PLDT Enterprise, the B2B arm of the largest integrated telecommunications company in the Philippines PLDT, promotes the advantages of implementing a zero trust architecture in strengthening businesses’ cybersecurity measures amid the increasing demand for cloud and IoT-based (Internet of Things) systems in industries such as healthcare and gaming.
Zero trust security upholds principles of ‘never trust, always verify,’ assumption of breach, and explicit verification as it focuses on the premise that trust is never granted implicitly.
Jojo Gendrano, FVP and Head of PLDT Enterprise Core Business Solutions, said that “despite the innovations brought by cloud technology, security risks are present which could compromise data and potentially cause revenue losses for businesses.”
“Adapting a zero-trust cloud security platform could help institutions strengthen its network security wherein users and devices are always treated untrusted and continual authentication is applied,” Gendrano added.
According to cybersecurity firm Check Point Software, ransomware attacks on organizations worldwide increased 57 percent since January this year and had cost over $20 billion. The report cited the healthcare industry as the sector with the greatest number of attacks globally, with an average of 109 ransomware attack attempts per organization every week.
The gaming industry, meanwhile, has also been exposed to threats including distributed denial of service (DDoS), malware, and credential stuffing among others.
Last year, PLDT Enterprise partnered with NetFoundry for its PLDT Zero Trust Acceleration Platform (PLDT ZAP) which enables businesses to securely connect to business applications and cloud environments over an Internet connection.
Through PLDT ZAP, information from various devices is transmitted as encrypted packets, optimizing user experience while ensuring that data is secure. As the service integrates NetFoundry’s cloud-native zero trust platform, ZAP customers are able to deploy new private network in minutes thereby providing their companies with a competitive advantage in the markets they serve.
“Aside from that, PLDT ZAP is agile, performant, and flexible as it can easily address various solutions such as cloud migration and IoT integration,” Gendrano said.
Gendrano noted that cloud and IoT helped redefine industries such as healthcare by allowing medical institutions to efficiently gather and transmit information for more effective delivery of services.
Likewise, it was also the technology behind cloud gaming and streaming where players can access games through remote servers without the need for specific devices.