Cloudflare Expands Relationship with Microsoft

Cloudflare today announced an expansion of its relationship with Microsoft to help customers easily deploy, automate, and enhance their organisation’s Zero Trust security.

Working from anywhere is more common than ever, and critical applications have moved to the cloud—no longer residing inside an office protected by a secure perimeter. This fundamental shift in where and how people work has caused enterprises to rethink legacy tools and abandon the traditional castle-and-moat approach to security, looking towards Zero Trust instead. As CIOs continue to navigate this paradigm shift, Cloudflare has developed a new set of integrations with Microsoft to help organisations on this journey. Now, mutual customers can seamlessly deploy Zero Trust security tools in minutes, with no complex code changes, and add industry-first features, such as Cloudflare’s Remote Browser Isolation technology.

“When I speak with CIOs, I continue to hear that their number one concern remains security, closely followed by adapting to the new hybrid world,” said Matthew Prince, CEO and co-founder at Cloudflare. “We want to make it easier than ever for IT leaders to deploy Zero Trust security across the enterprise and keep users safe wherever they are working from. I’m thrilled that we are deepening our integration with Microsoft so we can help our joint customers easily deploy Zero Trust security across some of the most used applications in the workplace.”

Through these new integrations, Cloudflare now provides a comprehensive identity driven approach to protect applications, users, devices and networks from attacks. These integrations pair Microsoft Identity solutions and Cloudflare network security tools to create a quality Zero Trust offering.

“A cloud-native zero trust security model has become an absolute necessity as enterprises continue to adopt a cloud-first strategy” said Joy Chik, President, Identity and Network Access, Microsoft. “Cloudflare has developed robust product integrations with Microsoft to help security and IT leaders prevent attacks proactively, dynamically control policy and risk, and increase automation in alignment with zero trust best practices.”

Cloudflare and Microsoft Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) customers can now:

• Deploy Zero Trust Security without changing one line of code:Now joint customers can choose to define specific rules in either Azure AD or in Cloudflare Access i.e. which users can access specific applications based on various factors such as user risk level, device platform, location, etc. and enforce across both products without changing a line of code.
• Isolate high-risk users automatically with industry leading browser isolation technology:By integrating Cloudflare’s Remote Browser Isolation with Azure AD, high-risk users, such as temporary employees, are contained proactively in a remote browser session for added security.
• Save IT teams hundreds of hours of manual work:Cloudflare Access will use the System for Cross-Domain Identity Management (SCIM) to directly integrate with Azure AD. Groups are automatically synced across Cloudflare and Azure Active Directory platforms and groups, saving hundreds of hours of manual work from IT teams.
• Keep sensitive Government data off of the public Internet:By connecting Azure Government Cloud to Cloudflare’s global network via the Secure Hybrid Access (SHA) program, Government customers (‘GCC’) will be able to keep sensitive traffic secure by staying off of the public Internet. Additionally, Government customers (‘GCC’) will be able to define and enforce granular rules defining who can access what using the joint solution from the dashboard without any code changes.

Cloudflare has worked with Microsoft since 2018 to provide mutual customers with an improved Internet experience by securing web applications and safeguarding employees with identity and device protections. Cloudflare’s deep integrations across Microsoft 365 and Azure have supported many of the largest Fortune 500 companies on their Zero Trust journey, enabling customers to simply and easily support their security and performance needs. Most recently, Microsoft named Cloudflare the winner of its Security Software Innovator of the Year award.