Zero Trust Security adoption rises 27% in two years

TeleGeography has revealed that 35% of WAN managers implemented one or more elements of zero trust security (ZTS) and Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) on at least some of their company’s networks in 2021. 

This is up from 8% in 2019, according to TeleGeography's latest WAN Manager Survey.

TeleGeography’s latest survey, featuring analysis from 185 companies, reveals that close to 100% of respondents who had adopted ZTS had multi-factor authentication in place. 

Single sign-on, remote user and device access policies, and privileged access management, were also popular ZTS policies. User behavior analytics were less widely adopted. 

“An increase in remote work is a big factor. It’s definitely driving up demand for zero trust solutions. With many companies making remote work a permanent structure, we expect zero trust adoption to continue to grow,” said Greg Bryan, Senior Manager at TeleGeography. “Cloud adoption and local internet breakouts have also been long-standing drivers of zero trust, in addition to SD-WAN.”

The survey also reveals the top security vendors that WAN managers use to secure their networks. One in three respondents are staying agile by using a mix of security vendors for their network security sourcing strategy. Palo Alto, Cisco, and Fortinet led the charge as the most used security vendors for hardware-based internet security.

“It’s worth noting that, as adoption grows, we’re seeing the knowledge gap narrow. Just 8% of respondents were unfamiliar with zero trust in 2021, compared to one in five in 2019. We also see fewer respondents who either had not started or were just beginning their implementation journey when asked about their deployment pipeline,” Bryan added. “Without a doubt, zero trust has not just progressed in awareness, but in adoption.”