Experience Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) with Banyan Security Test Drive

by Vijay Pawar on April 14, 2021

The coronavirus pandemic arguably changed everything with a physical buying experience, like shopping for an automobile for example. In that case, manufacturers scrambled to improve the buying experience with virtual test drives so customers wouldn’t have to physically visit a dealership. Similarly, we at Banyan Security wanted to quickly demonstrate the value Banyan customers experience when working with us on their Zero Trust remote access journey. Instead of the typical, “join us for a Zoom demo” approach, we know there’s nothing like having an experience for yourself. Many folks learn best by doing, and this is a perfect way to see what ZTNA is all about.

We’re very excited to announce the Banyan Security Test Drive!

In a previous blog, we talked about how prioritizing end user experience and buy-in is instrumental to successful Zero Trust implementations. Selecting solutions that prioritize user experience leads to IT and Security becoming company heroes.

We have many customer success stories that highlight the Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) benefits of Banyan, including one from Josh Danielson, CISO, Copart. In the study, Josh mentioned how Banyan addressed several use cases that would have required a myriad of different security products. Just think of the user experience nightmare (and costs) in supporting these products.

“Connecting all of our mobile devices to on-premise servers would require one security product, connecting our desktops to Okta would require a different product, and so on. To address all of our use cases, we would need six different security products, costing us $1.3M every year just for licensing and upgrades. We knew there had to be a more cost-effective way to provide secure remote access for all of our employees.” – Josh Danielson, CISO, Copart

Sponsorships Available

Time to go take a Banyan Test Drive!

The Test Drive assimilates a number of the top use cases that Banyan customers deploy as a first desired outcome (as we call it here at Banyan) to get up and running quickly and demonstrate value.

The Test Drive takes you on the ZTNA journey with a pre-configured sandbox experience of how organizations solve critical remote access use cases.

Experience how Banyan provides visibility into users and devices accessing corporate resources, with Trust-Based Access Control (TBAC) governing said access based on user and device trust, along with an end-user visible Banyan TrustScore. The TrustScore, like your credit score, is something that the user can directly influence and help fix, by remediating their device to become more secure. This helps them understand how to secure themselves rather than just blocking access and resulting in more IT Helpdesk workload.

Customers interested in ZTNA can Test Drive Banyan to learn:

- Which are the most popular use cases that Banyan customers have deployed?
- Visualize who is accessing what resources with which devices and their device posture.
- How device trust and the Banyan TrustScore feed trust-based policy to grant access and support instant revocation of access when appropriate.
- How users can see and self-remediate their TrustScore.

Banyan Test Drive scenarios allow ZTNA aficionados to experience Banyan from both an admin and end user perspective.

- For the full Banyan experience, you should install the Banyan app. However, if you’d like to quickly review TBAC policies and explore the dashboard with the TrustScore journey graph (as shown in screenshot below), then you can use the admin credentials provided in the Test Drive scenario page to log into the Banyan Cloud Command Center.

Banyan Test Drive Laptop

- Cloak and protect your Identity provider (IDP) against attacks
  - IDPs are essential for providing centralized user authentication and SSO. However, if compromised they can grant the “keys to the kingdom” to the attackers.
  - This scenario shows how the IDPs can be protected against DDoS and phishing attacks by requiring endpoints to have a high device TrustScore.
- VPN-less access to hosted web sites
  - One of the top use cases that Banyan customers often first deploy is VPN-less access to their hosted websites. This scenario demonstrates how hosted websites can be easily exposed via the Banyan and also provide granular controls based on TBAC policies.
- 1-click access to Infrastructure services like SSH
  - Another top use case for our customers is securing access to infrastructure services, starting with SSH. This same approach also works for other services like RDP, Kubernetes, database access, etc. Banyan does not require complex SSH key management and you will experience the ease and security of using short-lived tokens and certificates to access SSH.
- Trust-based access control with instant revocation
  - All the above scenarios can instantly revoke access if the endpoint’s security is compromised. The Test Drive allows you to simulate that experience with a “Lower my TrustScore” button. Banyan derives multiple signals from the endpoint either directly or via third party software like an EDR (CrowdStrike) or a UEM (Microsoft Endpoint Manager/AirWatch).

The Test Drive provides an introduction to Banyan that makes use of the lightweight user-installed Banyan app to go through the use cases. In real enterprise deployments, Banyan often uses “Zero Touch” mode to leverage a customer’s existing Device Manager to silently deploy the Banyan app.

For BYOD use cases and the Test Drive, Banyan user registration boils down to simply installing the app (https://getbanyan.app) and signing in with your organization’s Identity Provider – in this case our partner, Okta. The app is not privacy intrusive like an MDM/UEM app – no profile downloads/installs. No requests for broad permissions. No calls to IT Support. Once installed, end users get 1-click access to resources. If for some reason their TrustScore is low, they can follow remediation steps and handle it themselves. Once you are done with the Test Drive experience, simply delete the Banyan app.

The Test Drive shows you the following benefits that our customers enjoy once they embark on a ZTNA journey with Banyan:

- 1. Get visibility across your endpoints and services. After deploying Banyan in learning mode, customers understand which users/devices and services should be secured with Trust-Based Access Control policies.
  2. Easily enforce policies across sensitive services (infrastructure, hosted, SaaS). End users are able to self-remediate any security gaps on their endpoints. Customers can provide security enablement programs for groups with lower trust scores.
  3. Increase end-user productivity with one-click access into services; simple for end users and secure for IT. If device trust score drops due to user actions (for example, downloaded malware), Banyan employs continuous authorization and immediate revocation, reducing the chances of a breach.

The post Experience Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) with Banyan Security Test Drive first appeared on Banyan Security.

*** This is a Security Bloggers Network syndicated blog from Banyan Security authored by Vijay Pawar. Read the original post at: https://www.banyansecurity.io/blog/experience-zero-trust-network-access-ztna-with-banyan-security-test-drive/