Cato Networks extends ZTNA to protect against insider threats

TEL AVIV, Israel, July 11th, 2023 — Cato Networks, provider of the world’s leading single-vendor SASE platform, addressed mounting security concerns posed by insider threats. Over the past two years, incidents related to insider threats have grown 44%, according to the Ponemon Institute,1 with the cost per incident reaching $15.8 million.  

Essential to stopping insider threats is first ensuring users and IT administrators only have access to the necessary resources. To those ends, Cato became the first to extend ZTNA to users inside the office without requiring additional policies or infrastructure.  With RBAC+, Cato brings fine-grained controls over what IT administrators can do across SASE capabilities.  In addition, Cato has also extended DNS protection to prevent insiders and attackers from exfiltrating data and exploiting all manners of potential DNS vulnerabilities. 

As enterprises undergo layoffs and adopt hybrid work models, the risk of insider threats has only grown. Disgruntled users and IT staffers, or external attackers who’ve acquired credentials and are now looking to elevate permissions, pose threats to the enterprise.  

ZTNA was meant to help with that challenge. By providing users secure access to only the necessary resources and then continuing to inspect and monitor traffic once admitted onto the network, IT organizations could identify and limit the risk posed by any user. 

However, ZTNA solutions only apply access controls to remote users, not in-office users, complicating access management. They also lack the security engines to continually inspect traffic flows, exposing the enterprise to attacks from authorized users. And they lack the AI and ML algorithms to identify suspicious actions indicative of emerging threats.

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