In medieval times, kings protected themselves and their assets by locking them away in castles built with impenetrable walls. A moat with a drawbridge provided a single route into and out of the castle. Not long ago, corporate networks were designed the same way—a clear, defined network perimeter with gateway security.
Traditional VPN solutions operate much like the concept of the castle, moat, and drawbridge. They provide a way for the owner to restrict access into the castle. However, they both have similar flaws:
- An attacker masquerading as someone else can gain access and cause havoc (think: the Trojans)
- Once an attacker is within the perimeter walls, they can roam around unimpeded.
Digital transformation has forced technology to move rapidly, replacing the concept of a clearly defined network edge with many diverse network edges and applications and data distributed in many different locations, including the HQ and private and public clouds. With these distributed networks comes a need for a new, modern way of thinking about remote access to address the following concerns:
- Users are no longer always in the office. Today, users can be located anywhere in the world, connecting on multiple types of devices. Yet, they still need to be able to do their job.
- Data and applications can be in many different locations. The corporate network is no longer the only place to access all your data and applications. With the growth of SaaS and the cloud, it is critical that all locations can be accessed securely and consistently.
- While users need to be able to access these applications, access should be highly controlled according to risk to prevent unauthorized data leakage and the propagation of malware around networks.
