Exploring Zero Trust Security: A Comprehensive Guide

Zero Trust Security: An Old Idea Becomes the Security Norm

As organizations embrace multi-faceted environments featuring cloud, on-premise, and legacy architecture, the Zero Trust framework has emerged as the leading security protocol for complex enterprises. According to ZTEdge, 80% of organizations plan to adopt a zero-trust security strategy this year, and global spending on Zero Trust will more than double between now and 2025.

What is Zero Trust?

Zero Trust works on the concept that no user should be trusted by default and that users and devices should provide identity verification whenever they need access to a network. It provides granular access control to users and devices, ensuring that only the right users have proper access to certain systems or data, reducing the risk of internal movement and unauthorized access. Zero Trust also goes beyond just users and covers protection for all connected devices to a network, including Internet of Things technologies like webcams, smart devices, smart televisions, and badge scanners.

Why is Zero Trust Necessary?

Organizations have long favored perimeter security, where the goal is to stop bad actors from entering the network altogether. However, the complexity of current systems ultimately leaves gaps in security coverage that bad actors can hide and use to navigate through a network. The most severe data breaches occurred because once the external attacker gained a foothold inside the corporate network, they became an internal user, able to access internal systems. Zero Trust works to stop this type of internal and external movement by increasing barriers, ultimately strengthening security posture.

Is Zero Trust Right for You?

Many organizations migrated applications, data, and services to the cloud, with some indirectly putting some of Zero Trust’s tenets in place. However, the move from boundary-based security to resource-based security means that organizations must recognize the users, devices, data, and applications included in their infrastructure. A Zero Trust framework will require administrators to understand the infrastructure within the organization and provide the necessary inventory, which can aid in long-term planning and smarter alerts in case of suspicious activity.

The Benefits of Zero Trust

Zero Trust enhances security posture and provides ancillary benefits that aid technology leaders with other efforts. It provides a more accurate inventory of technology assets, improved monitoring, smarter alerts, and better end-user experience by allowing single sign-on tools. It also enables technology leaders to add different cloud environments and understand they will not introduce any new vulnerabilities.

Zero Trust in Practice

The SolarWinds breach remains one of the most devastating cybersecurity events in history. Russian hackers planted malware in some SolarWinds software which users downloaded and deployed. Companies that leveraged Zero Trust could have reduced the blast radius, reducing the servers the bad actors used to collect data and limit their movement in the network.

Final Thoughts

As the technology footprint of organizations grows and moves to the cloud, Zero Trust will become paramount for those that want to leverage cloud applications. It is a change in thinking that leverages a strict set of rules and guidelines to manage behavior. It must become the security norm for enterprises to defend themselves against bad actors effectively.