Zero Trust Impact Assessment helps inform security strategies

Digital transformation has dramatically expanded the attack surface as IT environments have shifted from on-premises to a hybrid, hyper-connected environment. This makes it easier than ever for attackers to not only gain access, but also quickly move across environments. Zero Trust Segmentation, a fundamental part of any Zero Trust strategy, is a modern approach to breach containment, which isolates hybrid workloads and devices from unnecessary and unwanted communication to stop breaches from spreading and minimize their impact.

Earlier this month, Illumio commissioned a research report with ESG, titled the Zero Trust Impact Report, that revealed the quantifiable business impact Zero Trust Segmentation has on organizations – the Zero Trust Impact Assessment program is based on this report’s findings. The report discovered that segmentation pioneers, or those classified as advanced users:

•       Are 2.7X more likely to have highly effective attack response processes.

•       Are 2.1X more likely to have avoided a critical outage during an attack over the last 24 months.

•       Save $20.1M in annual cost of downtime.

•       Are able to free up 39 person-hours per week.

•       Avert 5 cyber disasters annually.

•       Are accelerating digital transformation for competitive advantage with 14 more digital and cloud transformation projects planned over the next 12 months.

“Despite record-breaking security spending, we continue to see incredibly impactful breaches across industries. As the economy shifts, it’s important for organizations to understand and assess their attack surface and associated risk in order to drive optimized security spending,” said PJ Kirner, CTO and co-founder at Illumio. “Zero Trust Segmentation is an essential pillar of any security or modern resilience strategy. This assessment will help security teams quantify the value segmentation could bring to their organization, serving as a catalyst for containing inevitable breaches and limiting their impact.”

“Given today’s widening attack surface, breaches are bound to happen. That’s why it’s important for organizations to assume breach and adopt Zero Trust strategies like Zero Trust Segmentation,” said John Grady, Senior Analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG). “The research is clear that it yields significant business value, bolsters organizational resilience, and accelerates digital transformation.”