What is Zero Trust Architecture and How Does it Lower the Risk of a Cyberattack?
In order to connect online users and corporate branches to the data center over private networks, corporations have been concentrating on setting up and optimizing sophisticated, wide-area, and hub-and-spoke networks for the past thirty years.
Users have to be connected to a trustworthy network in order to access applications. A “castle and moat” security design appears to have featured multiple appliances, including firewalls and VPNs, to secure these hub-and-spoke networks.
Even though this was ultimately advantageous to the company and online customers when their apps were located in their data centers, the fact that users are now more mobile than ever makes securing the network even more difficult.
On the other side, organizations are leading a digital transformation and utilizing the cloud, mobility, AI, IoT, and OT technologies to become more competitive and flexible.
Users are spread out around the globe, therefore data and applications cannot remain in data centers. In order to interact quickly and efficiently, they want immediate access to applications from any location at any time. Sending the data flow safely back to the data centers would therefore be a pointless exercise.
Organizations are transitioning from hub-and-spoke networks to direct cloud access because of this, using the internet as the new network instead of hub-and-spoke.
Perimeter-based Security Is Ineffective in Meeting the Needs of Contemporary Business
In traditional hub-and-spoke networks, all network components — users, applications, and devices — are arranged on a single flat plane. While this makes accessing numerous programs easier for users, it also gives any compromised system direct access.
Unfortunately, perimeter-based security that relies on VPNs and firewalls to secure the network and deliver a positive user experience falls short because assaults continue to advance in sophistication and users operate from a variety of locations. As a result, businesses experience data breaches and cyberattacks that have the potential to substantially compromise their security.
Zero trust architecture
Zero Trust is a cybersecurity strategy that secures an organization by removing implicit trust and continuously validating every stage of digital interaction. Zero Trust, founded on the principle of “never trust, always verify,” is intended to protect modern environments and enable digital transformation by leveraging network segmentation, preventing lateral movement, providing Layer 7 threat prevention, and simplifying granular, “least access” policies.
The concept of Zero Trust arose from the realization that traditional security models are based on the outmoded assumption that everything within an organization’s network should be implicitly trusted. Due to a lack of granular security controls, users — including threat actors and malicious insiders — are free to move laterally and access or exfiltrate sensitive data once on the network.
In light of the pervasive, long-standing issues provided by the legacy network and security systems, we must reevaluate how connectivity is permitted in our modern society. In order to provide a secure hybrid workplace, organizations must move away from castle-and-moat security and toward a zero-trust architecture that ensures quick and direct access to apps everywhere, at any time.
Assuming that every component of the network is hostile or infiltrated, zero trust only permits access to apps after users’ identities, device postures, and business context have been confirmed and policy checks have been properly upheld.
A zero-trust structure demands users to have access to a level of visibility that is not supported by any traditional security control.
In order to ensure that no implicit confidence is ever granted, a successful zero-trust architecture submits each connection to a set of limitations before creating a connection. The following actions allow for this:
- Verify identity and context:
The zero-trust architecture initially terminates connections requested by users, workloads, or devices. Next, it determines who is connecting and why.
- Manage risk:
Zero trust architecture then evaluates the dangers and difficulties associated with the connection request, scanning the traffic for any indications of cybercrime activity and sensitive data.
- Implement policy:
In order to assess what steps would be taken in relation to the connection made, a per-session-based policy is finally being implemented.
Thus, a zero-trust architecture helps reduce the attack surface, prevent threats from spreading laterally, and lower breach risks. The most effective approach to do this is using a proxy-based architecture, which connects users directly to applications rather than the network and enables the application to impose extra limitations before approving or rejecting the connections’ authorization.
Benefits of zero trust architecture patterns
- Offers threat protection against both internal and external threats:
In order to access the organization’s data, external threats or hackers must get past the external security defenses. These actors come from outside the organization. Some of the techniques hackers employ to access the company’s corporate network include malware, phishing, DDoS assaults, ransomware, Trojans, and worm. Internal threats are typically more difficult to identify than external ones. This is due to the fact that internal threat actors occasionally jeopardize the organization’s data without intending to do so and may even be unwitting accomplices in crime.
Any departure is automatically detected and checked for potential harmful activity because Zero Trust runs on baseline standards of activity. This aids in lowering risk exposure overall.
- Provides increased visibility into all user access:
Adaptive identity-based access control is the core of zero trust. This adaptable balancing of authority by trust levels contributes to the formation of a dynamic, adaptive security closed loop with a high capacity for risk management.
As a result, all systems and data are safeguarded to their fullest extent since it gives users improved insight into all data access activities. You have complete insight over who accesses your data, when, from where, and where since data monitoring is built into the design. This will make it easier for the organization’s security system to identify any undesirable actions or data entry attempts.
- Limits the possibility of data exfiltration:
Malicious actors employ the process of data exfiltration to locate, copy, and transfer sensitive data. This can be done manually or remotely, and it can be very challenging to identify because it frequently seems like business-justified network access. Data exfiltration is significantly decreased in a Zero Trust environment since all operations are closely scrutinized.
- Secures Cloud adoption:
Although cloud adoption is accelerating, enterprises frequently worry that they won’t be able to maintain visibility and access control. Contrary to what is believed, Zero Trust technology and the control it offers combine context, teamwork, and visibility.
In order to implement the proper safeguards and access restrictions, Zero Trust technologies enable the classification of all cloud assets.
- Ensures data privacy:
It is challenging for businesses to protect the privacy of their customer’s personal information in today’s diversified and scattered economy. Zero Trust’s robust authentication and validation make it feasible to guarantee data privacy and thereby increase customer trust.
- Enables hybrid workforce security:
The increased adoption of the cloud and digitization has led to a remote working culture. Additionally, the recent epidemic has encouraged people to collaborate using any device, from anywhere. Given the dispersed nature of the labor ecosystem, real-time security context must be correlated across all security domains.
- Lowers reliance on endpoint protection:
Hackers frequently target crucial POS systems, servers, laptops, and other business endpoints in an effort to access vital network resources. The most typical point of entry for malware and ransomware into a company’s network is through these endpoints.
Even though certain endpoint security solutions have previously been implemented by enterprises, these attacks continue. With the Zero Trust architecture, you can lessen your reliance on these conventional endpoint protection solutions and put identity at the center of your security.
Conclusion
Zero Trust represents a significant departure from traditional network security, which adhered to the “trust but verify” principle. The traditional approach automatically trusted users and endpoints within the organization’s perimeter, exposing the organization to malicious internal actors and legitimate credentials taken over by malicious actors, granting unauthorized and compromised accounts broad access once inside. Due to the pandemic that began in 2020, this model became obsolete with the cloud migration of business transformation initiatives and the acceleration of a distributed work environment.
As a result, Zero Trust architecture necessitates organizations constantly monitoring and validating that a user and their device have the appropriate privileges and attributes. It also necessitates the implementation of a policy that takes into account the risk of the user and device, as well as any compliance or other requirements to be considered prior to approving the transaction. It is necessary for the organization to be aware of all of their service and privileged accounts, as well as to be able to establish controls over what and where they connect. Because threats and user attributes are all subject to change, a one-time validation will not suffice.
References:
Bug Zero is a bug bounty, crowdsourcing platform for security testing. The platform is the intermediatory entity that enables client organizations to publish their service endpoints so that bug hunters (security researchers / ethical hackers) registered in the platform can start testing the endpoints without any upfront charge. Bug hunters can start testing as soon as a client organization publishes a new program. Bug Zero also offers private bug bounty programs for organizations with high-security requirements.
Bug Zero is available for both hackers and organizations.
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