To Enable Zero Trust, Rethink Your Firewall Strategy

Businesses spend millions of dollars each year to secure customer data, applications, networks, and proprietary information. Yet, these businesses are frequently breached. For example, 58% of companies faced a significant security incident in the last year, as the number of threats and sophistication of attacks grew around the world.

As a result, IT organizations are spending more to secure their networks. In 2019, network security spending was an average of 9% of the security technology spending budget, with 54% of security decision makers expecting to increase their network security spend in 2019.2 But are these investments paying off? Are internal networks receiving the right kind of protections? Are vulnerabilities being minimized?

In May 2019, VMware commissioned Forrester Consulting to understand the challenges that businesses are facing in securing their internal network’s east-west traffic. Forrester conducted an online survey with 224 IT security professionals responsible for their organizations’ network, security, and infrastructure. We found that while there are many security technologies and services implemented to protect internal east-west network traffic, most companies are making suboptimal tradeoffs between the extent of security coverage and the simplicity of operations. Organizations across the globe are waking up to the limitations of perimeter-based security approaches and moving to a Zero Trust model. This research details how organizations can improve their security posture and achieve Zero Trust with a new approach that is purpose-built for firewalling east-west traffic.