Zero Trust Security: How to get started in 2023

10 Jul Zero Trust Security: How to get started in 2023

Posted at 07:00h in Zero Trust Security by Simon Spencer

Zero trust security is a security framework that helps protect your organisation against malicious threats. With zero trust security, you can easily ensure that nobody who has access to your most sensitive data has access without verifying that they are exactly who they say they are.

In this article, we’re going to go over the ins and outs of zero trust security and the principles that the framework comes with, as well as how you can get started implementing zero trust into your organisation today.

What is Zero Trust?

Zero trust security is a security framework that, at an organisational level, requires all users to be authenticated, authorised, and validated throughout their session within your IT systems — without doing so, they will not have access to any data.

This framework assumes and establishes a rule that no network is deemed safe or acceptable for access alone, meaning that verification will be required for whoever needs access to your systems.

With so many companies digitally transforming and moving to hybrid working solutions, your employees will need to be able to access your systems from home or anywhere else — which opens up vulnerabilities to potential hackers. With zero trust, you allow your organisation to still be able to ensure that remote working is an option without exposing these vulnerabilities.

With estimates being that zero trust reduces the cost of a data breach by $1M, it can definitely save your organisation from any glaring vulnerabilities when it comes to moving forward into the modern world — zero trust is a security framework that works well with modern infrastructures and systems.

Whereas before — using the ‘trust but verify’ method — users would be able to verify once, organisations that use zero trust now make sure to constantly check that the person within their systems is who they say they are.

Zero trust uses the following entities in real-time to ensure that any user within your organisation is constantly being verified —

User identity and type of credentials
Credential privileges
Normal connections for the specific credentials and device
Endpoint hardware type and functionality
Geolocation
Firmware details
Authentication protocol
OS versions and patch levels
Applications installed
Smart security or incident detection software that will be able to pick up suspicious activity.

Principles of Zero Trust

These key principles — following the NIST 800-207 guidelines — are the standard for zero trust for most organisations.

Specifically, the NIST guidelines ensure that the guidelines are up-to-date and suitable for a modern hybrid organisation, while also encompassing other elements from other organisations’ zero trust frameworks like Gartner and Forrester.

These guidelines are officially the guidelines that U.S. Federal Agencies have to follow under executive order — from the Biden administration in 2021.

This means that this specific framework has gone through lots of hands to ensure that it’s the top standard for the U.S. Government, hence why it is generally considered to be the standard.

Continuous Verification

Constant verification of access and credentials at all times is the first principle, as zero trust is essentially built on a system of verification.

By ensuring that everyone within your system is constantly verified, you reduce the risk of a breach by someone external that could go under the radar as a spoof or a mimic of another user.

Minimise the Impact of a Breach

The next principle is ensuring that each breach has minimal impact on your organisation.

By carefully monitoring and planning, the aim for this is to isolate the breach and minimise the wider impact by ensuring that it doesn’t gain wider access as quickly as possible.

Automate Context Collection, Detection and Response

Automation is a great way to swiftly and correctly collate information and have it available — no need for human input means no human error.

By doing so, you can use the data in real time to be able to respond to a threat.

The Journey to Zero Trust

As with any framework, implementing zero trust within your organisation is a multi-step process that will require analysis and strategy to be able to use effectively.

Reaching out to a verified partner will give you support in ensuring that every step that’s taken is the correct one.

Discover

The first step in implementing zero trust within your organisation is identifying every user, device, application, and data source that needs to be protected.

The best way of doing this is to use an inventory system to track all assets within the network and use this to define and record the access requirements of each asset.

Map

Secondly, you’ll need to map the data streams within your network. This means identifying how data is transmitted throughout your network — between users, devices, and applications.

By doing so, you help understand the relationship between different network sources and are able to identify any possible vulnerabilities that arise.

Analyse

Next, utilising all the data collected in the previous steps, you’ll need to analyse and determine the security risks and threats that exist within your network.

This involves analysing access patterns and data flows as well as user behaviour to identify and determine any anomalies or malicious activities.

Implement

Using the information gathered, the next stage is to implement zero-trust security controls. This will include deploying multi-factor authentication (MFA), access controls, encryption, and whatever other security measures that have been identified as a need.

During this stage, you’ll also need to establish any policies and procedures that you may need to ensure that your security measures are effective.

Monitor

Once implemented, you’ll need to continuously monitor and assess the security controls to ensure that they’re working how you want them to.

With this, you’ll also need to analyse user behaviour, access patterns, and data streams to keep alert for any breaches. Anything suspicious should be investigated and addressed immediately to ensure that your organisation isn’t under threat.

How We Can Help

Zero-trust is a modern security framework that can help your organisation ensure that there are no vulnerabilities or breach points within your organisation.

By implementing it into your organisation, you can ensure that security within your organisation is tight while also remaining able to implement flexible and remote working options to ensure comfort and productivity throughout your team.

If you’re looking to get started with zero trust security today but don’t know how to begin, reach out to us today. We’ll be able to help you work through exactly what you need, and ensure that your organisation is protected.