Zero Trust must be more than marketing speak

Karyl Parks   ·   Tuesday, April 5th, 2022

I’ve heard technical leaders and subject matter experts apologize for using Zero Trust as a term when speaking to customers and partners.

Somewhere along the way, tech marketers have diluted the core tenet of Zero Trust by over using the term as a means to increase visibility and (hopefully) engagement for their sales teams.

The result – customers realize what is being promoted does not really aid in implementing, adopting or governing a Zero Trust model.

Nobody wins.

As a tech marketer, I understand why Zero Trust is viewed as a “marketing tactic” and not as the secure transformative architecture it actually is.

The reason it is popular with tech marketers is because Zero Trust works.

When an organization adopts Zero Trust, the company is taking significant steps to the long-term security of its data, processes and systems.

In a world where hacks, breaches and ransomware attacks are an everyday occurrence and the bad actors are seemingly always ahead of the ability of technology, the euphoria of a model that protects an organization’s most valuable and sensitive data logically and clearly should get attention.

The challenge is, because every tech vendor wants to get some of the traffic associated with Zero Trust, there is a lot of noise, misinformation and lack of clarity around what vendors actually support that model and the areas in which Zero Trust is applicable (fun fact – it’s pretty much everywhere).

If you have had the chance to meet the Zero Trust founder, John Kindervag and champion, Dr. Chase Cunningham, you would quickly realize this is anything but another attempt to get you to a vendor’s website to showcase their products and solutions – these two gentlemen have made it a lifelong commitment to evangelize the necessity of adopting and enforcing Zero Trust.

In fact, they are currently working with leading security analyst Richard Stiennon in designing a Zero Trust Market Map to showcase for practitioners who the vendors in this space are and what they actually do.

This is a fantastic tool for customers and prospects and we encourage everyone to review it and engage with Dr. Chase Cunningham, Richard Stiennon and John Kindervag directly through the Demo Forum they will host between May 16 and September 15, 2022.

For Axiomatics customers, the Zero Trust Market Map they are developing addresses many questions we receive from customers regarding the ecosystem, the other systems and platforms which we can collect attributes from to inform authorization policy decisions, and more.

For everyone, we believe this Market Map will simplify and clarify the vendors that the founders of this model recognize as participating in accelerating Zero Trust.

While we are proud to be included in the map, the real power of this tool is the insight and clarity it provides the broader market.

If you want to learn more about how Axiomatics fits into the ZT Market Map, we welcome you to review some of our content that highlights how Orchestrated Authorization enables the core tenant of Zero Trust: Never trust, always verify.