Never Trust, Always Verify

Recently, the cybersecurity landscape has been introduced to an innovative concept. This overview will provide insights into Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA), which posits that no inherent trust should be assigned to user accounts or assets solely based on their network position or ownership.

Principles of Zero Trust

ZTA operates under the principle that no one should be trusted by default merely because they have access to a network or physical location. Central to ZTA is the aim to restrict unauthorized access to data and services while ensuring that access control is as detailed as possible. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has provided several foundational principles for designing and implementing ZTA.

• All data and devices must be treated as resources. For example, if an employee's smartphone can access company data, it should be viewed as a resource.
• Communication should be secured, regardless of network location. Whether requests come from inside or outside the network, consistent security measures must be upheld. All communications need to be authenticated and encrypted.
• Access to individual resources should be granted on a per-request basis. Gaining authentication for one resource does not automatically allow access to others.
• Access to resources must be governed by policy, taking into account the user’s identity, the requesting system, and various behavioral characteristics.
• Organizations must maintain the highest security standards for all owned and affiliated systems through continuous monitoring. Security updates and patches should be applied promptly to address vulnerabilities.
• User authentication should be rigorously enforced before granting access, and this process should be iterative.

Approaches to Zero Trust Architecture

Organizations can adopt different methods to implement ZTA within their workflows. The policies and components may vary according to each organization’s business goals and culture. Regardless of the differences, all approaches align with the principles of Zero Trust. Organizations can prioritize specific principles as key drivers of their security policy. Below is a summary of these options.

Why Adopt a Zero Trust Security Model?

In today’s cloud environments, organizations are increasingly attractive targets for cybercriminals seeking to steal or compromise sensitive data, including personally identifiable information (PII) and intellectual property (IP).

While no security model is flawless and data breaches are unlikely to be entirely eradicated, zero trust represents one of the most effective strategies available today. It minimizes the attack surface and lessens the impact of cyberattacks, ultimately reducing the time and expenses associated with addressing and recovering from breaches.

Benefits of Zero Trust

1. Minimized Organizational Risk Zero trust frameworks prevent applications and services from communicating until their identity attributes are verified—properties that meet established trust criteria, including authentication and authorization. This approach diminishes risk by clarifying what exists on the network and how those assets interact. As baselines are established, zero trust further mitigates risk by removing excessive software and services while continuously verifying the “credentials” of all communicating assets.

2. Enhanced Control Over Cloud and Container Environments Access management and visibility loss are significant concerns for security professionals moving to the cloud. Although cloud service providers (CSPs) have improved security, workload protection remains a shared responsibility. With a zero-trust framework, security policies are applied based on the identity of workloads, ensuring that protection stays close to the assets requiring safeguarding, irrespective of network structures like IP addresses or protocols. Protection remains consistent even as the environment evolves.

3. Decreased Risk of Data Breaches Following the principle of least privilege, every entity is treated as potentially hostile. Each request undergoes scrutiny, with users and devices authenticated and permissions evaluated before any “trust” is conferred. This “trust” is re-evaluated continuously as context changes, such as user location or the data being accessed. Without inherent trust, an intruder who gains access through a compromised device will struggle to access sensitive information, as the zero trust model creates isolated segments that prevent lateral movement within the network.

4. Compliance Support Zero trust protects all user and workload connections from the internet, preventing exposure and exploitation. This invisibility simplifies compliance with privacy regulations and standards (e.g., PCI DSS, NIST 800–207) and leads to fewer findings during audits. Implementing zero trust micro-segmentation allows organizations to establish boundaries around sensitive data (e.g., payment information) using detailed controls to differentiate between regulated and non-regulated data. In audits or breach scenarios, micro-segmentation offers superior visibility and control compared to flat network architectures with excessive privileges.

How to Get Started with Zero Trust

When formulating a zero-trust architecture, security and IT teams should concentrate on fundamental business concepts: What are the assets we aim to protect? Who poses a threat? Recognizing that a zero-trust architecture serves as the foundation for the entire security framework is crucial, with technologies and processes built upon this strategy rather than the reverse.