Zero Trust
“Trust nothing, verify everything” can sum up the concept of Zero Trust. In short, zero trust means that no user, package, or device within the organization’s resource network should be trusted or given permissions greater than required. While off-grid attacks have been a corporate security priority in the past, network dependency has proven to be an equally dangerous vulnerability.
A zero trust strategy focuses on detailed controls to properly improve and restrict network and application access. By limiting movement, you reduce the risk of malicious actors gaining access to key segments.
Why zero trust?
The days when attackers could wander sideways and access entire networks end. As the organization’s network grows with remote staff or increased customer traffic, it is important to use a framework without trust to restrict users’ access to specific data and applications.
However, even before the advent of IoT devices or the COVID-19 pandemic, trust was a major organizational vulnerability. As Kindervag emphatically stated at a conference in 2019, “What is trust? Trust is a human feeling that we have injected into digital systems for no reason!” they are abundant.
Notable incidents of trust that have gone wrong in the US Federal Government include the crimes against Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden in 2013. Both actors used their network access to obtain sensitive information outside of their role. Organizations that adopt zero trust can manage access controls at a detailed level and protect their most sensitive segments.
In attacks such as the FireEye and SolarWinds breaches in December 2020, Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs) were able to move sideways across the network and gather sensitive information, in part because all they needed was stolen credentials. Without micro-segmentation and a reliable framework, an attacker’s access can turn into a persistent nightmare where opponents are constantly in your network.
Implementation of NetworkFort
Each zero trust framework is tailored to your organization’s network security. Your organization also does not need to maintain your IT infrastructure. However, how can we secure our infrastructure with the help of NetworkFort? Here is a look at how NetworkFort will be implemented in five phases for zero trust.