What is Zero Trust Security?

In the traditional security model, you assume that your staff and other users you granted access to are trustworthy. You trust them to log in to the network and access data responsibly.

For example, it's assumed that they will not intentionally share their password with others or use their credentials to access company resources outside of work hours. In a zero-trust model, however, you assume nothing about users—not even that they exist!

When users are added to your zero trust network, they’re given limited only access (for example, read-only permissions) until you can verify their identity and ensure that their devices have been properly secured before granting them full access rights.

What is Zero Trust?

Zero Trust is a security model that prioritizes detection over prevention.

In traditional security models, you're allowed to connect if you have the right credentials. With Zero Trust, every person and device trying to access your network must be not only identified but also verified every time before they can transmit any data on the network. The goal of zero trust is to prevent cyber threats by making it easy to spot an attacker early and shut down the attack before the damage can occur.

That is different from other security models because it focuses on stopping attacks proactively rather than detecting them after they've occurred (known as post-detection). The more advanced your threat detection capabilities are, the harder it will be for attackers to get around them without being caught in real-time by IT monitoring activity through centralized logs or alerts generated by various systems throughout an organization's infrastructure such as firewalls/NAT devices.

How does Zero Trust Model Work?

The Zero Trust model is based on the assumption that every user can be an attacker. It's a security approach that assumes that network access should be granted only after a rigorous authentication and verification process, and where all data within the network is treated as untrusted.

This shift in thinking requires new technologies to support it, such as multi-factor authentication, risk-based Access Control Lists (ACLs), insider threat detection mechanisms, and others. These technologies are essential to implementing a Zero Trust framework; without them, you'll be back to square one with traditional perimeter security approaches that allow anyone with physical access to your network access despite questionable behavior or intent.

Multi-factor authentication - The use of multiple factors when authenticating a user before they are allowed into an environment (e.g., using something you know like passwords or PINs along with something you have like tokens). This prevents insiders from masquerading as other employees in order to gain unauthorized access by stealing their credentials. Read more about it in our previous blog post: https://blog.noxity.io/what-is-multi-factor-authentication-mfa/

Multifactor authentication (MFA) is a strong second layer of security that adds an extra layer of protection to your account.

Risk-based access control lists (ACLs) - An ACL is a list of rules that determines what resources users can access within an environment. Typically these are applied to network resources like servers and applications, but they can also be used for processes such as data encryption or decryption. Rules can be based on user attributes like group membership or role, but they should also include parameters like location and time of day to ensure only those who are authorized have access at the right time.

Access analytics - Access analytics is the process of analyzing access events and alerts in order to identify potential threats. This can be done using a SIEM, or an access monitoring tool. When combined with user behavior analytics (UBA), which monitors what users are doing on your network, the two technologies together can help identify abnormal activity that might indicate a breach.

“Without big data analytics, companies are blind and deaf, wandering out onto the web like deer on a freeway.”
Geoffrey Moore

Encryption - Encryption is a way to protect data from being accessed by unauthorized individuals. Encryption can be used for both in-transit and at-rest protection, and it’s important to have both. For example, if a hacker steals your laptop with unencrypted data on it, they can access the information without needing any credentials. But if you have encryption enabled on your network, they won’t be able to access any of the data even if they get access to one of your devices.

Traditional security vs "new" Zero Trust security

Traditional security is based on a "perimeter" more commonly known as the "castle and moat" model. You trust the people outside the castle to be good and not attack you, so you put up walls around your castle. Additionally, you trust your own people inside the castle to be good, so you designate, you "lock" them into their rooms until they are needed for some task that requires trust.

Then, when someone tries to get in, they have to pass through checkpoints and gateways where they can be checked for bad or malicious intentions before entering the inner parts of your castle (infrastructure). This is all well and good until someone breaches one of those gates or checkpoints—by hacking into a system from outside or by pretending to be an allowed person from within. If this happens often enough, then it doesn't matter how many castles there are; attackers will always find new ways in if there's even one way open that hasn't been secured yet.

Zero Trust Security is an authentication-based approach to security in which a user’s identity, including attributes and roles as well as privileges assigned to each role (e.g., Owner), are considered before access is granted on the network or its resources.

Benefits of Zero Trust

1. Zero Trust Security can help prevent data breaches.

2. With the Zero Trust system in place, cybersecurity teams no longer have to store access credentials in one place. Instead, they can secure and manage these resources remotely—by offloading them to outside facilities known as “permissionless” authentication systems.

3. It improves overall security, which means a more secure environment for your users and employees. This also means less time spent on security issues, allowing you to focus on more pressing matters like new product development or R&D projects.

4. It improves user experience by making processes easier and simpler for end users since they don't have to jump through hoops or deal with frustrating logins every day.

5. And it reduces costs by eliminating the need for expensive firewalls or antivirus software—and it doesn't compromise compliance requirements either! In fact, Zero Trust Security is often used as part of compliance initiatives.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Zero Trust Security is a more secure way of protecting your organization. It uses a layered approach to security that helps prevent breaches and malicious attacks by requiring authentication for every action taken on your corporate network. What this means for you is less risk because every user has to prove their identity before accessing any data or applications.