Zero Trust Model : A Security Strategy to Protect Critical Systems

By


Image :logrhythm
Zero Trust model is a comprehensive security model that aims to protect critical systems and sensitive data. The foundation of Zero Trust model is that it does not trust anyone including internal users behind a firewall. It does not allow access or perform a transaction by any user, without due authorization. Zero trust assumes that every attempt to access the network, applications or data as a threat until due authentication and authorization is confirmed.

The prime purpose of Zero Trust archetecture is to prevent data breaches. It provides organisations higher visibility of their data and user activities related to data, and gives the ability to detect suspicious behaviors that may cause a potential data leak.

Zero Trust framework requires all users to be identified, authenticated, authorized and continuesly validated to access applications and data on the network. It follows strict user and device identity verification process  when attempting to access network resources regardless of access level of the user. The zero trust model assumes that each user either external or internal could be a potential attacker, hence challenges the user to prove who they are and level of authorization. As Zero trust model challenges even the internal users, an attacker gaining access to a network may not be able to access applications within the network.

Zero Trust security involves multiple technologies and processes, which aimed to ensure data security by detecting abnormal data access that may  lead to a major data breach.

Zero trust strategy adopts the least-privilege access model by limiting user access to  minimal resources essential to perform their job, hence limits acccess to data in the organization on need to know basis.

Zero trust makes navigating between networks extremely difficult by segmenting the network and  isolating traffic using next-gen firewalls.

humans are vulnerable to social engineering attacks, despite effectively hardened security, hence becomes the weakest link in your security strategy. Zero trust security strategies enabled monitoring, limiting, and  enforcing strict access to applications and data by internal and external users. It continuesly verifies all user activities and log them for further review. For example traditional applications authenticates and authorize users only once at login, but zero trust policy authenticates and check authorization at every access. 

End point devices like smartphones, IoT, laptops are  potential attack points that hackers might exploit. In a Zero Trust environment, they are isolated, secured, controlled and monitored against potential threats.

Zero trust tools help advanced threat detection and user behavior analytics to identify abnormal behavior in real-time. 

In a Zero trust cyber security environment:

  • All users require secure and authenticated access to all resources.
  • Organisations adopt a least-privilege model for access control.
  • The access and group memberships are audited on a regular schedule.

When implementing zero trust model:

  • Identify sensitive data to deploy protection measures. 
  • Limit access to data based on sensitivity. 
  • Audit access permissions based on individual, group, and organizational levels.
  • Detect suspicious activity and threats by monitoring access, loging  and  analytics 


Niranjan Meegammana 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The 7 Layers of Cyber Security : Attacks on OSI model

By
Image
Source : wallarm The OSI network  communications model is made of  7 layers. Each layer  handles a specific process to enable reliable communication between two or more devices. When the Internet was designed, its focus was on ensuring of reliable communications. The challenges of communication security emerged later.  These 7 layers act like a chain of links. If one lnk breaks, the whole chain of communication breaks. Hence security threat can happen at any of the 7 layers.  These layers are named as Application, Presentation, Session, Transport, Network, Data link and Physical layer. The application layer is your email application, physical layer is your communication cable, and everything else is in between help you communicate. In abstract the application layer provides user interface, while presentation layer handle formating, encoding and encryption. The session layer manages connections. The transport layer handles segmentation, sequencing, and establishi...
Read more

Best Practices for secure Software Development

By
Image
image : OpenSense Labs Are you aware of the  Solarwinds attack in 2020? The hackers exploited software vulnerabilities of Orion IT monitoring and management software used by thousands of enterprises and government agencies. This hack triggered a larger scale supply chain incident which affected thousands of organizations, including the U.S. government. The attackers infliltrated the Solarwinds network, and infected the software used for Network monitoring before it shipped to customers.This insident and many more warn us on the importance of building secure software.  Secure software development is a methodology used for creating robust software by incorporating security practices into every stage of the software development life cycle (SDLC). It begins at planning stage before a single line of code is written, and continue through the life cycle. A bug fixing at implementation stage cost six times than fixing it during design stage. Every new feature added, may carry series o...
Read more

ISO 27001 ISMS in a Nutshell

By
Image
Image : ISO The ISO 27001 certification is the most comprehensive  information security standard recognized globally. It ensures standardizing of your organisation's information security strategies to ensure confidentiality, integrity and availability of your systems and data to conduct your business effectively.  Gaining the certification is a journey with several milestones. It is a carefully planned systematic activity that transforms an organisation to a secure entity,  where everyone becomes a stakeholder in information security. Follow this processes to get to your goal successfully. Step 1. Obtain Management Support . This is the most critical requirement to achieve ISO 27001 status. Your ISMS project will definitely fail if it does not receive to management support. The management should provide, people, money and strategic direction for your ISMS to be a success story. In the sections below you’ll find some tips on how to convince your management, and how much th...
Read more