“Never trust; always verify.” That’s the philosophy that drives the Zero Trust model, and it represents a major shift from the previous motto: “Trust but verify.” As threat actors have become more sophisticated, organizations have shifted their security frameworks away from a network-centric model and toward an identity-first model. Zero Trust assumes that every attempt to access an organization’s digital assets is from a threat actor until it can be proven otherwise.
But what is Zero Trust? This comprehensive guide will answer that question and delve into the principles that govern the Zero Trust architecture. First, we’ll define Zero Trust and demonstrate its importance for modern digital transformation efforts. Then, we’ll cover its history and some leading frameworks and standards used to develop it. We’ll also explore use cases, implementation, benefits, and best practices and answer people’s most common questions about Zero Trust.
Introduction to Zero Trust
Zero Trust operates on the assumption that all attempts to access an organization’s IT assets are malicious until proven otherwise, representing a paradigm shift from previous schools of thought.
Definition of Zero Trust
Founded by security analysts at Forrester, Zero Trust is a security model that aims to protect an organization’s data, services, applications, and other IT assets. It functions as an end-to-end security framework that requires authentication, authorization, and continuous validation at every step if users hope to gain and maintain access to data, applications, or services. Another distinguishing feature of Zero Trust is that it builds its security framework on the identity level and assumes no traditional network edge.
Importance in modern digital transformation efforts
Zero Trust has proved critical in advancing many organizations’ modern digital transformation efforts. At a time when cloud migration and remote work have become the norm, network access has become easier than ever for threat actors, and more data is at their disposal once they penetrate your defenses. Zero Trust shifts away from network-access-based security models and toward an identity-access-based model, focusing on constant user validation, even if they’re already inside the network.
Another advantage of the Zero Trust security model is its enhanced granularity, as the continuous validation requirements allow for greater micro-segmentation at every layer of your business’s processes. This enhanced segmentation allows security teams to mitigate the damage done when breaches do occur by limiting a threat actor’s lateral movement. The result is that the organization’s attack surface is kept to a minimum, preventing further damage, like the kind done in major ransomware attacks.
Zero Trust Standards and Frameworks
The Zero Trust network architecture (ZTNA) is built upon frameworks, policies, controls, and national cybersecurity standards. Some specific policies and protocols implemented will vary by organization. Still, most are guided by government-led initiatives, including those created by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and U.S. President Joe Biden’s Zero Trust executive order.
NIST 800-207 as a standard for Zero Trust
The leading standard for Zero Trust is NIST 800-207. It’s the most vendor-neutral and comprehensive Zero Trust framework, designed to help organizations of all sizes implement Zero Trust solutions in their context. It includes elements from Forrester’s Zero Trust eXtended (ZTX) framework and Gartner’s Continuous Adaptive Risk and Trust Assessment (CARTA), in addition to NIST’s own Zero Trust definition and principles. NIST 800-207 covers the tactics and strategies needed to build your Zero Trust network, so reference it early and often in your implementation.
Executive order mandating adoption in U.S. federal agencies
In 2021, President Biden issued an executive order mandating that all federal agencies adhere to NIST 800-207 for their own Zero Trust implementation. The aim was to increase collaboration with commercial customers, vendors, and government agencies, as getting all parties on the same page can lead to more seamless integration and better compliance.
In 2022, the Biden administration advanced its efforts further and set forth its own Zero Trust architecture strategy. Organizations that collaborate with government agencies regularly should consult both the executive order and the Zero Trust architecture to ensure that they meet all requirements listed therein.
Fundamental principles of Zero Trust based on NIST guidelines
NIST 800-207 gives a comprehensive framework for implementing a Zero Trust network, but its principles are relatively simple. The main Zero Trust principles are:
- Continuous verification: Zero Trust requires that access be verified for all users, all resources, and every network access attempt.
- Limiting the “blast radius”: Zero Trust seeks to mitigate the damage done when a breach does occur, whether an internal or external threat actor performs it.
- Automating context collection and response: To ascertain the most appropriate access attempt response, Zero Trust incorporates behavioral data into all other assets within the IT stack so that access can be granted based on a more precise solution context.
With these Zero Trust principles as their foundation, organizations should consult NIST 800-207, the Biden administration’s Zero Trust architecture strategy, and any industry-specific requirements to form their own Zero Trust policy.
Implementation of Zero Trust
While the principles behind Zero Trust are relatively simple, implementing a Zero Trust architecture can be a more complex endeavor. Organizations must use several leading-edge technologies designed to continuously monitor and validate access without compromising the user experience and shift from traditional network security processes toward a more modern approach.
Technologies involved
Creating a Zero Trust infrastructure requires multiple technologies. Some of the main ones include:
- Risk-based multifactor authentication (MFA), which validates a user’s identity according to multiple criteria (e.g., biometrics, passcodes, CAPTCHAs)
- Identity protection, which employs identity and access management (IAM) and the principle of least privilege to safeguard user identities and reduce the risk of unwarranted access
- Next-generation endpoint security, which secures physical devices (e.g., laptops, tablets, IoT hardware)
- Cloud workload technology, which helps secure assets in the cloud
In addition to these technologies, Zero Trust also leverages data encryption, email monitoring, and a host of tools designed to verify the hygiene of assets and endpoints.
Departure from traditional network security
A comprehensive Zero Trust security strategy must go beyond technology and elevate an organization’s security processes at the people and policy levels. That means a shift away from the traditional “trust but verify” motto, which assumed some validity to user requests already within the network’s perimeter, and toward the concept of never trusting and consistently verifying. This policy shift requires systems and users alike to treat any access attempt as a potential breach until proven otherwise.
Education is essential to achieve this policy shift, as users must be taught how to inspect incoming assets, such as emails or messages, for signs of an attempted cyberattack, such as a phishing attempt. A clear set of policies and procedures must also be implemented to not only help employees report a potential threat but also to set guidelines for how they should guard their credentials — and potential disciplinary action for violators may also be needed.
Continuous monitoring and validation
Continuous monitoring is a central part of developing a Zero Trust security architecture, as the entire framework is predicated upon the notion that users must validate their eligibility to access digital assets at every infrastructural layer. This requires that teams implement analytics to monitor user and device attributes such as behavioral data to ensure a request is legitimate and implement the most up-to-date threat intelligence to ensure that they appropriately respond to every threat.
Zero Trust Use Cases
Zero Trust offers many advantages to organizations, but it does require that teams consider several factors before adopting it. Here are a few of the benefits and considerations that Zero Trust brings to the table.
Benefits for organizations
Some specific benefits of Zero Trust are:
- Better protection of IT assets stored across multi-cloud or hybrid environments
- Less damage when a breach, such as a ransomware or supply chain attack, does occur
- Faster detection of insider threats
Zero Trust can benefit organizations by protecting them from outside threats and granting them greater visibility and granularity over their digital processes. Zero Trust monitors and validates user access at every level, so organizations have a clear view of which assets must be accessed the most often and which employees need them the most. This can give the organization valuable insights into other phases of its operations, making it more productive and secure in the process.
Considerations for adoption
Despite the benefits of Zero Trust, some considerations still need to be made before teams can begin implementing it. Some of these considerations include:
- Required expertise: Zero Trust requires continuous monitoring. That means your team may need to dedicate a group of analysts to the process or use a security operations center (SOC) for oversight — and that can come with a steep learning curve.
- User experience: Some users may feel burdened by the requirement to repeatedly prove their identity, leading to a negative user experience.
- Industry or governmental compliance requirements: Some organizations may face certain compliance requirements, and federal agencies must adhere to the specific strategies put forth in NIST 800-207 to maintain their compliance.
While these challenges may seem daunting initially, partnering with a Zero Trust expert can help you overcome them. Consult with a cybersecurity partner who is well-versed in Zero Trust principles as you craft your own Zero Trust policy.
Core Principles of the Zero Trust Model
The Zero Trust access model is built upon the assumption that any access attempt could be a threat. This is a core principle underlying the Zero Trust framework, and it differs from previous cybersecurity strategies, which assumed that individuals and service requests could be trusted once they were inside the network’s perimeter.
Building on this new assumption, the Zero Trust model relies on several other core principles. Each is designed to prevent unauthorized access or mitigate the damage that can be done should a breach occur.
Continuous verification
Since all users and machines could potentially be malicious, Zero Trust requires that they verify their identity with each service request—even after they’ve gained access to the network.
To achieve such continuous verification, Zero Trust incorporates MFA technology to establish the user’s identity and possession of the device. Zero Trust also leverages the principle of least privilege to give each user minimum access to the assets needed to perform their duties, preventing unnecessary access to sensitive resources. And even with such strict limitations, all parties must still verify their legitimacy with every access attempt.
Limiting the blast radius
One key advantage of the Zero Trust model is increased granularity over your architecture. Since previous models assumed that a user was safe once connected to the network, threat actors could quickly move laterally across the system once inside. Moreover, many organizations have their IT assets strewn across their infrastructure, so threat actors could run rampant once they penetrate the initial defenses.
In addition to the principle of least privilege, Zero Trust employs micro-segmentation to minimize lateral movement, keeping intruders from breaching other system components. By dividing the broader network into multiple smaller networks and requiring authorization at each step, Zero Trust limits the blast radius when a data breach occurs, and it also makes intrusion detection easier.
Automating context collection and response
Zero Trust is proactive, not reactive. Rather than responding to a breach once it occurs, it monitors user behavior to identify any indicators that may suggest suspicious activity. That requires a great deal of behavioral data as well as continuous monitoring of multiple parameters, including:
- Network traffic
- Device type
- Location
- User identity
- Accessed content
- Time of request
By continuously monitoring these and other parameters, teams can gain context into the reason for each service request. That allows them to detect suspicious behavior more accurately and respond to incidents more effectively.
Stages of Implementing Zero Trust
Implementing your own Zero Trust security architecture helps break it down into smaller pieces. Consider dividing your Zero Trust implementation into these substages:
- Visualize: The first step in your Zero Trust implementation is to gather information about your current resources and processes. Conduct a risk assessment to identify possible threat vectors and their urgency, and inventory your current IT assets.
- Mitigate: Once you’ve identified and prioritized the most pressing threats, begin implementing the protocols and control policies needed to minimize the damage of a potential cyberattack or to stop one before it occurs.
- Optimize: After you’ve laid the foundation, expand on your Zero Trust framework by applying it to each layer of your operations to maximize your access control.
As you go through each phase of your Zero Trust implementation, it’s important to consider the user experience. Take the steps needed to simplify your UX so that you can ensure user satisfaction—but not at the expense of security.
Benefits and ROI of Zero Trust
A successful Zero Trust implementation can yield multiple benefits for your operations, and it can bring a solid ROI along with it. A few benefits of Zero Trust include:
- Reduced attack surface and impact of breaches
- Minimized costs and complexity
- Enhanced security posture and compliance
With less susceptibility to breaches, a streamlined cybersecurity framework, and improved compliance, organizations that implement Zero Trust often find that they’re safer from cyberattacks and that their operations can run more efficiently as a result.
History and Evolution of Zero Trust
Organizations once thought their primary security need was to guard themselves from external threats, but that approach quickly proved inadequate. This model resulted in a cybersecurity defense system focused on providing security at the network layer, leaving defenses vulnerable once a threat actor gained initial access. Such threats could come from compromised user credentials, such as those obtained through phishing (the source of more than 90% of cyberattacks from May 2022 to May 2023) or from disgruntled employees on the inside.
Developed by Forrester’s John Kindervag alongside a team at Microsoft, Zero Trust recognized the vulnerabilities that the “trust but verify” model allows. Zero Trust seeks to establish security at every infrastructural layer rather than following the earlier “Cadbury egg” model of a hardened network shell with soft internal defenses. The concept wasn’t broadly adopted until 2020, but in an era when cyberattacks have become the norm, Zero Trust has been adopted by more and more organizations in recent years.
Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA)
The Zero Trust model is much more closely monitored than other architectures. It runs off multiple technologies, such as MFA, IAM, and cloud workload technology, as described earlier, but the logical components needed to enforce Zero Trust network access are:
- Policy engine (PE): This component controls the decisions that govern whether access is given to a resource or not. It relies on the enterprise policy and input from other parts of the security infrastructure.
- Policy administrator (PA): This component establishes communication between a requester and a resource and shuts that communication down, if necessary. It does so by authenticating credentials or security tokens before processing a session.
- Policy enforcement point (PEP): This component enables, monitors, and terminates connections between requesters and enterprise resources.
These logical components are powered by many data sources, ranging from continuous diagnostics and mitigation (CDM) systems to threat intelligence feeds, allowing comprehensive insight into the architecture. ZTNA also employs one-to-one encryption to prevent data from being intercepted in transit, building security into every operational layer.
Zero Trust Best Practices
Zero Trust is a comprehensive network security structure, so implementing it can be daunting. Consider following these best practices to integrate Zero Trust principles into your network security strategy:
- Monitor all network traffic and devices.
- Patch the most urgent vulnerabilities and apply updates consistently.
- Apply the principle of least privilege for each user.
- Incorporate threat intelligence and avoid user circumvention.
Before you implement your Zero Trust strategy, remember that this security model goes far beyond mere technology. Team members from every department must be educated on Zero Trust principles, such as how to spot phishing attempts and proper credential management, so be sure to provide plenty of education and secure corporate leadership’s buy-in from the start.
Implementation of Zero Trust Security
The Zero Trust security model is more circumspect than previous strategies. It employs a host of technologies designed to ensure user validity and mitigate the damage done by potential breaches, placing it at the forefront of cybersecurity.
The end-to-end nature of Zero Trust means that the initial setup can be complex. Still, organizations that carefully strategize their implementation process are sure to strengthen their cybersecurity posture. Working with technology partners well-versed in Zero Trust concepts can simplify the implementation tremendously, so reach out to us today to see how we can help.
How Netwrix Can Help
Netwrix’s Privileged Access Management (PAM) helps protect against external abuses and insider threats, improving your security posture without changing the way you work. This comprehensive solution works in accordance with Zero Trust principles by enforcing contextual multifactor authentication (MFA) for privileged sessions, minimizes risks by following the principle of least privilege, and offers detailed auditing capabilities to monitor and review privilege access activities.
FAQs
What does Zero Trust mean?
Zero Trust is a cybersecurity framework that assumes no person or service should be automatically granted access to an organization’s IT assets.
What is a Zero Trust model?
A Zero Trust model is a series of policies, frameworks, and protocols that attempt to build security into each layer of an organization’s digital infrastructure by demanding identity verification before granting any user privileges.
What is a Zero Trust network?
A Zero Trust network requires user validation with every access attempt.
What is a Zero Trust security model?
A Zero Trust security model is a network architecture using Zero Trust principles. It’s designed to minimize the risk of data breaches and downtime by limiting lateral movement, privilege escalation, and other malicious activity.
What is a Zero Trust architecture?
A Zero Trust architecture is a network security infrastructure built upon the principles of Zero Trust.
What is Zero Trust in cybersecurity?
In cybersecurity, Zero Trust is a network architecture model that aims to reduce an organization’s attack surface by denying all access requests until the requester’s identity and privilege level can be verified.
What is the Zero Trust framework?
Several industry standards exist to help organizations develop their own Zero Trust models, but the most common Zero Trust framework is NIST 800-207.
What is a Zero Trust policy?
Zero Trust policies are rules and protocols designed to verify a user’s identity and privilege level before granting access to a network, system, or other digital asset.
What are the five pillars of Zero Trust?
The five pillars of Zero Trust are:
- Identity
- Device
- Network
- Application and workload
- Data
What are the three principles of Zero Trust?
The three main Zero Trust principles are:
- Continuous verification
- Limiting the blast radius
- Automating context collection and response
