Zero Trust Security: A Comprehensive Guide

“Zero Trust is a collection of concepts and ideas designed to minimize uncertainty in enforcing accurate, least privilege per-request access decisions in information systems and services in the face of a network viewed as compromised.”

- National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)

Imagine a world without cyber threats. No hackers, malicious insiders, or data leaks — no reason to worry at all. You might not even have a security team in the first place.

But that's not even in the realm of today's reality where threat vectors are numerous, your attack surface is expanding, your sensitive data is being targeted, and the next data breach is right around the corner.

The good news is that secure access isn’t just a pipe dream. By implementing the principles of Zero Trust, you can confidently protect your corporate assets and mitigate the obstacles of today’s rapidly evolving business environment.

Read on to learn the importance of Zero Trust, how it benefits enterprise security, and what your organization can do to successfully transition to a Zero Trust architecture.

Former Forrester analyst John Kindervag developed the concept of Zero Trust security in 2010. He defined it as a security model that assumes every connection, device, and user is a potential threat and should be treated as such.

In contrast to most other cybersecurity strategies, it eliminates implicit trust and requires all users, whether in or outside the organization, to be continuously authenticated before they’re granted network access. Simply put, Zero Trust is just as it sounds: a security policy under which nobody — regardless of role or responsibility — is inherently assumed to be safe.

Additionally, the Zero Trust model rejects the assumption of a network edge. In today's landscape, the traditional perimeter has now shifted to a series of micro-perimeters. Networks for example, can be local, in the cloud, or a combination of the two. Plus, with the rise of remote access, there’s almost no telling where a resource may be located.

So, the Zero Trust approach is specifically designed to address modern data security challenges, ensuring secure access to critical assets at any time and place. Broadly speaking, a Zero Trust network will do the following:

• Log and inspect all traffic to identify suspicious activity and potential threat vectors
• Limit and control user access, authorizing requests only after the user identity has been confirmed
• Verify and secure corporate assets to prevent unauthorized access and exposure

Enterprises are facing an unprecedented volume of cyber threats, both internally and externally. Cybercriminals have significantly ramped up their efforts, now targeting sensitive data at an unrelenting pace.

In fact, by the end of 2023, there were an average of over 1,000 attacks per organization every week. In 2023, 1 in every 10 organizations worldwide was hit by attempted ransomware attacks, a 33% increase over the previous year.

Unsurprisingly, cybercriminals haven’t let up even a little bit. According to PwC data, 43% of executives rank mitigating cyber risks as their second highest risk mitigation priority behind digital and technology risks.

Complicating things further, organizations have rapidly adopted remote and hybrid work policies in recent years. This has led to an explosion of personal, unmanaged devices connecting to the corporate network, thereby increasing the enterprise’s attack surface.

With no ability to secure or monitor sensitive data stored and accessed by these endpoints, organizations are at a greater risk of data breach than ever before. This is especially significant considering the staggering price of poor threat protection. As IBM reports, the average cost of a single data breach is $4.5 million. However, those implementing a Zero Trust security model save over $1 million per incident.

Enterprises should also consider the risks associated with digital transformation. With more reliance on off-premises, cloud-based applications, businesses must implement new, sophisticated strategies for access control and security policy enforcement.

Traditional strategies take a “trust, but verify” approach. In other words, they assume that everything behind the corporate firewall is inherently safe and secure.

Zero Trust security, as the name implies, does the opposite. It frames access policies through a "Never Trust, Always Verify" lens. Regardless of where a request originates or what resource it aims to use, Zero Trust environments will fully authenticate, authorize, and encrypt before granting network access — never afterward.

Therefore, corporate resources are inaccessible by default. Your employees can only use them under the right circumstances, as determined by a number of contextual factors. These can include user identity, role at the organization, the sensitivity of the resource requested, the device in use, and so on.

As outlined by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Special Publication 800-207, the Zero Trust approach is based on several core philosophies. Fundamentally, there are three Zero Trust principles integral to this unique security policy:

• Continuous Authentication: This refers to the means of granting secure access based on acceptable levels of risk. In alignment with the Zero Trust approach, you must authorize users based on identity, location, device, service, workload, data classification, and so on. After this contextual analysis, the user can either be simply allowed or prompted to provide additional information via another authentication challenge, or if the risk is very high, they are blocked.
• Assume breach: Organizations should always assume a data breach. That means they must continually segment the network at a granular level to reduce or limit their attack surface, verify end-to-end traffic, and maximize visibility into user/device activity. This empowers them to drive threat detection, spot anomalies, and always improve their defenses.
• Least Privilege Access: Access should be limited based on just-in-time and just-enough access control policies. In other words, users and/or devices should only have permission to use the resources they need to do their jobs and complete critical tasks.

In 2021, the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) created a roadmap to provide direction for federal agencies implementing Zero Trust. This document is known as the Zero Trust Maturity Model and can be leveraged by organizations as one of many paths to designing and implementing their own Zero Trust practice around the following risk areas:

• Identity: This area focuses on verifying and authorizing users and devices before granting network access. It may include implementing an identity and access management (IAM) solution or multi-factor authentication (MFA).
• Devices: Any device – from IoT to personal mobile devices – connected to the corporate network can be exploited to compromise sensitive data. This pillar involves creating an inventory of all connections and monitoring their integrity for rapid threat detection.
• Networks: A Zero Trust network secures all traffic regardless of location or resource and segments itself to limit lateral movement.
• Applications & Workloads: This pillar involves protecting on-premises and cloud-based workloads through application-level access policies and other mechanisms.
• Data: All data at rest, in use, or in motion is encrypted, monitored, and secured to prevent unauthorized disclosure.

It’s important to note that there’s no such thing as a one-and-done Zero Trust solution or vendor. Zero Trust is a cultural shift and mindset, in addition to technology. And when it comes to technology, enterprises will require a variety of tools, often layered to form a Zero Trust architecture (ZTA).

At a high level, some of these technologies include:

• Behavioral biometrics
• Risk-based adaptive authentication
• Micro-segmentation
• Contextual awareness
• Single sign-on (SSO)
• Passwordless login

While Zero Trust as a term has been around quite some time, real direction as to how it should be implemented is still fairly new. Many organizations are gearing up to dive headfirst into its principles, however. In fact, the 2024 State of Zero Trust & Encryption Study showed 61% of organizations surveyed by the Ponemon Institute have begun their own Zero Trust journey. Plus, Gartner predicts that by 2026 at least 10% of large enterprises will have a mature and measurable Zero Trust architecture.

Once you consider the advantages, it’s clear to see why this is the case. A robust Zero Trust security policy empowers you to:

• Reduce organizational risk by minimizing implicit trust and moving beyond traditional network security
• Support compliance by safeguarding sensitive data and mitigating threat vectors
• Protect multi- and hybrid-cloud deployments with application-level access control
• Replace or augment a VPN to strengthen remote access and encryption
• Rapidly onboard employees and scale your business with the confidence that the attack surface is well-defended

Generally speaking, the implementation process can be broken down into a few basic steps:

1. Identify the Protect Surface: In other words, evaluate all critical assets — including endpoints, users, applications, servers, and data centers — that hackers might target.
2. Map Where Your Data Resides and its Flows: This allows you to inspect and verify network transactions to ensure that only the right users and applications have access to the right assets.
3. Take an Identity-First Approach: Without the traditional security perimeter, identity is the new perimeter and is now at the forefront of data security. Thus, certificate-based and identity and access management technologies are key to keeping your critical assets out of the wrong hands.
4. Monitor, Maintain, and Improve: Continuously monitoring your environment not only streamlines risk detection, but also allows you to proactively spot vulnerabilities and mitigate them in real time. For credentials like keys, certificates, and secrets, lifecycle management and automation are a necessity.

It should be noted that implementing Zero Trust takes time and is not without its obstacles. With a wide array of policies, procedures, and technologies required, the process is often a multi-year endeavor.

Additionally, legacy systems pose another daunting challenge, as many older tools can’t work with or support some Zero Trust principles. Replacing existing security controls and modernizing tech can be an expensive process, and financial constraints could introduce additional barriers.

Given these factors, it’s best to take a phased and iterative approach. By taking your time and making incremental changes, your security posture will improve and strengthen over time.

Check out this guide for more details on how to implement Zero Trust.

At Entrust, we know that Zero Trust is a best practice for enterprise cybersecurity. That’s why we’ve developed a portfolio of solutions that can provide a strong foundation to develop your Zero Trust architecture.

Collectively, our solution is designed to cover the bases and keep you protected across three critical components:

• Phishing-Resistant Identities: Stolen and compromised credentials are two of the most common root causes of data breaches. We combine MFA, passwordless security, adaptive control policies, biometrics, and other tools to mitigate the risk of identity-based attacks.
• Protect Critical Infrastructure: With data constantly moving across public and private networks, and an increasing number of users and machines trying to gain access, these connections and entities need to be secured. Digital certificates are a key component to achieving a mature and resilient security practice by providing strong identity, encryption, and signing while enforcing access control.
• Secure Data: Our portfolio encrypts data at rest, in use, and in motion while also maintaining a decentralized key infrastructure. This ensures confidentiality, integrity, and secure access while also meeting strict compliance requirements.

More than just a provider, we’re your partner every step of the way.