What Is Zero Trust?

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With many resources and applications moving to the cloud, organizations are facing an ongoing challenge of how to keep their data safe. Data that was once easily secured within the walls of a data center becomes complex to manage in a multi-cloud environment. So how can you know who or what you can trust?

One of the most effective cybersecurity measures, with increasing adoption rates year after year, is to trust nothing, or in other words, have zero trust. Instead, authenticate and authorize everything. Assume that everything could be a threat and require every service and person trying to connect to your environment to verify their identity. This is the foundation of zero trust security which is especially valuable in cloud environments, where data and workloads are highly distributed.

Introduction to Zero Trust

Zero trust security is a cybersecurity approach that assumes no one and nothing can be trusted.

The guiding principle of zero trust is "Never Trust, Always Verify." This means that all access requests are authenticated, authorized, and encrypted—regardless of where they come from. Even after verification, access is granted only on a need-to-know basis, following the principle of least privilege. Verification is an ongoing process, and passing it once does not mean indefinite trust.

This helps protect organizations from a wide range of threats, including insider threats, advanced persistent threats (APTs), and supply chain attacks.

For many years, the perimeter-based security model was the standard approach to cybersecurity for organizations. The idea behind this model was to protect everything inside an organization's network by building a strong perimeter around it, usually with firewalls and other security technologies. The perimeter-based model worked well for quite a long time because it was easy to set up and manage.

However, as organizations increasingly move to cloud, hybrid, and multi-cloud environments, these same solutions are no longer sufficient. One of the biggest challenges with the perimeter-based model is that it assumes everything inside the perimeter is trustworthy. This is no longer a safe assumption.

How Does This Work in the Cloud?

Imagine a large bank with a traditional perimeter-based security model. All of the bank's internal systems are protected by a firewall, and only authorized users can access them from the outside. However, if an attacker breaches the firewall and gains access to the internal network, they can freely move around, steal data, or launch attacks.

In cloud environments, the traditional perimeter security model breaks down because the infrastructure is highly distributed. Data moves between multiple cloud providers, users access resources from anywhere, and the infrastructure is not contained within a single network.

Cloud-based zero trust security addresses these challenges by implementing several strategies:

Microsegmentation: In cloud environments, the bank's internal systems would be segmented into smaller networks, each with its own set of security controls. This approach, known as microsegmentation, minimizes the blast radius of any potential cyberattack, limiting the impact to a smaller portion of the network if a breach occurs. Each segment requires individual authentication and authorization, minimizing the risk of lateral movement across cloud resources.
Identity and Access Management (IAM): Identity and access management (IAM) is taken seriously by cloud providers such as AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud as a way to enforce zero trust. This involves applying strong authentication protocols (OAuth, SAML, etc.) and implementing multi-factor authentication (MFA) to ensure that only verified users access cloud services.
Device Posture Verification: Zero trust also evaluates the "posture" of devices in the cloud. For example, before permitting the user in, it checks to see if their device meets security standards by looking for things like up-to-date antivirus software, security patches, etc.
Dynamic Access Controls: Traditional on-premises systems might rely on fixed access control lists (ACLs), but in cloud environments, zero trust enables dynamic access. Based on real-time context—such as geographic location, time of day, or the sensitivity of the data—access policies can be adapted on the fly to mitigate risks.

Finally, a successful zero trust security strategy is an ongoing process where you must continuously evaluate users and assets on the network. Among other aspects mentioned above you must implement measures to detect and respond to breaches. This means implementing continuous data monitoring and validation tools to provide visibility and the ability to respond to threats in real-time. By continuously verifying trust and securing each layer, zero trust makes sure that organizations can protect sensitive cloud data, no matter where it resides or who accesses it.

The Benefits of Zero Trust Security

The zero trust approach focuses on constructing multiple security layers to protect data, making sure that even if intruders break through the network perimeter, their freedom is severely restricted.

But it does more than that; Key advantages of implementing zero trust include:

Stronger Defense: It improves defenses in both on premises and cloud infrastructures by ensuring that every interaction between users, devices, and services are authenticated and encrypted. That’s why it’s ideal for keeping organizations with remote teams safe.
Controlled Access: It provides a unified way to apply fine-grained access controls across all cloud platforms, and therefore it reduces the likelihood of sensitive information being leaked. It ensures that only the right people have access at the right time.
Restricted Lateral Movement: Zero trust limits how far an intruder can move inside the network if they gain access.
Better Visibility: It provides a clear view of every user's activity across the entire infrastructure.
Better Organizational Agility: Zero trust enables your organization to respond quickly to changing needs.

Zero Trust Security Challenges

Zero trust security provides a strong approach to cybersecurity, but putting it into action brings its own challenges. For example, adopting a zero trust model usually means major changes to the way networks are set up and how security policies are enforced. This process can be hard to understand and takes a great deal of time and money, especially for companies that still use old systems.

Also, the ongoing verification and authentication processes, which form the core of zero trust, can sometimes raise worries about how users experience the system. Finding the sweet spot between security and ease of use is key to making sure these steps don't slow down productivity.

Many organizations use a mix of new and old systems, and adding zero trust measures to existing setups that weren’t designed with cloud security in mind can cause compatibility issues, and take time and money to set up correctly.

Also, putting into action and keeping up a zero trust security model in the cloud needs specific skills. Organizations might have to spend money on training employees or bring in cybersecurity experts with expertise in zero trust and cloud-native security principles.

Zero Trust Best Practices

Here are some of the best practices an organization can follow for a successful zero trust implementation:

Ensure Visibility: Make sure you can see all devices and resources in your network. You can't keep safe what you don't know is there. For effective security, you need to monitor all resources and access points.
Define Policies: Develop fine-grained policy controls that specify who can access what resources under what conditions. These controls should be specific, ensuring that only authorized individuals have access to sensitive information or systems.
Automate: Automate processes to enforce policies and quickly adapt to any deviations from standard procedures. Automation helps maintain consistency and reduces the risk of human error in policy implementation.
Continuously monitor and evaluate: Regularly monitor your network for anomalies or potential threats, and frequently assess your security posture to adapt to new challenges and maintain robust protection.

When companies put these good habits into action, they can do a better job of protecting their systems. This also helps them keep their defenses strong and able to bounce back from attacks.

Implement Zero Trust with AlgoSec

AlgoSec is a great solution for implementing zero trust because it simplifies the process of securing your network. Take advantage of a unified platform to manage application connectivity and security policies, which are key to enforcing zero trust principles.

With AlgoSec, you can easily analyze and optimize traffic flows, automate policy changes, and ensure compliance, all while reducing the risk of misconfigurations. This makes it easier to quickly set up and maintain a zero trust environment, giving your security team the tools they need to keep your network safe.

Discover how AlgoSec can help you adopt zero trust security and prevent attackers from infiltrating your organization. Request a demo today.