BlastWave, a new challenger in the software-defined perimeter (SDP) arms race designed to protect critical infrastructure assets and applications, announced a partnership with Knight Ink, a full-service digital brand, content and experience agency for challenger brands in cybersecurity. Through the partnership, Knight Ink and BlastWave have jointly released a whitepaper to present a new approach to secure remote access that eliminates virtual private networks (VPNs) from the now defunct edge and dissolving intranet, to a new software-defined perimeter (SDP) that can prevent Account Take Over (ATO). 

According to the recently released whitepaper, "The Valley of Kings: SDP Rising and The Fall of VPNs," when the COVID-19 pandemic forced a shift to work-from-home environments, many organizations relied on VPNs and other remote access solutions as they were the only options they had. Many continue to deploy VPNs even though a recent survey shows, "93 percent of organizations surveyed have deployed some sort of VPN, yet 94 percent know that VPNs are a popular target for cybercriminals." The same report states 67 percent are looking at alternatives to the traditional VPN for remote access requirements. 

"We are seeing an exodus away from legacy VPN technology towards SDP solutions. But change is not happening fast enough. How many times must we repeat the same mistakes? Legacy VPNs are dead, much like the pharaohs who once ruled over Egypt who now lie in rest in the Valley of Kings graveyard for which the namesake of our new white paper was based. We must pave the way for the zero-trust enterprise now relying on SDP solutions to protect remote and hybrid workforces," said Alissa Knight, Cybersecurity Influencer and Partner, Knight Ink. "Our partnership with BlastWave made sense because they understand the advanced threats organizations face today. BlastWave has developed an innovative SDP solution with a unified stack combining passwordless multi-factor authentication, secure remote access, and microsegmentation that cloaks critical infrastructure." 

Other key findings include: 

• When VPNs were introduced in 1996, they promised a new, more un-hackable future. 22 years later, 557 vulnerabilities are returned with the keyword VPN in the CVE database at MITRE. 
• Software-defined microsegmentation allows organizations to create communities of assets and people that define who and what can talk to each other in a network. True to its foundation in zero-trust security, SDP obviates the idea that we should trust users, the assets they're using, and the data they're trying to access. 
• According to Gartner "By 2023, 60 percent of enterprises will phase out most of their remote access VPNs in favor of ZTNA (SDPs). 
  

"So many cyber companies are obsessed with identifying and spotting malware signatures and patterns that look anomalous. But this is a computer science focus, not a human focus. Hackers are humans who use creativity, code and tools to take over accounts, implant malware, and profit with a low risk of getting prosecuted. BlastShield shuts down the top two ways hackers go after targets, credentials and exposed web services. We also greatly reduce human error by eliminating numerous configuration steps that can create inadvertent vulnerabilities. Fundamentally, BlastWave prevents many attacks and reduces the severity of the rest through microsegmentation," said Tom Sego, CEO and founder, BlastWave. "Our obsession about hacking from a human perspective is what drew us to Alissa Knight in the first place, with her credentials, experience, and chutzpah badassness, she tells the story through an adversarial lens. That is the partnership origin story of why we collaborate. Together we want to challenge the way the industry thinks about secure remote access, starting with VPNs - they are not effective and must be replaced."

As part of the collaboration, Knight Ink in partnership with its sister company M&A Knight Studios, will create written and visual experiences for BlastWave in the form of whitepapers, videos, and episodic short films to demonstrate the business imperative of organizations moving to zero-trust network access (ZTNA) powered by BlastWave's SDP solution. 

BlastShield integrates three innovative products into a single, patented SDP solution that combines infrastructure, cloaking and passwordless multi-factor authentication (MFA) for identity-based secure remote network access for organizations that have adopted a zero-trust security model. BlastShield enables organizations to hide on-premises and cloud workloads from outsider and insider threats, concealing an organization's infrastructure from cyberattacks through software-defined microsegmentation, without modifications to existing network fabric and hardware. BlastWave solves the problem that traditional VPNs and other complex end-point technologies have been unable to address by applying a zero-trust software-defined perimeter throughout the network architecture, not just at the endpoint, rendering the entire network invisible.