The EY Organization Strengthens Security for a Global Workforce

The EY organization is a globally recognized professional services organization that evolved its security architecture to better support a large, distributed workforce and a cloud-first operating model.

The EY architecture of internet and private application access was built for a more perimeter-oriented environment. As the workforce became more distributed and cloud usage increased, the organization aimed to evolve its security architecture to deliver more unified policy control, improved visibility and a more seamless user experience — independent of where work happens.

Key challenges included:

• Consistency across environments: The EY organization intended to consolidate policy enforcement and visibility for on- and off-network users in a single technology.
• User experience standardization: Differences between on-network and off-network browsing and access created friction and increased support complexity.
• Scalability and modernization: The organization sought to reduce reliance on legacy on-premises infrastructure and avoid complex traffic backhauling as remote work expanded.
• Modern threat coverage for remote users: The organization wanted to complement DNS-layer controls with inline inspection to address evolving threats.
• Operational simplification: With global operations, the organization sought to simplify policy management and strengthen consistency of enforcement at scale.

The EY organization deployed Zscaler Internet Access (ZIA) and Zscaler Private Access (ZPA) to evolve internet security and private application access using a cloud-delivered approach.

The implementation included key activities and capabilities:

• Global ZIA deployment: Rolled out ZIA broadly to help reduce reliance on on-premises proxy infrastructure with cloud-delivered security controls.
• Global ZPA deployment: Rolled out ZPA broadly to help reduce reliance on on-premises legacy VPN infrastructure.
• Public generative AI (GenAI) governance: Applied policy controls to help govern access to public GenAI services aligned with internal standards and risk processes.
• Encrypted traffic inspection: Secure sockets layer (SSL)/transport layer security (TLS) decryption improved visibility into encrypted data flows.
• Advanced threat protection: Augmented existing defensive capabilities through integrated network data loss prevention (DLP), intrusion prevention system (IPS), antivirus, URL filtering and firewalling.
• Unified security policies: Global URL filtering supported more consistent enforcement, with flexibility for local needs.
• Seamless remote access: Zscaler Client Connector supported secure connections for users in diverse locations.
• Compliance support: Source IP anchoring helped address country-specific requirements where needed.
• Centralized event logging: Cloud-based logs improved visibility, enhanced insider threat monitoring and supported security operations.

The deployment of ZIA and ZPA delivered meaningful improvements in security consistency, visibility and operational efficiency to support a modern distributed workforce:

• Unified visibility and control: More consistent policy enforcement across on-premises and remote environments in a single technology supporting secure access across locations.
• Always-on security: Continuous SSL/TLS inspection helped close key visibility gaps in encrypted traffic.
• Advanced threat and data protection: Integrated capabilities such as network IPS, firewalling, sandboxing and DLP complemented existing EY security capabilities while further centralizing logging and insider threat detection and prevention.
• Efficiency: Consolidated capabilities supported operational simplification and cost optimization.
• Scalability: A cloud-native approach reduced hardware dependencies and simplified global manageability.
• Improved user experience: More consistent, high-performance access supported productivity across diverse locations.

Many organizations face similar network architecture pressures as work becomes more distributed and cloud adoption accelerates. Through the EY–Zscaler Alliance, EY organization helps clients securely transform networks and applications for a mobile and cloud-first world using cloud-delivered services that emphasize simplicity, security, centralized management and an improved user experience.

This success story demonstrates how ZIA and ZPA can help create fast and secure connections between users and applications — regardless of location or network — while simplifying operations at scale.