from competitors by not only helping end-users to adopt better tools but also implementing better processes and educating them about the risk of implicit trust. The value of the channel for end-users therefore lies in the technical knowledge and expertise partners can share, supporting what is a complex, but necessary, shift towards a zero-trust mindset.

The good news is over three-quarters of global organisations accept Zero Trust is a journey, not a tick-box exercise. And with 83% of IT and security leaders in EMEA saying they now feel comfortable implementing Zero Trust in the next three years, the time is ripe for partners to become Zero Trust allies.

The role of deep observability
Vendors in the security space will continue to release products and solutions that play an important role in embarking on a Zero Trust journey – but there is no ‘silver bullet’ technology that could solve this conundrum alone. It’s therefore the role of the channel to support end-users in identifying and implementing an ecosystem of interconnected solutions that bolster their security posture and reduce implicit trust.

At the very foundation of this has to be deep observability. It’s impossible to monitor users, assets, devices and traffic that you can’t see, and consequently extremely challenging to assess and grant access on a case-by-case basis. Organisations therefore need to obtain a clear view of everything happening on their network to enable a comprehensive Zero Trust strategy.

It’s therefore positive that 98% of global IT and Security leaders believe that deep observability is connected to Zero Trust on some level. This addition of real-time network-level intelligence amplifies the power of metric, event, log and trace-based monitoring and observability tools to mitigate security risk and ease operational complexity. This is particularly important in the era of the hybrid cloud, where many traditional monitoring tools for on-premises cannot see into virtual environments and vice versa.

Security professionals who blend deep observability and Zero Trust will be best positioned to ensure business continuity by preventing bad actors from infiltrating their network and exfiltrating data. It’s up to the channel to educate on the value of this holistic visibility for creating a solid foundation on which a zero-trust mindset can be built.

A Zero Trust future
Zero Trust should no longer be a buzzword, but a recognised framework that is neither a quick nor simple security solution. It is an extensive and challenging approach to better cybersecurity and a journey that channel partners will need to guide their customers along. Although many in EMEA are yet to truly see Zero Trust as an attainable architecture for their organisations, it is certainly becoming a priority. In this environment, channel partners can be crucial allies to their customers by educating them on the value of deep observability – a pre-requisite for Zero Trust that will make the journey far easier.