Citrix Expands Security Offerings To Protect Hybrid Work

‘In a hybrid work model there are a couple of items that are really magnified in regards to security. A hybrid work model creates massive decentralization. When that happens, all of the endpoints move farther away with less control and less centralized management,’ says Mike Fouts, vice president for Americas partner sales at Citrix.

To better secure all devices in a hybrid work model, Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based-Citrix recently launched its Secure Private Access, a cloud-delivered zero-trust network access offering that protects access to apps and data from managed and unmanaged devices.

“With adaptive authentication and adaptive access policies, IT admins can define authentication and access policies based on users’ location, posture of the end-user device and risk score of the user,” Pankaj Gupta, senior director of product and solutions at Citrix, told CRN. “If the system detects any changes before or during the user session, security controls like watermarking, session recording and logging off the user are automatically triggered and enforced, protecting access at all times.”

The offering is designed to enable the modern, zero-trust approach to securing applications that remote work demands as it grants least-privilege access based on user behavior, continuously monitors user activities, creates security controls based on those behaviors and provides an all-in-one management and distributed enforcement across the entire environment.

“As a cloud-based solution, Secure Private Access is easy to deploy and manage, is scalable on demand and is always updated with the latest protections, with security controls enforced in real time, at the edge. And as a contextual solution, it gives users access only to the resources they need,” Gupta told CRN.

The offering is available in public preview. General availability is planned for the first quarter of 2022.

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“In a hybrid work model there are a couple of items that are really magnified in regards to security,” Mike Fouts, vice president for Americas partner sales at Citrix, told CRN. “The hybrid work model creates massive decentralization. When that happens, all of the endpoints move farther away with less control and less centralized management.”

As a result, the risks associated with an at-home Wi-Fi network and the security of that network become magnified.

“As hybrid work has become the norm, we have seen customers move to a model where they assume the endpoints will be compromised in some manner, and the discussion turns to how we can help them protect assets in this new normal,” Fouts said.

Paul Kunze, vice president of sales and marketing at IntraSystems, a Braintree, Mass.-based solution provider, said Secure Private Access is a “complete” security offering.

“Citrix Secure Private Access gives our customers a complete security solution for today’s workforce. Customers can easily access their applications from the same interface whether they are working from home or in the office. There are no clumsy VPNs to deploy and manage and there’s a seamless single sign-on from any device. Additionally, it plugs into Citrix Cloud and can be managed from a single pane of glass, which makes IT happy.”