As you look for ways to support a primarily remote workforce, it’s critical that you modernize your security architecture. Here’s how to choose the optimal security vendors.

As many as 36 million Americans could be working remote by 2025, according to Upwork. But as more employees adopt remote work in our new normal, many organizations have not evolved their security architecture beyond the traditional “castle-and-moat” approach. This has led bad actors to get more aggressive, as malware attacks alone increased 358 percent in 2020. It is imperative for IT to modernize security away from traditional security point products and toward a consolidated, platform-based security architecture.

With demand for cybersecurity skills outpacing availability, global businesses are modernizing their infrastructure while increasingly leveraging third-party vendors and solutions. But in this time of high security risk, it’s important to be even more strategic with vendors and the solutions you choose to support the complexities of hybrid work.

In this companion blog post to Citrix’s Chief Security Strategist Kurt Roemer’s article on IT rationalization, we’ll examine why it’s important to adopt security vendors that offer a holistic security platform, availability across all geographic locations, and the experience needed to stay ahead of the latest threats.

Choose Vendors That Offer a Platform-Based End-to-End Security Strategy

As remote work grows and your business expands in the cloud, it’s important to look for security vendors who can secure your entire IT infrastructure with an extensible and agile platform. Businesses that are in the cloud or planning their cloud journey should select cloud-native security solutions whenever possible, can support scalability as a cloud service, and provide protection to all application workloads and devices as well as the communication between workloads and devices.

As you look at replacing on-premises solutions and consolidating into cloud-native solutions, you should consider vendors that can help replace most (if not all) of your existing on-premises point products with a cloud-based platform that is easy to manage, provides centralized control and visibility across all services and enables you to orchestrate from a single dashboard.

With these core principles in mind, Citrix offers Secure Access solutions that provide protection across all app workloads, whether they are on-premises, hosted in clouds or delivered as SaaS. This protects your devices, content, and underlying infrastructure from malware and zero-day attacks as well as secures the communication between end-user devices and application workloads.

All the services within the Secure Access solutions are cloud native, are available across all geographic locations, auto-scale as required, and are managed using a common platform. Here are key benefits our Secure Access solutions offer to customers:

  • Consolidate access to all internal and external apps, desktops, content, and collaboration tools.
  • Ensure a secure and high-performing work environment for the hybrid workforce.
  • Reduce risk across all apps, APIs, devices, and data from external and internal attacks.
  • Unify the corporate digital architecture with a consolidated networking and security stack to provide a zero-trust/SASE security model.

Why Your Security Vendor’s Geographic Availability Matters

When implementing a cloud-native solution, it is essential this solution is available close to where your end users are — whether they are employees, partners, contractors, or customers of service providers. Solutions with availability near the end users offer lower latency, provide governance and compliance to local regulations, and enable security to be enforced close to the user. Geographic availability also simplifies customer support when issues arise and gives you options to purchase from a local partner or a distributor.

Many newly formed vendors lack the global presence these advantages require — and developing that scale of geographic availability can take years. In contrast, Citrix is available across strategic geographic locations through its services, channel, and partners. Citrix also offers customer support that can help customers with localization specific to country, location, and time of the day. As you look into consolidation of your security solution, geographic availability should be a key part of how you evaluate vendors.

There’s No Substitute for Vendor Experience

With cyberattacks on the rise during our work-from-home boom, you need vendors with the scope and depth of experience to protect your increasingly hybrid workforce. You want vendors who have offered complete end-to-end security for years and can demonstrate how they have learned from the experience that comes with managing a huge customer base.

Citrix has been in the business of securing access to apps, devices, and applications for more than 30 years. We have deployments ranging from five users to more than 100,000 and have protected organizations distributed across multiple territories and geographies. This enables Citrix to readily help its customers lay out and implement a strategic security vision instead of only reacting to the latest issue. This is not possible with less experienced vendors who will struggle with reliability, controlling cost, and providing the best end user experience.

Choose Vendors That Are Experienced, Global, and Trusted Across Industries

The value of choosing holistic security vendors who take a platform-based approach to security cannot be understated. You may feel that selecting best of breed for every use case offers the best security, but this approach leads to struggles with integration, managing multiple security teams, and providing a consistent and positive end user experience.

As a leading vendor with a full stack of cloud security including Secure Access, Citrix can help you complete your vision while embracing SASE and zero trust. And our deep security partner integrations with tested and proven Citrix Ready solutions help extend the security platform to support your unique business needs.

For more information, check out our Citrix Secure Access solutions.