Zero-trust network access (ZTNA) emerged on the cybersecurity market a few years ago and shifted the standard approach to network access across industries. As technology matures, it generally grows more sophisticated. Just look at network firewalls, which evolved from simple packet inspection to predictive threat protection powered by artificial intelligence within a few decades. There's no doubt ZTNA will follow a similar trajectory.

At Fortinet, we understand the importance of ZTNA to organizations' security posture and are dedicated to providing customers with cutting-edge technologies to address new and emerging threats. To this end, we've updated our industry-leading ZTNA offering with user-based risk scoring, which allows customers to deepen their verification process beyond identity and device security to include user behavior.

The Importance of Zero Trust

For many years, enterprises used perimeter-based security strategies that verified users only when they accessed the network. Once users were inside, security teams assumed they were safe. This approach doesn't address insider threats or sophisticated bad actors who can pose as legitimate users.

The zero-trust philosophy addresses both of these issues by assuming that any entity is a threat whether inside or outside the network. With a zero-trust model, identity is checked continuously. At the very minimum, verification happens every time a user or device attempts to access the network, an application, or data. Additional checks can also happen following specific events like changes in the devices being used, unusual login locations, or several failed login attempts.

Additionally, ZTNA solutions permit minimal access depending on a user's role within the organization rather than carte blanche. For example, if a marketing intern logs into the network, he or she won't have access to the internal application that stores payroll information.

User-Based Risk Scoring Deepens Network Security

Fortinet's ZTNA solution now includes user-based risk scoring so security teams have even more granular insight into potentially malicious behaviors and events inside their network. This feature feeds data from our endpoint detection and response (FortiEDR) and security information and event management (FortiSIEM) offerings into the ZTNA product, which analyzes the information to identify unusual events.

Suspicious user-based activities vary widely. Some may require immediate action-if the same user is logged into multiple locations, for example. Other activities-like using a USB flash drive (which can store large amounts of sensitive data)-only need to be addressed if it becomes habitual.

Risky behaviors can also vary by organization. For example, if a user downloads a large amount of data, this could be a cause for concern. However, if it's typical for employees of an organization to download and move a high volume of data, flagging this behavior would hinder user experience and business objectives. With Fortinet ZTNA's user-based risk scoring, IT teams can decide which behaviors should be noted for further inspection. 

Industry-Leading Security without Sacrificing User Experience

User-based risk scoring empowers organizations with deeper control of their ZTNA solutions without sacrificing user experience. All the monitoring and risk score tallying happens in the background, and because the feature is customizable, it only breaks a session when a truly risky event occurs.

This emphasis on user experience ensures that ZTNA won't annoy employees to the point that they purposely work around it and introduce unnecessary risks to the network.

Fortinet's Unique ZTNA Approach

Fortinet's ZTNA solution enables universal enforcement and policies across entire environments, from densely populated offices to remote employees. While most vendors only support cloud-based architecture, Fortinet supports cloud-based services and hybrid networks. This is possible because Fortinet ZTNA was built on FortiOS, our single operating system.

These unique capabilities have positioned Fortinet's ZTNA product as an industry leader. According to the Gartner? Market Share report, Fortinet is ranked amongst the top five ZTNA vendors with the fastest growing revenue quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year.

Fortinet's Zero Trust Network Access solution provides industry-leading secure application access, protecting users and devices during every session. Learnhere.