In 2010, former Forrester Research principal analyst John Kindervag developed the cybersecurity zero trust architecture. Its popularity has increased since then as attacks become more complicated and the pressure to protect data grows significantly.
What Is Cybersecurity Zero Trust?
As the name implies, Zero Trust says not to automatically trust anyone – not even users behind the firewall. This strategy verifies anything and everything trying to connect to a company’s data system before granting access.
Many security professionals are implementing cybersecurity zero trust due to the uptick in cyberattacks. Cybersecurity Ventures projected that cybercrime will cost the world $6 trillion annually by 2021. Such figures continue to rise despite companies spending more and more on their cybersecurity efforts.
This just shows that the traditional cybersecurity approaches are not doing enough. As result, enterprise leaders search for something better. They have discovered that Zero Trust is capable of delivering the best results. Hence, Zero Trust is one of the best ways to stop breaches.
The Problem It Solves
This strategy breaks away from the norm of the castle-and-moat mentality. In this mindset, organizations focused on defending their perimeters while assuming that everything inside is safe from threats and cleared for access.
However, this approach isn’t working. Some of the biggest data breaches happened because hackers didn’t meet much internal resistance once they gained access inside corporate firewalls. This means that we essentially trust too much. However, trusting everything eliminates your chances of changing anything security-wise.
Furthermore, it is only not the threat actors that drive cybersecurity Zero Trust. Most companies today have some applications on-premises and some in the cloud with users. This means that employees can access applications from multiple devices and multiple locations. Hence, a question has arisen: “how do we secure ourselves in the new model?”. This new strategy has solved the problem.
The Technologies Behind Cybersecurity Zero Trust
This strategy relies on various technologies and policies. First, it needs to understand who the user is and what endpoint the user is coming from. It is a secure endpoint? What is the security status of the endpoint? The user will receive access only if they meet specified criteria.
This approach draws on technologies like encryption and multifactor authentication. As noted, it also requires governance policies. For instance, users must only be granted the least amount of access they need to get their task done. The bottom line is Zero Trust is not just about technology. It is also about process and mindset.
Getting Started
Here are some key recommendations for where to start with this new approach:
- Identify sensitive data. The first step in protecting your data is to know where it is and who has access to it. Your company’s sensitive data might be on internal folders or places where you store PHI or PII.
- Limit access. Make sure that only the people who need access to data have access to it. This limits sensitive data exposure and makes it harder for hackers to compromise it.
- Detect threats. Moreover, you need to detect when anomalous activity is happening with your data. You can achieve this by monitoring all activities related to data access.
