The Journey to Zero Trust Leadership

On September 24, Forrester published the Q3 2020 Forrester Wave™: Zero Trust eXtended Ecosystem Providers and our company was named a Leader. We think it’s the highest compliment to the many Appgate employees who worked hard to make it happen. We also firmly believe the victory is shared by our customers. It simply couldn’t happen without them. We thank them for trusting us to secure their network access - the foundation of a Zero Trust strategy. We appreciate their insights, which help us to continually enhance our solutions. And we’re grateful they served as references for us during this multi-month research process that culminates with the publication of the report.

For this year's Wave, 130 vendors were in the mix and 15 were included in the report. With only 11% of potential companies making it into the publication, we realize just how meaningful it is to be a leader among them.

Our path to being named a Leader in the Zero Trust report is not unlike our customer’s journey to achieving a Zero Trust security posture. In both cases it takes vision and commitment, perseverance.

Envision Your Future Security State

Forward-looking enterprises have the vision to see beyond the quagmire of technologies that currently comprise their security program. Security pros agree that the network perimeter is not defensible, which means traditional security solutions miss the mark. Implementing a strategy as transformational as Zero Trust requires a long-term perspective.

An Appgate customer had a clear vision of their path to Zero Trust. They began by getting rid of office-to-office VPNs and simplifying their firewall policies. They progressed steadily and are now addressing long range goals like securing access for all their retail locations. Two years into their Zero Trust journey, they estimate they’re saving more than $750,000 alone on hardware and untold hours of admin time – which is nearly priceless in a time when skilled staff and constantly in short supply. This customer’s clarity of vision has put them in sight of their desired Zero Trust goal.

Commit to the Journey

Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither is a Zero Trust posture. It is a journey that begins with establishing a modern security foundation – one that addresses the perimeter-less, hybrid IT environment we live in today. This requires a complete shift from the way things were done. If you begin with the notion that no identity or no resource should be trusted implicitly, you must secure access to the network in new ways. That’s where commitment comes in.

To flip security around from implicit trust to explicit trust, enterprises must reassess the technologies they’ve been buying and implementing for decades, like VPNs. It’s difficult to pivot away from tools you’ve already invested in, even if they’re no longer fit for purpose. It takes commitment across the organization and support at the C-levels and Board to enact a Zero Trust strategy. You can start at a point that makes sense for you – there is no one-size-fits-all. Some of our customers augment their VPNs with Appgate’s SDP solution, others replace them entirely. Whatever path you choose, stay focused and committed to the end goal.

We appreciate the comment in the Wave report that says, “reference customers spoke highly of the system's ability to move “corporate security outside the firewall” and to “make every access request part of the solution, not the problem.” We understand the commitment it takes to achieve a Zero Trust posture and our mission is to help you get there as easily as possible.

Persevere to Achieve Your Goal

Your journey to Zero Trust will not be without bumps along the way so perseverance pays off. We have customers who started with one project and have now progressed to full enterprise-wide deployments of Appgate’s SDP platform to create café-style networks that abstract the users and access from the network layer with surgical precision. Some are replacing MPLS and private WAN networks and eliminating expensive and complex branch hardware saving millions of dollars per year. Others are building secure access directly into their business process workflow using a ticketing system to approve access to sensitive apps or data. When the ticket is marked resolved, access is automatically removed, greatly reducing audit scope.

The Wave report says: “Any enterprise seeking a simple but effective way to eliminate the threats present for enterprises using hybrid infrastructure should explore Appgate’s offerings.” We believe our solution is made better because our customers have partnered with us on their Zero Trust journey. They inspire us to continually evolve and enhance our SDP platform based on their real-world use cases.