I recently attended two stops on Zscaler’s Zenith Live APJ Tour: Melbourne, Australia and Tokyo, Japan. I travel to several US events, including Zenith Live Vegas, but I find it useful to understand technology trends in other parts of the world. The Asia Pacific and Japan region is particularly interesting because of its cultural and geographic diversity and the impact of that on technology deployments. Cloud and remote adoption in this region have outpaced some other geographic areas, for example.
There were some interesting takeaways from the trip. Here are three of my key impressions.
The café-like branch model is a viable option
I recently wrote about the idea that an organization could augment or wholly replace its WAN with a café-like model. When one works remotely, like from a café, they leverage a zero-trust security model where the user can connect only to the resources they need. Juxtapose this with a traditional VPN for remote access where a connected user has unfettered access to everything. With the former, a breached user would have minimal impact; with the latter, it could be disastrous.
So, if this model works, why not extend it to all users all the time?
If a retailer has three connected devices in a store, make them all look like connected workers and ditch the traditional SD-WAN model that requires one to bring in network service, connect it to a router and then provide connectivity to all the workers. This would greatly simplify the internal networks for branches to require only a Layer 2 switch and Wi-Fi versus having routers, firewalls and other equipment. At Zenith Live, Zscaler had many customers, including Catholic Education Network (CEnet), MinterEllison and REA Group, that have adopted this model. This is far from a traditional WAN, but for most companies it’s simpler, lower cost and provides better security.
Zscaler cellular is well aligned with the rise in physical AI
Anyone who has seen an Nvidia keynote this year has seen CEO Jensen Huang discuss how physical AI is the next wave of AI where connected “things” will have AI applied to them. Sensors become smarter; devices start to move operational technology works with IT seamlessly.
In Japan, I met with Nathan Howe, senior vice president of innovation and product management for Zscaler, and talked to him about the Zscaler Cellular service. Without getting into the technical nuances, the service works by integrating zero trust into the mobile network. This makes it ideally suited to secure OT devices as these endpoints typically aren’t running Windows or another OS where a security client can be loaded.
Japan should be a leading region for Zscaler as the country is a leader in IoT deployments. Japan is arguably the global leader in the use of IoT within industrial environments. For example, the adoption rate of AI-based machinery in Japan is 63%, which is significantly higher than the 40% global average. Also, Japan’s government backed “Society 5.0,” is based on the use of AI and IoT.
Zscaler’s ability to protect connected “things” using its cellular offering is unique and will enable it to catch the rising AI-IoT tide in Japan, which will eventually make its way across the globe.
AI everywhere drives the need for zero trust everywhere
Like all events, AI was the primary focus of many of the conversations at the events. While there are many challenges in deploying AI, the top concern remains security, and this is where a shift to zero trust everywhere can help.
The rise in zero trust was led by VPN replacement because, as I write above, it simplifies a historically complex environment. Securing AI is not just complicated with traditional security models but also impractical from a cost perspective. AI requires data and lots of it, and this has caused companies to rethink their data management strategies. Instead of trying to pull all the company data into a central location, the preferred model is to leave it where it is – on users’ computers, at the edge, in a private cloud and public clouds – and then have the AI models access it when needed. If one were to try and secure this with firewalls, they would need to be deployed everywhere, and, in some locations, such as at an edge, it’s too expensive. Even with an unlimited budget, the operational overhead of keeping the policies up to date would be far too burdensome to make it practical.
Zero trust everywhere applies the concept of least privilege access and minimizes the “blast radius” of a breach using software. AI has changed computing architectures, which is evolving network deployment models. These infrastructure shifts mandate that companies modernize their approach to security.
Why organizations need to rethink security
The overall theme of the event can be summed up from a quote from a Zscaler customer who told me, “Traditional security does not work, has never worked and isn’t ever going to work,” which is why he embraced the concept of zero trust everywhere.
Despite companies spending, in aggregate, billions of dollars annually on cyber protection, data theft still happens. The idea isn’t to try and stop all breaches, as that leads to the concept of the castle and moat where if the perimeter is compromised, the bad guys now have access to the entire kingdom.
Zero trust does offer protection against breaches but assumes it may happen. And, when it does, it limits the damage since access is only given to the systems and data the use requires. With AI on the horizon, coupled with more cloud, remote work and an explosion in connected things, it’s imperative companies think about the security problem differently. The border-centric approach no longer works when the border has been diffused everywhere. Zero trust provides a simpler model.
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