The current worldwide pandemic has had more people than ever having to adjust to working from home, and many businesses are beginning to realize that this change may not just be temporary.

A recent report by Gartner, “Best Network Practices to Support Work-From-Home Initiatives” (September 2020) included a chart (see image below) displaying the projected percentage of employees working remotely, pre-and post-pandemic.

It is not simply individual workers who are having difficulty with the sudden adjustments and doing their best to maintain efficiency in a new environment, a large part of the burden rests on the businesses themselves. Companies are struggling to adjust to the reality of a work-from-home workforce which is larger than ever before and growing at unprecedented rates.

Not only are businesses struggling with the sheer quantity of demand, but the suddenness of the situation has left them unprepared and dealing with a volatile environment, depriving them of the luxury of advance planning.

The Effect of Network Security

In particular, network security and network monitoring can create unforeseen difficulties for people operating under work from home conditions. Most enterprise networks are not equipped to handle the sudden large up-tick of work from home users, which can cause network errors and crashes leading to security, functional, and financial problems.

Working in a less-than-ideal environment without the right equipment can lead to errors or network issues. Traditional network security and network monitoring solutions don’t quite succeed in providing the necessary enterprise requirements for users who are working from home.

Companies need to focus on keeping their networks as secure as possible while ensuring users don’t struggle to access them.

ZTNA and How It Can Help

The Gartner report also included a section of recommendations, which included “Bolster network security by evolving toward zero-trust network access (ZTNA) principles.”

ZTNA is a service or product that allows users to have protected access to an organization’s application based on identity or circumstances to ensure that no malicious force can access the app. ZTNA can cover an entire application and even a set of applications.

Part of the functionality of ZTNA includes providing a VPN as a service, in addition to other services such as application discovery. ZTNA evolves the dexterity, elasticity, and adaptability of accessing the application remotely and is available for relatively affordable prices.

ZoneZero

Some ZTNAs are compatible with your pre-existing VPN such as Safe-T’s ZoneZero solution. Not only is it compatible with most leading VPNs, it is also compatible with the components of your current network, including security. ZoneZero provides users with authentication based on a variety of factors, increasing the security and decreasing the chances of a threat breaching your network. The solution also offers the option of changing from network access to application access in order to make sure users are not on the network.

In Conclusion

To make it easier for users working from home and reduce unnecessary traffic while increasing security, ZTNA can be a powerful tool. It can successfully increase the security of your network and lower the risk of any crises or external tampering, while still allowing qualified users easy access when needed.  Overall, providing users with a hassle-free experience without compromising on security is the desired goal of using a ZTNA.