Zero Trust is a form of an advantage on the IT security model that centers around the belief that businesses, agencies, or organizations. It is a model that behaves such that it should not trust anything within the perimeter or even those outside of its perimeters, without first verifying access.
It requires strict verification for every person and device that is trying to access a company’s resources on private networks regardless of them being present in or outside of the company’s network perimeter.
The principles of Zero Trust are derived from its name –the system that trusts no one. The term Zero Trust is coined by John Kindervag who is the vice president and analyst for Forrester Research at that time.
The inspiration behind Zero Trust appears when Kindervag realizes that the traditional security system is outdated due to its assumption that everything already inside a company’s network can be fully trusted, which is certainly untrue.
According to Kindervag, “The hallmark of zero trusts is simplicity. When every user, packet, network interface, and device is untrusted, protecting assets becomes simple.” Unlike traditional security networks, Zero Trust model questions everything.
The paranoia that comes with the Zero Trust security system is good for businesses and organizations because it helps secure resources internally and externally.
So What Are The Four Advantages Of Zero Trust Security Model?
Least Privilege Access
As mentioned before, the Zero Trust security framework, much like its name, trusts no one inside or outside of the companies’ networks. With a lack of trust, employees are only provided minimal access to a company’s resources based on their roles in the business.
The least privilege is granted to staff to minimize their exposure to the entirety of the company’s resources, particularly the sensitive bits of the network. Furthermore, employees or staff can only access their companies’ resources after they have verified their identities. Without proper verification, users are not able to access their companies’ data. After users are verified of their identities, they still require permission to access resources on their companies’ networks.
These tedious steps are to ensure that permissions are granted on a need-to-know basis to minimize security breaches.
Zero Trust allows employers to be in control of their companies’ data. They can choose who is given access to which part of their companies’ networks.
This is important because Zero Trust as a considerably new security system and technology, informs employers that the employees in their companies are more likely to cause data leakage rather than focusing on strengthening their network perimeters against attacks from outsiders.
Multiple Factor Authentication (MFA)
Multi-factor authentication or MFA is also one of the advantages of Zero Trust security. MFA requires more than one piece of evidence to authenticate a staff member. In other words, using only passwords is simply not enough.
MFA can be seen commonly used during online banking transactions where users are expected to key in their username, passwords, and several code numbers that are usually sent through mobile phones, for a transaction to be considered valid.
This is also similarly used to authenticate user identities on Google or Facebook.
Multiple-factor authentication may seem tedious at first, but it is an important process for securing your company’s data. With all these processes, the Zero Trust system can verify users’ identities and grant them access accordingly.
Segmentation
Segmentation is one of the advantages of the Zero Trust security model. Segmentation is applied in the framework through the delegation of works and employees. In other words, employees are grouped based on their workloads and as a group, they will be given limited access to necessary resources in the company.
This is often done in terms of departments where a Human Resource Department is not able to access the resources of the Business Department. However, different layers of employees have different access to the company resources as well. For example, general managers will have more access to resources than clerks. By segmenting certain data to certain groups of employees, employers can grant access based on a group’s needs to function.
Segmentation of employees is important for the Zero Trust security mechanism because segmentation prevents lateral movement of attackers throughout the company’s network. Segmentation of works and staff will cause attackers to remain stagnant in only one part of the network, disallowing the attackers from leaking data from other parts of the network.
This is extremely helpful for employers to easily identify the source of the attack.
Visibility
Visibility is one of the advantages of the Zero Trust security framework. With verification and multi-factor authentication (MFA), employers can monitor potential attacks and liability from within or outside of the company’s network.
Zero Trust questions the gadgets that employees are using to access data and the places that the employees are accessing them from.
Visibility between employers and employees is established through the verification process where employees need to be truthful in their usage of devices and current locations or remote networks that they are using. Zero Trust provides transparency in employees’ accessibilities to their company’s data where if the specific company’s data is leaked, employers will be able to analyze the compromised bit of the network.
As part of Enfrasys’ effort in empowering businesses with IT, the company has organized two webinars under our Road to Cloud Series, entitled Zero Trust Foundation last August.
The webinars were divided into two parts: Identity Modernization and Endpoint Management. Our professional consultants broke down the process of building a Zero Trust foundation for companies and organizations through demonstrations, making the events successful and interactive.
Enfrasys is experienced in setting up a Zero Trust security model for businesses and organizations. The shift from the traditional security framework to the Zero Trust model may be daunting but with a group of diverse certified Microsoft professionals, Enfrasys’ specialists are more than capable of the process.
Zero Trust as a security framework is beneficial for businesses and organizations to maintain the internal and external security of their companies. Take the first step towards a safer tomorrow and contact our consultants.