Zero Trust for a workforce that went remote overnight
Replaced VPN with a Zero Trust exchange as remote work jumped from 10% to 95%, without adding security headcount.
Context
In 2020 Encora’s workforce went from about 10% remote to 95% in under a year. Users, SaaS and workloads were spread across AWS, Azure, GCP and dozens of offices, and a VPN-centric model couldn’t give consistent security or visibility for a distributed engineering company.
Approach
- Use cases before products. We mapped how people actually worked (internet, SaaS, private apps) and designed controls around those journeys rather than buying a platform and retrofitting.
- One policy plane. Internet access, private app access, CASB, DLP and sandboxing moved onto a single Zero Trust exchange, so a user got the same controls in the office, at home or on the road.
- Enable, don’t block. Rollout was measured on user experience as much as on blocked threats. If the secure path is slower, people route around it.
Outcome
2.2 billion transactions processed and 34.5 million policy violations prevented in the first three months, around 700,000 threats blocked monthly, a sharp drop in phishing, and 96% of India office traffic encrypted, all without growing the security team.
What I’d do again
Treat Zero Trust as a marathon and a partnership, not a purchase. The use-case-first approach is what made it stick.