Zero Trust security model considers each access request as a breach and verifies it as it came from an open network. Irrespective of where the request comes from or what assets it accesses, every access request is thoroughly authenticated, authorized, and scrutinized for anomalies before granting permission.It applies the least privileged access principles to reduce the threat landscape.
Key ‘Zero Trust’ Principles:
a) Verify Thoroughly
b) Grant Least Privileged Access
c) Assume Breach
How To Build Zero Trust Into Your Organization?
A Zero Trust security model must cover the your organization’s entire digital landscape and serve as an Integrated Security Approach (ISA) and end-to-end strategy.
You can accomplish this by enforcing Zero Trust procedures and processes across following six key elements:
1) Identities
Identities here represent users, services, systems, or remote devices. Whenever an identity requests access permission, you must verify and secure the identity with robust authentication across your digital landscape. Access must be compliant and abide by the least privileged access policy.
2) Devices
Once a user gains access to an enterprise asset, data can transfer to a host of devices, from on-premises workloads to cloud servers and corporate systems to vendor devices. As this distributed data creates a widespread attack surface, you must monitor and implement device health and compliance before granting access.
3) Applications
Applications and Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) can be traditional on-premises, modern cloud-native workloads, or SaaS applications. You must enforce controls and technologies to confirm proper in-app permissions, check for anomalous behavior, monitor user actions, and authorize appropriate configuration options.
4) Data
Your organization must shift from perimeter-based data protection to data-driven protection. Use intelligence to categorize, label, and encrypt data and control access based on your organizational policies.
5) Infrastructure
Your IT Infrastructure, including on-premises servers, Virtual Machines (VMs), or containers, are prime targets for cybercrime. Organizations must rely on telemetry to identify attacks and vulnerabilities, automatically restrict and block abnormal behavior, and implement the least privileged access policy.
6) Network
You shouldn’t trust users and devices just because they are on the internal network. Implement network controls to improve visibility and prevent threats from spreading across the network. You should employ end-to-end encryption, real-time threat detection, and network micro-segmentation.
This Article Was Written & published by Meena R, Senior Manager - IT, at Luminis Consulting Services Pvt. Ltd, India.
Over the past 16 years, Meena has built a following of IT professionals, particularly in Cybersecurity, Cisco Technologies, and Networking...
She is so obsessed with Cybersecurity domain that she is going out of her way and sharing hugely valuable posts and writings about Cybersecurity on website, and social media platforms.
34,000+ professionals are following her on Facebook and mesmerized by the quality of content of her posts on Facebook.
If you haven't yet been touched by her enthusiastic work of sharing quality info about Cybersecurity, then you can follow her on Facebook:
Click Here to follow her: Cybersecurity PRISM