Zero Trust is a network cybersecurity approach that assumes data breaches executed by untrusted sources originating both and outside an enterprise. In addition to this, The Zero Trust Network, or Zero Trust Architecture, was initiated by John Kinderbag in 2010. Moreover, He was at the time a principal analyst at Forrester Research Inc.
Furthermore, It’s clear why. The COVID-19 pandemic, with its preference in work-from-home arrangements, has highlighted the application of zero-trust architectures to the priority lists of many enterprises today. In addition to that, The nosy buzzing of the latest cybersecurity word is noticeable.
What is Zero Trust Security?
Zero trust security involves constant verification of the identity and trustworthiness of every user. It includes the device and application within a given network. In other words, It discards the traditional assumption that users, devices, and applications are trustworthy because they were granted access in the past and verified by the network.
Moreover, the importance of traditional perimeter-based cybersecurity models, also known as castle-and-moat models, accepts that prior security verification and network internality are the same as trustworthiness.
Why Zero Trust? You may consider these statistics:
As reported by the 2017 Annual Cybercrime from Cybersecurity Ventures, Cybercrime will cost the world $6 trillion annually by 2021. As a result, That is relatively high from 3$ trillion in 2015.
Meanwhile, the cost of a data breach on a global average is $3.62 million. Besides, the said data resulted from the study conducted by the Ponemon Institute sponsored by IBM.
A little glimpse from the past
As early as ten years ago, most enterprise devices, users, and applications were restricted to the confines of the enterprise. Apart from this, once these endpoints were verified and considered secure, they were granted access to network resources and subsequently assumed to be secured.
But now, considering cloud computing, edge computing, and the Internet of Things (IoT), more and more employees are accessing sensitive enterprise data not only from home. But also from cafés, different countries, and other far-flung locations where enterprise endpoints are virtually everywhere.
How does zero trust work?
Its architecture takes this issue by adopting a “trust-no-one” cybersecurity model. In addition, It verifies enterprise user, device, and application trustworthiness before granting access to network resources.
Furthermore, the modern creation of enterprise users, devices, and applications external to networks creates an increased attack surface for independent and state-sponsored hackers. In contrast to the older castle-and-moat model, zero trust security favors the “never trust, always verify” rather than the “trust, but verify” concept.
Legality
The security gains the approval of the federal government. The NSA, a significant proponent of zero trust, strongly recommends that National Security Systems (NSS), Department of Defense (DoD), and Defense Industrial Base (DIB) networks adhere to a zero trust security model to secure their sensitive data.
How do you achieve zero trust?
To achieve a zero trust architecture, the implementation of comprehensive risk-based access controls, security monitoring, and enterprise’s complete system security automation must be flawless.
Embracing Zero Trust Security Model
This data-centric security model allows the concept of least-privilege access to be applied for every access decision, allowing or denying access to resources based on the combination of several contextual factors.
- National Security Agency (NSA), Embracing a Zero Trust Security Model
Its idea of least privilege access assures those enterprise devices and their users. Its applications have only the necessary access to complete the tasks specific to their job. It helps minimize the possibility of lateral movement throughout a network.
Primary Goal
The main goal of zero trust is to control access and engagement with enterprise data. Moreover, to achieve a zero trust architecture, every enterprise user, device, and application’s precise whereabouts must constantly be verified.
Seven Preventive Principles
To summarize these contextual factors, the NSA lists seven preventive principles and system design concepts necessary to achieving a zero trust architecture:
| Never trust, always verify. |
| Assume breach. |
| Verify explicitly |
| Define mission outcomes. |
| Architect from the inside out. |
| Determine who needs access to critical data, assets, applications, or services (DAAS). |
| Inspect and log all traffic before acting. |
The Approach
The Zero Trust approach depends on various existing technologies and governance progresses to secure the enterprise IT environment.
It encourages enterprises to leverage micro-segmentation. Besides, granular perimeter enforcement on users, their locations. Other data determine whether to trust a user, machine, or application requesting access to a specific part.
The Technologies behind Zero trust
Zero Trust relies on technologies namely: multifactor authentication, IAM, orchestration, analytics, encryption, scoring, and file system permissions. Besides, It also calls for governance policies, particularly giving users the least amount of access they need to do a specific task.
More Effective for Security
Zero trust architectures are ultimately more effective for security because they comprehensively address modern attack vectors by securing an enterprise’s internal and external network endpoints thoroughly.
Castle-and-moat security models neither account for this increase in attack surface nor effectively obstruct the new avenues that today’s hackers exploit.
Zero trust security models, however, do.
Affinity Technology Solutions
Affinity Technology Solutions embraces the Zero trust security model in our quest to keep our company abreast with the latest in cybersecurity. Furthermore, it is our primordial interest to serve our clients the best services we can offer. So what are you waiting for, readers? Please speak with our team today.
