Google LLC today updated its BeyondCorp security framework to help organizations secure their most important applications and data at a time when many workers are confined to their homes from the COVID-19 pandemic.

BeyondCorp is a “zero-trust” security framework that shifts access controls from the perimeter to individual devices and users, allowing employees to work securely from any location without the need for a traditional virtual private network.

With BeyondCorp, access control is no longer based on whether users are requesting that access from inside or outside of the corporate network. Instead, BeyondCorp assumes that users requesting access from inside the network are just as untrustworthy as those seeking remote access.

As a result, access requests are instead granted based on details about the particular users, their jobs and the security status of the devices they’re using. That’s the zero trust model in a nutshell, and Google claims it is far more effective than traditional network security controls.

The only problem with BeyondCorp is that it can take months for an organization to deploy, and most simply don’t have the time or resources to do so at this time. So for those organizations, Google is launching a more limited version of the framework called BeyondCorp Remote Access, which implements zero-trust access controls for the most sensitive applications and data only, to ensure workers can do their jobs safely from home.

“As the number of remote workers increases drastically in a short period of time, one thing we’ve heard repeatedly is that organizations need an easier way to provide access to key internal applications,” Sunil Potti, general manager and vice president of cloud security at Google, wrote in a blog post. “Workers can’t get to customer service systems, call center applications, software bug trackers, project management dashboards, employee portals, and many other web apps that they can normally get to through a browser when they’re on the corporate network in an office.”

One of the most useful things about BeyondCorp Remote Access is that it enables organizations to implement extremely flexible policy controls for remote workers. So, for example, an administrator can set things up so that human resources recruiters can only access the tools they need if they’re running the latest version of their operating system and using phishing-resistant authentication tools such as security keys.

“With BeyondCorp Remote Access, we can help you do this in days rather than the months that it might take to roll out a traditional VPN solution,” Potti said. “Using BeyondCorp Remote Access, you can offload some of the strain on your existing VPN deployment, saving critical capacity for the users who already have access and need it most.”

Constellation Research Inc. analyst Holger Mueller told SiliconANGLE that enterprises are struggling to provide remote workers with access to the resources they need, and so Google’s new offering should be welcomed by enterprises.

“Google is using this opportunity with its web-based offering that provides more and better access controls than traditional VPNs,” Mueller said. “It’s offering CIOs a key tool to protect their enterprises against nefarious access.”

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