Chase Cunningham
VP, Principal Analyst

Author Insights
Blog
Our Newest Round Of ZTX Evaluations Is Out
Today, we published our newest round of evaluations for the Zero Trust eXtended (ZTX) ecosystem, “The Forrester Wave™: Zero Trust eXtended Ecosystem Platform Providers, Q3 2020.” When we embarked on this journey, Research Associate Alexis Bouffard and I started with roughly 130 potential vendors. We narrowed that down to 38 vendors for the “Now Tech: […]
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Blog
A Look Back At Zero Trust: Never Trust, Always Verify
What exactly is Zero Trust? For those of you who’ve been hiding away in a cave for the past decade, Zero Trust (ZT) is a concept founded by Forrester alum John Kindervag in 2009 that centers on the belief that trust is a vulnerability, and security must be designed with the strategy, “Never trust, always […]
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Resolving Or Revolving?
It’s that time of year: when folks make up their minds that things are going to change. The gym is full of new members who are eager to get into their journey toward some other semblance of better health, or a beach body, or some change that they desire. Others are in that annual state […]
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Do’s And Don’ts For Analyst Interactions
Having just been through an onslaught of work related to the Forrester Wave™ evaluation on Zero Trust eXtended ecosystem platform providers, I think that it’s worthwhile to put some guidance out there that might help folks as they interact with analysts (well, me, mainly, but maybe it will help with others, as well). And a […]
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Blog
How To Guarantee A New Generation Of Failure
It’s back-to-school time, hurray! After the crazy nonstop shenanigans of the summer and having kids at home all day, it’s a bit like being paroled and finally seeing the sun again to have some quiet and be able to actually think. With school kicking off, I was surprised, nay, enthused, to see a course for […]
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Translating Security For Small Business
This week is Black Hat — the annual Hacker Summer Camp, as many folks call it. And this year is the first year in 14 years I haven’t been there. This year, I intentionally took an opportunity to punt on Hacker Summer Camp. Why? I had an invite to speak to a group of small-business […]
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Security So Simple A 10-Year-Old Can Do It
It’s the summertime, and my daughters are home from school. During the day, this means it’s a constant struggle between them arguing about who is doing what or listening to them laugh at YouTube videos at the top of their lungs while I try to answer work calls as the dogs bark and fight inches […]
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Blog
Riding The Wave Of Zero Trust Means That You Must Paddle Out
Since RSA this year, the drumbeat of Zero Trust across the market has continued to grow louder. Almost daily, the inquiries and conversations around Zero Trust and ZTX are coming in at an ever-increasing rate. That’s a good thing. In truth, most of the inquiries are from end user clients now, vice the vendor side […]
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Blog
The Tao Of Zero Trust
Our framework solves the architectural and operational issues with Zero Trust — namely, how to get started and how to sustain a Zero Trust approach.
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Blog
OK, Zero Trust Is An RSA Buzzword — So What?
Last week was the annual RSA Conference. Estimates are that more than 45,000 security personnel, business professionals, and leaders attended the event, up from 35,000 last year. Regardless of the numbers, it was an epic display of how prevalent cybersecurity has become. As expected, a few buzzwords rang throughout the Moscone Center halls. Artificial intelligence, […]
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Blog
Eating Our Own Zero Trust Dog Food
It is high time for Forrester to demonstrate Zero Trust in a practical application scenario, our upcoming virtual reference architecture project aims to do just that.
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The Forrester Wave™: Zero Trust eXtended (ZTX) Ecosystem Providers, Q4 2018 — Truth
We just wrapped up five months of in-depth research focused on providing some clarity into what technologies from which vendors actually enable Zero Trust (not just talk about it). It didn’t take long to discern those among the vendor community that really embraced the strategic benefits of Zero Trust — and those that seemed to just […]
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Blog
Computational Propaganda: How Your Organization Could Be Attacked Like A Politician
Sending malicious payloads and packets is no longer the standard in threat operations. In today’s world of massive social media presence and influence, malicious actors can bring an organization to its knees — 280 characters at a time. This isn’t an attack on your infrastructure but an attack of computational propaganda aimed to shape a divisive […]
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Blog
Zero Trust Technology Works; Excuses Don’t
I have done a few exercises on implementing Zero Trust and Zero Trust eXtended (ZTX) in enterprises. The impetus behind these exercises from a strategy standpoint is that the participating organizations have leaders that are Forrester clients and had read, or at least breezed through, the research that has been published on the topic of […]
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Blog
Zero Trust Technology Works; Excuses Don’t
I have done a few exercises on implementing Zero Trust and Zero Trust eXtended (ZTX) in enterprises. The impetus behind these exercises from a strategy standpoint is that the participating organizations have leaders that are Forrester clients and had read, or at least breezed through, the research that has been published on the topic of […]
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Blog
Security Is Embracing Zero Trust; Get Your Federal Team In Sync
Historically, industry is more forward-leaning than government when it comes to innovation — at least at the unclassified level. But unlike most industries, the US government is driving the cybersecurity market and has been for almost the last decade. Federal fingerprints are everywhere: Where did cybercompliance start? Where did the first frameworks for cyber operations originate? […]
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Blog
Cyber Conferences: It Shouldn’t Be This Way
I recently saw another posting/photo from a friend in the industry that showed what amounts to “booth babes” at yet another conference; this time it wasn’t in Vegas, it was in Europe. This issue is one of importance in an industry rife with failure on lots of levels, a lack of available talent, and that […]
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The Self-Licking Ice Cream Cone Of Misery For S&R Pros Starts With Startups
Over the past two weeks, I was at the annual shenanigan bonanza that is the RSA Conference and was also invited to sit on a “Shark Tank” panel for emerging technology startups in Miami. In the span of two weeks, I went from seeing big, well-established companies with massive marketing budgets and millions of dollars […]
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Blog
Next-Generation Access and Zero Trust
A few years ago, the concepts of microsegmentation and microperimeters for Zero Trust were championed by former Forrester analyst John Kindervag. He showed us how those concepts and their technologies could enable a more secure enterprise. Once those concepts and their associated best practices hit the street, organizations from VMware to Cisco Systems to Palo […]
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