A few months ago, commuting to work, entering a crowded elevator, and sitting down in an open workspace next to several colleagues were trivial everyday activities.

Amir Sohrabi, area vice-president: emerging markets at Citrix

Unfortunately, with the current global pandemic , all of that has changed dramatically. For employers and employees, the workplace experience may never be the same — and businesses need to evolve to meet the needs of this post-pandemic world.

In South Africa’s work environment evolution, we can already see remote work becoming the rule rather than the exception. However, this current normal shows the limits of traditional VPNs, making it clear that a new approach towards cybersecurity is necessary.

VPNs have always been problematic, but in current normal it is even more dangerous as attackers can target a much larger attack area: when they manage to get a remote user’s credentials, or access to an unsecured home office device, a traditional VPN will give them a free pass to roam the company network. Here they can search for sensitive information and install data-exfiltration tools or backdoors for an easy return.

Obviously, there must be a better way. And in fact, there is: it’s called ‘zero-trust.’ This new security approach that adds a security mindset to IT architecture. Zero-trust follows the principle: never trust, always verify. No user or device is assumed to be trustworthy, no matter whether they access resources from inside or outside the network. For this, the first step is to know the users, ideally by applying multiple authentication methods like hardware tokens or soft-token apps.

Devices connecting to the network are inspected just as thoroughly, for example by checking ownership (company-owned, privately owned) or whether the patch level is up to date. At the same time, company data is protected by limiting access to the resources users actually need for their roles.

Today’s zero-trust solutions utillise machine learning (ML) to continuously monitor end-user and endpoint activities, comparing them to behavior patterns and company policies. This allows the security teams to quickly detect unusual activities indicating compromised accounts or insider threats. By providing alerts as soon as a suspicious activity is identified, zero-trust enables a fast and highly-targeted reaction. It significantly speeds up incident response and shortens the time attackers have to snoop around the network.

This approach – after many years of the ‘bad guys’ improving their tools and tactics while businesses and organisations were slow to react – finally allows companies to catch up on the security side, no matter where users are located, or what devices they use. This makes it the perfect fit for today’s world where, accelerated by the crisis, remote work has become the new normal.

Zero-trust-based IT environments make sure that companies don’t simply hand over the house keys to any ‘repairman’ ringing the bell. Instead, it will ask the repairman – and any other visitor – for a company badge with photo ID. It will lock any doors except the kitchen door, knowing exactly where the technician is and what he is doing. And if he behaves unexpected, it will automatically inform the homeowner.

This way, companies can always keep an eye on users and devices, improving compromise detection, and narrowing attack windows. At the same time, employees can access company resources securely – any time and from anywhere.