Given the meteoritic rise in ransomware attacks during the pandemic and persistent cybersecurity challenges, the need for effective measures to protect sensitive data and IT environments from rising assaults is greater than ever. While zero-trust security architecture offers many potential benefits, adoption of this long-talked-about framework has been slow for various reasons. But with even the White House hitting the gas on zero trust, the timing could be right for more widespread implementation. Read on to learn about how your enterprise can overcome the hurdles and move to zero trust.
Zero trust, a framework for the design and implementation of IT security systems, has been in the market for quite some time now. First coined by Forrester, it gained popularity when Google announced the implementation of the zero-trust network through BeyondCorp after a series of cyber-attacks in 2009. Ever since the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) formalized the approach in late 2020, the computer security approach has become mainstream.
But despite the entire industry being widely familiar with the terminology and underlying principles and architecture, why has enterprise-level adoption lagged when the benefits outweigh the investment? Before we dive deep into the reasons behind this reluctance in the market, let’s explore the core tenets of a zero-trust security approach.
The guiding principle for zero trust is “never trust but always verify” and is built upon the following assertions:
- Every part of the network is potentially hostile
- Both external and internal threats always exist on the network
- Every device, user, and network flow must be authenticated and authorized and should not be trusted by default
- Limiting excessive user privileges should be the fundamental motto
- Micro perimeters/micro segmentation should be created around critical data, applications, and services
The key tenets of zero-trust security can be summarized as follows:
Why hasn’t zero trust been fully embraced?
Even though security leaders across product vendors as well as analyst firms have been preaching the benefits of a zero-trust security approach across enterprise cybersecurity, adoption hasn’t picked up. Among the key enterprise challenges and the apprehensions by security leaders surrounding its wide-scale adoption are:
- Misconception of zero trust as another technology solution: The most common problem that we have seen in enterprise cybersecurity teams is their belief that any new challenge can be best solved by implementing a new technology or solution. The love for a new solution is so strong that enterprise leaders often forget that zero trust is a concept that does not have a single solution. Enterprises are often lured by the marketing gimmicks of product vendors that provide some aspect of zero-trust security through the solution. This results in either lower or no effect of the promises made by the zero-trust security approach
- Challenges of network micro segmentation: One of the key aspects of zero-trust security is focused on protecting the networks and the associated recommendations in the network architecture by breaking down the erstwhile monolithic perimeters into micro perimeters to concentrate on granular security controls and access. Given a large number of applications, their dependencies, services, and the users involved, it becomes challenging to implement and maintain micro perimeters. Enterprises with disparate security controls and network products are subsequently unable to provide end-to-end visibility
- Complexity in brownfield implementations: There is no doubt that zero trust can be best adopted in greenfield security projects, given the existing IT landscapes are so vast and complex. But a single change can cause great havoc and a ripple effect across the enterprise systems if not implemented correctly. While enterprises are expected to take a step-by-step approach rather than a rip-and-replace approach, many organizations that started this journey were left devastated in their approach to rebuild the network by undertaking a massive one-shot effort. The challenge also comes in integrating existing capabilities with new solutions to implement new capabilities to extend zero trust across the enterprise IT
- Myth that zero trust is for on-premises: Enterprises have been grappling with a long-running myth that the entire concept of zero-trust security is centered around the building blocks of enterprise IT if they are located within enterprise distributed control systems (DCS) as most of the existing research talks about not trusting everything within their corporate networks. Also, some enterprises still do not think of cloud security as a shared responsibility model with the hyperscalers and hence do not plan to extend the zero-trust security approach to the cloud, thus leaving their assets on cloud and multi-cloud architectures at risk
Six Key Considerations for Enterprises Moving Ahead in the Zero Trust Journey
Zero trust can offer many benefits beyond improved data protection and greater compliance, including greater visibility across the enterprise, security for the growing remote workforce post-pandemic, and an improved end-user experience.
Here are some recommendations for moving ahead:
- Take a step-by-step approach for a long journey: While zero trust adoption can lead to a significant business transformation, framework adoption does not necessarily translate into a radical overhaul of existing cyber capabilities. Enterprises must understand that zero trust needs to be thought of as a journey to implement the strategic changes
- Establish the current baseline: Just like other security implementations, understanding what and why is of the utmost importance to see the benefits of following this path. Start by identifying the crown jewels – data and workloads – and create a security policy and control framework. The idea is not to give hackers an opportunity to start an attack
- Leverage the existing cybersecurity stack: Reuse the existing investments made for threat detection, identity and access management, network, endpoint, and data security to integrate with the zero-trust security approach. Focus on preventing any cloud misconfigurations and put an end to visibility of data, policy, and communication between apps, infrastructure, network, and other components in the environment
- Understand that trust is never guaranteed: Enterprises must understand that trust is not guaranteed by any solution but needs to be verified at policy enforcement points before access is provided
- Combine zero trust with the broader digital transformation umbrella: Enterprises can combine zero trust transformation along with their IT digital transformation initiatives (including cloud and data center migration) to extract significant synergies and remove the hurdles of adopting zero trust in brownfield implementations
- Embrace the change: The entire journey will only be successful if all the stakeholders in the organization are ready to embrace the new ways of working in a dynamic and adaptive cyber organization with close collaboration between business and technology stakeholders
If the right cybersecurity measures are not implemented, attacks will only become more frequent and successful. Enterprises should put faith in zero trust as a security model that can provide greater protection in today’s high-risk environment.
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