The report by The Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) reveals that Zscaler's Zero Trust Exchange, a cloud-native solution, can significantly enhance network security, operational efficiency, and business agility. ESG's analysis shows that a company with 5,000 users can realize a $4.1 million annual benefit and a 139% ROI compared to traditional appliance-based network security.

The shift to cloud-based infrastructure presents challenges in maintaining configurations, securing data, and managing identities, with attackers leveraging traditional tactics to target cloud environments. Despite debates on the relevance of network security in a cloud-first world, firewalls remain a crucial component for protecting hybrid cloud environments, with security teams needing a balance between third-party tools' established security and cloud service providers' ease of deployment and management.