Zero: Computer networks and data are the lifeblood of most companies today. But allowing access to those critical resources also creates major security risks if not properly controlled. According to the experts at Hillstone Networks, this is where zero trust network access (ZTNA) comes in; providing a smarter, safer way to secure your business’ digital assets.
The Dangers of Open Access
In the past, many businesses used an outdated “trust but verify” network security model. Once users were authenticated, they essentially had wide open lateral access across the entire network and its resources. Unfortunately, this creates a massive risk; if bad actors manage to get past the front door through stolen credentials or other sneaky methods, they can easily move around and cause all kinds of havoc.
The zero-trust philosophy takes the opposite stance; “never trust, always verify.” No user or device is automatically trusted, even if already inside the network perimeter. This inside-out approach prevents threat actors from freely roaming if they get an initial foothold.
Limiting Lateral Movement
Under the zero-trust model, each user, device, application and environment is constantly authenticated, authorized and encrypted, making lateral movement extremely difficult for cyber attackers. Instead of mapping out flat corporate networks, zero trust micro-segments access down to individual micro-perimeters around specific resources or services.
So even if malware infects one employee’s machine on the network, its ability to move laterally and compromise other critical systems is greatly limited. This micro-segmentation thwarts many major cyberattack tactics, like server hijacking and credential theft.
Safer Remote Access
The pandemic forced many companies to rapidly scale up remote work capabilities. But extending legacy corporate VPNs to provide remote employees access opened up new security gaps that criminals quickly took advantage of. Poor VPN security has been a common attack vector.
In contrast, zero trust network access (ZTNA) solutions provide a secure, more granular way to enable remote workforce productivity without increasing risk. Rather than exposing internal apps and data over VPNs, ZTNA brokers individual app connections through encrypted tunnels after verifying multiple factors about each user session.
Continuous Verification
Another key advantage of zero trust is its ongoing risk evaluation and adaptive enforcement based on real-time contextual factors. Unlike traditional remote access set-and-forget tactics, zero trust continuously monitors and re-verifies trust for each session, allowing it to immediately revoke least-privilege access if any violation is detected.
Zero trust solutions dynamically assess device security posture, user behaviors, time/location and other context for potential risk before granting or keeping connectivity. If anything seems fishy, like an impossible location change or device vulnerability, it can automatically trigger step-up authentication or deny access to enforce least-privilege principles.
Unified Hybrid Cloud Security
With businesses leveraging an ever-growing mix of on-prem data centers, public clouds, and remote workers, maintaining consistent security controls across this distributed footprint is nightmarishly complex. Hybrid environments dramatically increase security overhead and risk.
Zero trust helps solve this by decoupling access policies from the physical network infrastructure. ZTNA solutions provide unified visibility, policy management and granular access enforcement from a centralized cloud console, spanning user populations, devices, apps, data centers and clouds.
Instead of having to stitch together a patchwork of disparate VPNs or security controls across each environment, IT gains simplified centralized control and audit capabilities over their entire hybrid attack surface. This greatly reduces overhead and misconfiguration risks.
Conclusion (Zero)
While implementing a robust zero trust architecture requires an upfront investment, it pays immense security dividends in our modern threat landscape of remote workers, digital supply chains, and an eroding traditional network perimeter. The core essence of “never trust, always verify” shields businesses from becoming the next high-profile breach.
