Zero trust frameworks have been around for a long time. However, it is only recently that they have taken the centre stage of security. Organisations have started recognising zero trust as a tool to prevent cyberattacks and use it as a framework to protect their systems. In the Zero Trust Adoption Report 2021, 96% of more than 1,200 security decision-makers who were interviewed over a 12-month timeframe state that Zero Trust is critical to their organization’s success.
The zero trust architecture is a simple implementation of not trusting any device or person before granting them access to the network. It is based on the ‘verify explicitly, use least privileged access, and assume breach’ concept. A comprehensive zero trust architecture safeguards within and across endpoints, apps, infrastructure, network, and data. While there is no single approach to implement zero trust, the process of building a zero trust environment is a simple one. Here’s how you can implement and maintain zero trust in your organisation:
5 Steps To Implement Zero Trust In Your Organisation
1. Identify The Surface
The first step towards deploying zero trust is to identify the ‘protect surface’. Focus on the critical data, sensitive information and assets of the organisation that needs utmost protection rather than looking it at from the macro level. This can help you minimize your security efforts and maximise the protection of high priority systems and networks. It is indeed a calculated step that defines how the security implementation will chalk out at the end.
2. Map the Flow
Once the surface has been identified, the next step is to map the network flow. A contextual insight into how the interdependencies of your network interact can help in this mapping. Since systems and users access it all the time, it is important to know the routes your data takes to effectively defend it. IT teams must define how the data flows from one point to another at this stage of implementation in order to jump to the next step where we lay the zero trust architecture.
3. Define Zero Trust Architecture
Every organisation needs to design their own zero trust network architecture. This is where you manage the controls to ensure a legitimate flow of data and its access according to your data needs. There is no one-size-fits-all architecture as every enterprise can customise boundaries between the different zones and segments and guarantee that the data is being protected within the framework. However, the architecture doesn’t necessarily have to be disruptive to employees’ normal work processes. It can very well be in the background where users don’t see it at all.
4. Create A Policy Framework
At this stage, enterprises need to create a framework of policies that can guide each member with access to the network. It is essential to define “who, what, when, where, why and how the data is managed within the architecture of zero trust. Such granular policy enforcement allows traffic to flow smoothly and ensures legitimate application communication. Additionally, organisations should implement strong measures for multi-user authentication and verified devices along with laying down the policy framework.
5. Monitor And Maintain
The final step in the implementation is to make sure all operations, external and internal, are being monitored and maintained. Being an iterative process, zero trust framework inspects and logs all traffic to provide insights that can be utilised later to analyse how we can protect the data in a better way. Therefore, it becomes a pivotal point for security leaders to continuously monitor and maintain the zero trust architecture and suggest improvements along the way.
Zero trust is a data-centric concept that protects your assets from malicious activities and provides regular insights that can help in restructuring the policies and frameworks. It is a strategy that aims to guide us to “never trust, always verify.” It has become a top security priority for organizations aiming to improve their overall security posture, simplify security procedures, and reduce costs.
