With the number of remote workers increasing due to the global pandemic, Google Cloud has released a new security tool designed to allow users to remotely access their corporate networks without using a VPN. The company's new cloud-based security solution is called BeyondCorp Remote Access and it's actually based on the zero-trust approach that the search giant has been using internally for nearly a decade. With BeyondCorp Remote Access, an organization's employees and extended workforces can access their internal web applications from virtually any device at any time without traditional remote VPN. Over time, Google plans to offer the same additional capabilities, controls, and protections for almost any application or resource a user needs to access. The reason why the company decided to launch its new tool is due to the fact that traditional VPN infrastructure can often be difficult for IT teams to deploy and manage large numbers of new users in a short time, as this has been the case. case during our current situation. VPNs can also be complex from a user perspective and this is especially true for those who have not used them before. Things get even more complicated when organizations try to deploy VPN access to their large workforce of contractors, temporary workers, and partners.
BeyondCorp remote access
While Google is now rolling out its new user tool, the company began working on implementing a zero-trust access approach in 2011. The search giant created BeyondCorp to enable its employees and workforce to work successfully. . unreliable networks on a variety of devices without the need for a client-side VPN. However, BeyondCorp offers much more than a simpler, more modern VPN replacement. The new tool ensures that only certain users have access to the information they need in the right context. In a blog post announcing BeyondCorp's remote access, Google Cloud's Sunil Potti and Sampath Srinivas provided the following examples of some policies that may apply, saying: "HR recruiters who work from home on their own laptop can access our web document management system (and nothing else), but only if they're using the latest version of the operating system and using phishing-resistant authentication as their security keys." Or: "My card application Time must be securely accessible to all hourly employees on any device, anywhere." For a large enterprise, a traditional VPN solution can often take weeks or even months to implement, while Google Cloud BeyondCorp remote access can be set up in just a few days. The new tool has already been "battle tested" in production by thousands of Google Cloud customers and interested companies can sign up here to access it.- Stay safe online while working from home with our picks for the best VPN services