With the increasing threat landscape and increased demands on data security, the zero trust security model has gained significantly in popularity among companies.
Most traditional approaches to network security focus on strong protections against unauthorized access. Their weakness, however, is the trust that users and entities automatically enjoy as soon as they are in the network. Because if cybercriminals succeed in gaining access to the network, there is often very little that prevents them from moving freely there and smuggling sensitive data out. The zero trust concept therefore suggests that all access should remain blocked until the network has verified the user and confirmed the reason for his stay in the network.
Implementation of the zero trust model
Many companies today have critical data stored in the cloud. This makes it all the more important to properly verify and authorize users before gaining access. In addition, with the huge increase in mobile devices, it is easier than ever for employees to access sensitive data from anywhere, anytime, making it necessary to regulate access at all levels with a zero trust policy.
Zero Trust is based on creating a secure environment through continuous infrastructure transformation. The security team should introduce multi-factor authentication for access to different microsegments of the network. This ensures a high level of security and effectively makes it difficult for hackers to obtain all of the information they need to access a user's account.
Focus on risk management
The concept also focuses on a distinctive risk management based on anomaly detection and data analysis. Technologies for analyzing user behavior, endpoint detection and response (EDR) and data loss prevention (DLP) support the detection of suspicious behavior or block unauthorized access to sensitive data. This helps contain security threats and enables them to be quickly detected and countered.
Granular protection against insider threats
Zero Trust Networking is an additional part of the Zero Trust model, which is designed to stop lateral movements within the corporate network. This can prevent a user from accessing them even if they are at the same corporate level as a colleague who has legitimate access. It does this by adding perimeters for verification at every step within the network. Micro-segmentation is used and granular perimeters are added at critical points in the network to prevent a malicious insider from accessing the company's most sensitive data and system processes. Zero Trust Networking eliminates the disadvantage of the traditional perimeter-based security model by completely abolishing general trust in internal users and instead increasing the security of sensitive data and critical processes in a company.
Effective Zero Trust: Security from within
Zero Trust begins granting user access only for the time it takes employees to complete a specific task, in accordance with the company's applicable policies. This requires the implementation of various technologies, including multifactor authentication, scoring, analytics, file system permissions, and orchestration. However, Zero Trust is about more than just using the right technology. The model also develops security parameters by understanding how important business processes of a company are linked to the respective employees and their ways of working and thinking and thus offers security that is designed from within.
The main benefit of the zero trust security model is that it helps organizations overcome the limitations of perimeter-based security. By regularly reviewing user access, an effective new barrier is created to protect applications, processes and data against malicious insiders as well as against external attackers.
More on this at DigitalGuardian.com
Via Digital Guardian Digital Guardian offers uncompromising data security. The data protection platform provided from the cloud was specially developed to prevent data loss from insider threats and external attackers on the Windows, Mac and Linux operating systems. The Digital Guardian Data Protection Platform can be used for the entire corporate network, traditional endpoints and cloud applications. For more than 15 years, Digital Guardian has made it possible for companies with high data volumes to protect their most valuable resources using SaaS or a fully managed service. With Digital Guardian's unique policy-less data transparency and flexible controls, organizations can protect their data without slowing down their business.