March 2021 Summaries

Information security or cybersecurity compliance is increasingly important for businesses in the information age. With numerous global and regional compliance certifications, frameworks, standards, and regulations to sort through, companies need to prioritize which standards to tackle first. Compliance has a reputation for being dry work that rarely inspires enthusiasm, but it offers several benefits, including reduced risk, improved customer trust, and increased revenue. To get started with compliance, businesses should start by complying with mandatory standards, such as GDPR, and then rank other standards based on sales needs and business resources. By prioritizing compliance and implementing a structured approach to infosec requirements, companies can reduce risk, improve their reputation, and increase their chances of winning customers.

Microsoft's Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) is a widely used tool for remote access to host computers, but its widespread use has made it a popular target for cyberattacks. RDP's security weaknesses include exposed default ports, password complexity enforcement issues, limited MFA support, known security vulnerabilities, and performance concerns with VPNs. However, Twingate is a modern Zero Trust Network Access solution that addresses these risks without hardware installation, easy integration with existing infrastructure, and no performance impact to users. With Twingate, organizations can secure their RDP services from would-be attackers and implement MFA without additional hardware deployment in under 10 minutes.

In the wake of the COVID pandemic, CIOs and CISOs around the world now find remote workforce security becoming a top priority. Expanding their businesses' existing VPN or RDP infrastructure - necessary in the immediate crisis - has made their security systems potential vectors for cybercriminals and other bad actors. Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) is an alternative approach for securing remote network access first introduced in 2009, but misperceptions and marketing hype have made it seem like a buzzword rather than a realistic solution. ZTNA creates secure perimeters around each individual resource, denying access by default and only allowing authenticated and authorized users to access resources they need from devices that meet access control requirements. Despite its benefits in making resources more secure and simplifying network infrastructure, ZTNA is not widely adopted due to perceived complexity and expense of replacing existing security frameworks, as well as the lack of a specific implementation or industry standard. Traditional VPNs and other existing approaches to remote access security are often seen as less risky and require less effort, but they have become increasingly outdated and subject to cybersecurity weaknesses that create more risks for companies everywhere. Twingate is an alternative solution that provides the benefits of ZTNA while making deployment and management simple, deployable in 15 minutes, and requiring no changes to network infrastructure or resources.

Twingate provides a more secure and efficient way to manage access for third parties, such as contractors and consultants, by controlling access at a granular resource level. This approach is quicker, easier to keep track of, and more secure than traditional VPNs. Twingate allows administrators to provision user accounts with just an email invitation, and provides a central place to review access controls across the enterprise. The platform also enables multi-factor authentication for all resources, even those that don't natively support it. With Twingate, companies can rapidly implement a modern Zero Trust network that is more secure and maintainable than VPNs.