Why is Zero Trust security the way forward

It’s the question most IT admins are asking themselves these days, “Why is Zero Trust security the way forward?” And the answer is more straightforward than you might think. Previously, when provisioning and setting rules for your networks, you might have allowed automatic trust of devices that pass authentication once or are connected from a trusted location. But that’s all changing. Now, Zero Trust is becoming the default standard and it’s helping to protect businesses in big ways.

What is Zero Trust?

This framework, developed in 2010, is fairly simple. It assumes ill intent at its core, and it errs on the side of caution. Zero Trust is a security concept centred on the belief that [organisations] should not automatically trust anything inside or outside its perimeters and instead must verify anything and everything trying to connect to its systems before granting access.” And that’s not just a one and done thing. Every single time the validity and necessity of a connection including the access level should be challenged and access shouldn’t be granted for extended periods. This prevents bad actors from moving without restraint within a network should they get access to it somehow. And it makes getting that access even harder.

What’s the benefit?

Cisco breaks it down succinctly. To reduce the risk of an insider threat, a [Zero Trust Architecture] ZTA can:

• Prevent a compromised account or system from accessing resources outside of how it’s intended
• MFA for network access can reduce the risk of access from a compromised account
• Prevent compromised accounts or systems from moving laterally through the network
• Using context to detect any access activity outside of the norm and block account or system access”

And this means your architecture is better protected against attacks. Traditional security approaches assume that anything inside the corporate network can be trusted. The reality is that this assumption no longer holds true, thanks to mobility, BYOD (bring your own device), IoT, cloud adoption, increased collaboration, and a focus on business resiliency. A zero-trust model considers all resources to be external and continuously verifies trust before granting only the required access. So, it’s likely that Zero Trust will be the default configuration of the future as more and more companies balance modern workforces.

What’s the impact?

In general, the average cost of a cyber attack in 2020 was around $133,000. That is the total average of all types of cyberattacks. With such lucrative end results for hackers and other malicious actors, it comes as no surprise that cybercrime costs have grown 15% per year annually over the last 5 years. So, taking simple measures like moving to a Zero Trust framework can do a lot to prevent these damages to your bottom line. That’s not to mention the cost to your productivity, team resources, customer reputation and more that come from involvement with a breach. So, it’s a good idea to prioritise modern security solutions sooner rather than late.

If you’re ready to have that conversation, our team is standing by. Let us help you scope and deploy an effective Zero Trust architecture today.