Cloudflare is to launch its own eSIM card equivalent which it says is the world’s first “Zero Trust” SIM.
The new Cloudflare SIM subscribes to the zero trust security model, which describes an approach based on “never trust, always verify,” where devices are never trusted automatically, even if they have been previously verified or are already connected to a gated corporate network.
It’s no surprise there’s interest in such technology, mobile devices remain an extremely popular endpoint for hackers to try and gain entrance to corporate networks; cybersecurity firm Zimperium analyzed more than 500,000 phishing sites in 2022, and found the number of mobile-specific phishing websites grew 50%.
What will users get?
Employees will be able to get their monthly data costs covered by their employer if they agree to let Cloudflare direct their work-related traffic via the SIM through a network that has Zero Trust protections
Cloudflare claims the solution will be straightforward to install, and all users will need to do is scan a QR code, which can be embedded in an employee’s onboarding material, from their phone’s camera.
The new SIM will allow companies to prevent employees from visiting phishing and malware sites according to Cloudflare, as DNS requests leaving the device can automatically and implicitly use the Cloudflare Gateway for DNS filtering.
In addition, the new SIM will additionally allow firms to mitigate common SIM-based attacks, with Cloudflare saying that “an eSIM-first approach allows us to prevent SIM-swapping or cloning attacks, and by locking SIMs to individual employee devices, bring the same protections to physical SIMs”.
Cloudflare also claims that the new SIM will enable secure, identity-based private connectivity to cloud services, on-premise infrastructure, and fleets of IoT devices via its WAN-as-a-service solution Magic WAN.
Zero Trust SIM has yet to launch but is set to roll out to customers on a regional basis, and Cloudflare says that it is currently testing the technology on its own network.
If you are an organization without an existing mobile device solution and you’d like to sign up you can head here (opens in new tab).
