“ The initial response to COVID was : ‘ we ’ re going to move everything temporarily to the cloud and we ’ re going to get through this , and then we ’ re just going to revert back to how things normally were ,’” says Kevin Magee , Chief Security and Compliance Officer at Microsoft Canada . “ And this crisis has really made businesses come to the realisation that they have to change what they ’ re doing if they ’ re going to secure their organisations for the future .”

While traditional conceptions of hard perimeter firewalls have their place , an evolution is now required in the new world of work . “ If you were starting from scratch today , there ’ s no way that you would do a hard perimeter like that because cloud and mobility have made that hard perimeter , no longer sufficiently agile or sufficiently scalable ,” says Lisa Lorenzin , Director , Transformation Strategy at Zscaler . However , Lorenzin explains that you ’ re not starting from scratch in most cases , so having collaborative partners like Microsoft and Zscaler working together can add value to a company . “ Helping organisations transition through a transformation journey is where the guidance of Microsoft and Zscaler working together with a strong connectivity partner like Bell Canada can really make a difference ,” adds Lorenzin .

A zero trust approach sidesteps many of the challenges now being presented , as Lorenzin explains . “ It ’ s about having a world of contextbased trust where the user may be on-premise or-off premise . The application may be in the data center or in the cloud , but the principle of zero trust still applies , which is : I don ’ t implicitly trust anyone to do anything .“

“ Zscaler can offer network access that still provides the visibility and security that IT and Security needs to run and secure the business , but vastly increases the user experience . Employees that are happy to use applications are better able to serve their customers ,” says Magee . With such a transition taking place , Magee sees benefits across the IT professional landscape . “ There ’ s been a positive shift in morale because we are finally delivering on the promise of zero trust , conditional access and a safe user experience that does not compromise security .”