Rob Lunney
Country Manager of Canada, Palo Alto Networks
Conventional security models operate on the assumption that everything inside an organization’s network can be trusted and that security threats come from outside, but that’s no longer true. Attackers have become sophisticated enough to infiltrate networks. Today, 80% of data breaches are caused by the misuse of privileged credentials by insiders.
Organizations have responded. To reduce security risk across their networks, endpoints, and clouds, they’ve adopted security practices that remove the assumption of trust altogether. This Zero Trust strategy ensures that every connection within an organization is challenged and authenticated.
Zero Trust strategy starts with a culture shift
As the first step in building a Zero Trust strategy, businesses must change workplace culture so that every employee recognizes the need to fix bad habits that create risk.
“All employees must feel that they have a vested interest in improving security,” says Rob Lunney, Country Manager of Canada at Palo Alto Networks, a cybersecurity company based in California.
Lunney believes this can only happen if relationships are strong within the company.
“You can’t lead and change culture by instilling fear. You can’t create a cybersecurity culture from behind a desk. You need to be out there building relationships.,” he says.
Beyond that, the company should build a network architecture that controls access to critical assets — with access that should be granted only on a “need-to-know” basis — and also inspects traffic for malicious content and unauthorized activity at every layer of operations.
This Zero Trust strategy, based on the principle of “never trust, always verify,” secures data and assets without disrupting operations. In fact, it simplifies operations, compliance, and auditing by automating policy management and enforcing policies across networks, endpoints, and clouds.
This Zero Trust strategy ensures that every connection within an organization is challenged and authenticated.
Companies must rethink their approach to security
Palo Alto Networks serves more than 65,000 companies, including 85 on the Fortune 100 list, in more than 150 countries. As a leader in the cybersecurity industry, the company is perfectly positioned to implement Zero Trust security strategies for its various customers.
This approach is especially important now that more employees are using their own computers and phones for work purposes, and more companies are moving their software and services from servers to the cloud.
Palo Alto Networks is providing these companies with security that is both robust and simple, so they can meet their business requirements. Lunney has a simple message for leaders of those organizations and others. “Given the growing cyber threat today,” he says, “you need to rethink your approach to security to protect the data that’s most critical to your business.”
