Security Concerns Zero Trust Aims to Address

Technological advancement is happening at a faster pace than ever before, and these rapid advancements continue to fundamentally shift the way businesses operate. As a result, it has become clear that traditional security methods, which primarily focus on establishing barriers around network perimeters, are now falling short of providing adequate protection. The way in which we work has changed, along with the way we do business – so too, must our approach to security.

Providing a new and innovative approach, a security model known as Zero Trust challenges the more outdated methods previously adopted. Zero Trust aims to resolve the security challenges faced by organisations in today's rapidly expanding business landscape. To fully understand Zero Trust and its appeal, we need to discuss the very challenges that Zero Trust is designed to counter.

Most modern businesses now operate amidst a landscape charged with advanced cyber threats. These threats often exploit weak links, move laterally through connected networks, and exfiltrate valuable data. A large part of implementing Zero Trust is controlling lateral movement.

Lateral movement refers to the techniques that cyber attackers use to progressively move through a network in search of key assets and data. This concept embodies the strategic steps that an attacker takes post gaining access to the network, whereby the goal is movement from one system to another to gain escalated privileges and deeper access.

In essence, lateral movement involves obtaining and exploiting credentials with escalating permissions to eventually reach valuable target data, which typically resides in servers that have been well segmented from the rest of the network. Without moving laterally through the network, access to this information for most attackers would be increasingly difficult.

To initiate lateral movement, attackers can employ various tactics including remote execution on compromised systems, pass-the-hash/ticket attacks, abuse of file shares, or use of tools such as PowerShell for command and control. These tactics leverage valid credentials harvested from compromised systems which bolster the appearance of legitimacy and consequently aids in evasion.

For example, as a first step to achieving lateral movement, cybercriminals may target an individual for their credentials. They may do this by leveraging advanced attack vectors like phishing or spear-phishing. Once they have these credentials, they can then use these to bypass traditional security barriers by faking a trusted identity.

As organisations face the challenge of securing a myriad of devices from which credentials can be gained, such as smartphones, tablets, and Internet of Things (IoT) devices etc. the attack surface exponentially expands. This is important to understand when you consider, a single compromised device can pose a risk to the entire ecosystem.

Where an organisation that has been compromised suffers from poor visibility into these security risks, or to the activity on their network, then these risks can become even more potent. The longer a cybercriminal can remain on a network without detection, the more opportunity there is for them to become more advanced and stealthier. Without controls that can provide strong visibility, detecting and mitigating many of these threats becomes a daunting task.

So how does Zero Trust Mitigates these Risks?

To mitigate these risks, Zero Trust architecture adopts a "never trust, always verify" approach. It achieves this by.

1. Firstly, implementing granular network segmentation. Zero Trust counters lateral movement threats by restricting network access to small segments or 'micro-perimeters'. By doing this, Zero Trust reduces the potential for a single compromised point to infect the entire network.
2. Zero Trust also implements context-aware authorisation. With context aware authorisation, Zero Trust leverages user behavior analytics, location, time, and device security posture to authenticate and authorise users. Doing this ensures that stolen credentials cannot be used maliciously.
3. A Zero Trust strategy extends to all devices connecting to the organisation's network by treating every device as a potential threat, demanding the same rigorous verification procedures for each. Treating each device this way ensures compromised devices are quickly isolated to prevent the spread of threats.
4. Zero Trust also encrypts data, at rest or in transit. This prevents any classified information from being compromised, even if the network is breached.
5. Zero Trust can also secure workloads by offering extended visibility and adapting security policies as per the workload requirements. This prevents unauthorised access and ensures real-time protection. In the context of Zero Trust, a workload typically refers to the computing tasks that a software application, or a system, performs. This can include various operations such as processing data, delivering applications, general system management tasks etc.
6. With Zero Trust, security teams gain a single, unified view of the security risks across their entire network, enabling them to quickly detect and mitigate threats.
7. Zero Trust also employs rich APIs to automate routine security tasks, incident responses, and threat investigations. This results in better security efficiency and response times.

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When we discuss Zero Trust, we are discussing a solution that can provide an all-inclusive security approach. This approach of continuous validation reshapes how organisations should perceive and manage security in their networks. Though its implementation may be challenging, the long-term benefits in maintaining data integrity, reducing security risks, and fostering customer trust cannot be understated. Organisations wanting to secure their network should embrace Zero Trust as the new cybersecurity norm.