Leading connectivity cloud company Cloudflare has announced the acquisition of BastionZero, a Zero Trust infrastructure access platform. This deal further strengthen remote access to core IT systems for customers of Cloudflare One, which is the company’s secure access service edge (SASE) platform.
When combined with existing Cloudflare One capabilities, the acquisition of BastionZero gives IT and security teams Zero Trust controls for infrastructure like servers, Kubernetes clusters, and databases. And this expands the scope of Cloudflare’s VPN replacement solution beyond apps and networks to infrastructure resources. So security teams can centralize management of even more of their hybrid IT environment, while using standard Zero Trust practices to keep DevOps teams productive and secure.
With traditional virtual private network (VPN) security set-ups, developers and systems architects are granted overly permissive and access to a company’s most sensitive systems, such as servers and databases. This is an increasingly costly, risky, and outdated approach, hindering the ability to securely deploy new systems.
Adding BastionZero’s technology to Cloudflare One will give hybrid and remote IT teams access to their most critical assets remotely, resulting in:
1.) Increased security – Eliminating the need and risk of long-lived passwords and credentials by making it easier to abide by Zero Trust principles for system access.
2.) Increased compliance – Ensuring just-in-time permissions for every person trying to access core systems and servers like developers and systems administrators, even if they’re working remotely, while following centralized policy controls with identity-aware logging.
3.) Increased control – Enabling individuals to have access to information and systems only when they need it with just-in-time policy options.
4.) Reduced complexity – Removing the need for legacy workaround security patches between systems and more quickly granting access across complex infrastructure with policy controls and observability.
Launched in 2020, Cloudflare One is one of the fastest-growing platforms for secure access service edge (SASE) and security service edge (SSE) services.
KEY QUOTES:
“The world of work has changed dramatically. Employees have the expectation that they can effectively do their work from anywhere. There’s no reason why teams managing an organization’s most important systems can’t have the same flexibility. Incorporating BastionZero into Cloudflare One gives IT teams access to an organization’s most critical inner workings securely, wherever they are. Millions of organizations around the world trust Cloudflare to protect their systems and data so they can focus on their business and their customers. The addition of BastionZero is just one more way we can protect them like no one else can.”
- Matthew Prince, co-founder and CEO, Cloudflare
“Scalable and secure remote access to company servers and other infrastructure is table stakes for every IT and development team. But home-grown solutions increasingly create security risks and operational costs. This acquisition enables us to deeply integrate BastionZero’s unique cryptographic approach for simple passwordless infrastructure access into the world’s largest secure access service edge (SASE) network. We’re proud to join Cloudflare to help companies provide Zero Trust access to their most critical infrastructure assets.” Oppenheimer & Co. Inc. acted as exclusive financial advisor to BastionZero on this transaction.
- Sharon Goldberg, Co-founder and CEO at BastionZero
