96% of Indian Enterprises are Adopting Zero Trust, Yet have not Unlocked Full Business Potential

More than 96 percent of Indian IT leaders who have begun their migration to the cloud have adopted, are implementing, or plan to implement a zero-trust security architecture, according to research by cloud security company Zscaler. More than two-thirds (62%) of respondents agree that a secure cloud transformation is impossible with legacy networks security infrastructures like conventional firewalls and VPNs, supporting the widespread migration to zero trust to protect users and the cloud.

According to Zscaler’s study, IT leaders think zero trust is the best framework for securing enterprise users, workloads, and IoT/OT environments in a highly distributed cloud and mobile-centric world, which is characterized by rapid digital transformation. Zero trust, when viewed from a comprehensive IT viewpoint, has the potential to open up new business possibilities throughout the entire digitization process, from fostering greater innovation to fostering better employee engagement to delivering real cost savings.

Leading cloud concerns 

IT executives named security, access, and complexity as their top three cloud-related concerns, making a strong argument for zero trust as a solution to these problems. 72% of Indian respondents who were questioned about legacy network and security infrastructures said they thought perimeter-based firewalls or VPNs were both ineffective at thwarting cyberattacks or gave poor insight into application traffic and attacks. This supports the finding that 62% of respondents think it is difficult to transform the cloud securely using legacy network security tools like traditional firewalls and VPNs.

A lack of confidence

While there has been significant progress towards zero trust, Zscaler discovered that only 22% of organizations worldwide are fully confident that they are utilizing the full capabilities of their cloud infrastructure. As a result, while organizations have made good first steps toward the cloud, there is still a significant opportunity to take advantage of the cloud’s advantages. Regionally, the findings vary, with India leading all other markets in terms of the percentage of organizations who are fully confident in using their cloud infrastructure (55% vs. 42% in the Americas, 14% in EMEA, and 24% in APAC). Australia (17%), Japan (17%), and Singapore (16%) are among the European and Asian nations that are less confident than India, which is dominating on a national level and is followed by the US (41%) and Mexico (36%).

Although security initially seems to be preventing the cloud from reaching its full potential, the reasons behind cloud migration point to a more fundamental barrier in how IT executives perceive the cloud. Concerns about data privacy, difficulties securing data in the cloud, and difficulties scaling network security were mentioned by IT executives as the main obstacles to utilizing the cloud to its full potential. Cost reduction, managing cyber risk, and facilitating emerging technologies like 5G and Edge computing ranked as the top three factors driving digital transformation initiatives in their organizations, suggesting there may still be a lack of understanding regarding how to fully capitalize on its broader business benefits.

Potential of Zero Trust as a business enabler

Similar to the reasons for cloud migration, Zscaler discovered that organizations’ planning for emerging technology projects lacks a focus on broader strategic outcomes. According to 37% of Indian respondents, ensuring adequate security is the most difficult element of putting emerging technology projects into practice, followed by the need for more funding for digitization (23%). But only 17% of respondents identified dependence on strategic business choices as a problem.

Budgetary concerns are understandable, but the emphasis on network security while ignoring strategic business alignment indicates that organizations are primarily concerned with security without fully appreciating its business benefits. It also suggests that zero trust is not yet recognized as a business enabler.