As advanced technologies dramatically reshape industry after industry, many enterprises are pursuing large-scale change efforts to capture the benefits of new trends or simply to keep up with competitors. Digitizing the organization’s operating model has become the leading priority. Such business transformation has led companies to extend excessive trust to employees and business partners to connect and co-work. The security risk of this approach has been ignored as the benefits are so appealing, expanding surface area for hackers to attack. Accessing applications, networks, services, systems, data centers anytime, from any device requires higher security and risk management.

Common and traditional approaches to network security are SSL VPN, and remote control. The traditional security solution dictates once the user is inside, it means he is trusted and those who are outside are untrusted. In the world of digital business where any device access to services that may not be located inside an on-premises data center anytime. This does not scale today. Managing IP addresses and location is no longer practical to establish sufficient trust for network access. Solutions for secured network access shall be cloud-based according to the changing business trend.

VPN (Virtual Private Network) used to be a well-defined demarcation between what we considered trusted and untrusted networks. A firewall typically sat at the edge of the network to block or allow traffic based on static policies. Those who are inside were given a greater level of trust to critical resources because it was assumed that they could be trusted.

More and more business environments migrate to cloud settings and users are accessing them from locations all around the world, on a variety of devices, making the perimeter more fluid than ever. Just as our threats and networks have evolved we are now looking at ways to secure access to apps across hybrid environments with more advanced defense mechanisms. Software Defined Perimeter brought the concept of zero trust network access into reality.

SDP and VPN, how are they different?

Virtual private networks (VPN) simply provides a barrier to network entry. Once an attacker trespasses the one barrier, he can take possession of the entire network, browsing through every dataset. On the other hand, SDP provides continuous authentication and visibility of network activity. SDP takes a zero trust approach, putting networks, devices, applications and services in stealth mode before authenticating access requests. VPN and IP addresses are no longer practical to establish sufficient trust for network access. It’s time to rethink your perimeter.

Visibility, access control and threat inspection functionalities

Unlike traditional network access controllers that utilize a lock and key approach, SDP precisely segments networks by application use and analyzes user access permissions at a granular level across the network. SDP administrators can also customize and automate highly specific network security policies while enforcing them continuously.

Increased visibility into user behaviors and authorities

Traditional network protection solutions are insufficient. If an attacker or unauthorized user obtains access to a traditional network, it’s uncertain and untraceable what they accessed. SDP brings the solution to the problem. SDP screens every access request to the network, compares it to the user’s authorities, then grants or denies access. VPN and IP addresses are no longer practical to establish sufficient trust for network access. It’s time to rethink your perimeter.