Recent research from Cybersecurity Insiders indicates 38% of organizations are currently implementing zero trust and an additional 42% plan to do so within the next year. As a result, 32% of organizations are already implementing, 31% are evaluating, and 24% are planning to deploy security tools relevant to zero trust within the next year. This sizeable shift supports the notion that organizations (and threat actors) now recognize there is no longer a traditional network "edge," and that sensitive data is more dispersed than ever before. But why should your organization take zero trust seriously?
What Is Zero Trust?
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) defines zero trust as an “evolving set of cybersecurity paradigms that move defenses from static, network-based perimeters to focus on users, assets, and resources.” This somewhat broad concept came in response to the increasingly vulnerable, more traditional “castle-and-moat” approach to data security. Typically, this old-school strategy requires establishing a perimeter—like a firewall—to defend all users, devices, applications, and other components that make up an organization’s greater corporate network. In other words, by nature, a perimeter-based security model assumes all users, devices, and network resources within the perimeter are trustworthy and secure.
The rise of hybrid network environments, scattered resources and assets, and third-party software tools, however, made this approach to security convoluted at best and ineffective at worst. As organizations have become more modernized, cyber threats have grown complex enough to outgun security measures of the past. Software with unpatched vulnerabilities, phishing and other forms of social engineering, insider attacks, supply chain attacks, and other threats are all capable of evading perimeter-based security measures, meaning entire networks and the sensitive data they hold can be at risk.
In response, zero trust is a data-centric approach to cybersecurity that was developed specifically to defend against modern cyber threats by taking a "never trust, always verify" approach to authentication. As opposed to inherently trusting everything within a network as a perimeter-based security model typically would, zero trust always assumes the internal network is vulnerable to malicious threat actors, if not already compromised. Instead of a single perimeter protecting the entire network, this more cautious approach essentially establishes micro-perimeters around individual network resources, assets, and the data itself.
Zero Trust Architecture
With the above in mind, however, zero trust is a concept and framework as opposed to a single product, set of products, or something that can be flipped on or off like a light switch. Applying zero trust concepts in a real-world setting can and should include deploying relevant security products, but it also requires considering the human component of data protection including following zero trust principles and best practices, fostering full organizational buy-in, continuous training, and more.
When an organization applies zero trust concepts to its greater security strategy and deploys the relevant tools, it’s often referred to as “zero trust architecture” or simply "perimeterless security." Regardless of which term a given organization chooses to adopt, however, both tend to refer to the same processes: requiring continuous authentication, authorization, and validation for all users and devices—both inside and outside the organizational network—to access individual network resources and the associated data.
In practice, this sort of continuous authentication, authorization, and validation follows the principle of least privilege (PoLP), which the NIST defines as “a system should restrict the access privileges of users (or processes acting on behalf of users) to the minimum necessary to accomplish assigned tasks.” For example, while a corporate VPN would typically be configured to grant a user access to large parts, if not an entire corporate network upon authentication of a user’s IP, zero trust architecture would only allow access to specific areas of the network needed to perform a job function.
Benefits of Zero Trust
While zero trust tends to be thought of as a preventative cybersecurity strategy first and foremost, implementing zero trust concepts in practice can deliver tangible business benefits that extend beyond simply keeping sensitive data out of the wrong hands.
Reduced Attack Surface
By eliminating implicit trust and requiring verification for every access request, zero trust significantly reduces the number of potential entry points for attackers. This proactive approach prevents many attacks before they can gain a foothold in the network.
Reduced Scope of Data Breaches
Even in cases when a threat actor does infiltrate the network, however, the network segmentation typically required for zero trust limits lateral network movement, containing potential breaches and significantly minimizing the scope of compromised data. In these instances, threat actors are isolated to micro-segments of the network rather than having free rein across entire systems. Ideally, this means less data loss and fewer compliance penalties for your organization.
Enhanced Visibility and Control
Continuous monitoring and authentication requirements provide organizations with granular insights into user behavior, device activities, and data access patterns. This comprehensive visibility enables faster threat detection and more informed security decisions in the wake of a breach.
Improved Compliance Posture
Zero trust practices naturally align with regulatory requirements by enforcing strict access controls, maintaining detailed audit trails, and ensuring protections are consistently applied to sensitive data. Instead of making compliance more challenging, organizations across countless industries will find that their zero trust architecture is more secure and facilitates compliance.
Support for Modern Work Environments
Zero trust seamlessly accommodates remote work, BYOD policies, cloud adoption, and broader digital transformation by securing access regardless of location or device. Users can gain consistent, secure access to necessary resources whether they're working from the office, home, or anywhere in between, all without needlessly putting the entire corporate network at risk.
Cost-Effective Investment
While implementation generally requires upfront investment, zero trust reduces long-term costs by preventing and/or minimizing breaches, lowering incident response expenses, and optimizing security tool efficiency. Organizations often see improved ROI through reduced insurance premiums and regulatory fines.
Challenges of Zero Trust
With zero trust’s extensive benefits in mind, implementation isn’t always a straightforward process. As zero trust has become more widely adopted, common challenges have emerged among organizations working toward effective strategies.
Complex Implementation Process
Transitioning from traditional perimeter-based security to zero trust requires significant planning, phased rollouts, and careful coordination across multiple teams. Organizations must map data flows, identify critical assets, and redesign network architectures without disrupting business operations, which is often easier said than done without help from robust zero trust tools.
Initial Performance Impact
If logistics aren’t carefully considered, the continuous verification requirements of zero trust could introduce latency and negatively affect user experience during initial deployment. Users may experience slower access times while systems authenticate and authorize each request, though proper optimization typically improves performance.
Organizational Buy-In
Zero trust fundamentally changes how employees interact with company resources and data, requiring buy-in from all organizational levels and continuous training. Resistance to new authentication processes and security protocols or associated burnout can slow adoption and reduce effectiveness.
Integration Hurdles
Legacy systems and applications may not natively support zero trust principles, requiring additional integration work, middleware solutions, or complete system replacements. Organizations often struggle to maintain security standards while preserving functionality of critical legacy applications.
Skill Gap and Resource Requirements
Deploying and managing zero trust products and solutions demands specialized cybersecurity expertise that many organizations lack internally. Finding qualified professionals, training existing staff, or finding a vendor offering a well-oiled managed service requires significant time and an upfront financial investment.
Continuous Optimization and Improvement
Zero trust cannot be “achieved” using a single tool or even a set of tools, nor is a state of total zero trust typically practical or attainable. Zero trust solutions require continuous monitoring, policy refinement, and adaptation to evolving threats and business needs, and as a concept, zero trust should be seen as an ongoing guide as opposed to an end goal.
Implementing Zero Trust Architecture
Where to Start
Organizations beginning their zero trust journey should start by conducting a comprehensive assessment of their current security posture, workflows, and critical assets to understand what needs protection and where vulnerabilities exist. This discovery phase involves mapping all users, devices, applications, and data repositories while identifying high-value assets that require the strongest protection. Rather than attempting a complete overhaul overnight, successful zero trust implementations typically follow a phased approach that begins with protecting the most critical resources first.
The most effective starting point is often to focus on the development, refinement, and enforcement of data protection policies. These policies, which are ideally based on contextual data, are ultimately what drive an organization's access controls and manage the continuous authentication required for zero trust. Organizations should start with policies that apply to their most sensitive systems and data before expanding these protections across the broader network infrastructure.
Zero Trust Best Practices
1. Prepare for the journey.
2. Map and classify your assets.
3. Implement initial security controls.
4. Enforce least-privilege access controls.
5. Adopt a gradual implementation with realistic goals.
6. View zero trust architecture as a strategic investment.
7. Invest in comprehensive training programs.
Zero Trust Security Framework Use Cases
Compliance Support
If your organization must adhere to industry compliance standards such as the GDPR, PCI DSS, or HIPAA, for example, the closed connection tenant of zero trust helps prevent widespread exposure and exploitation of sensitive data. Organizations can establish controls to segment regulated data from non-regulated data, providing more visibility for audit purposes and helping to limit and mitigate data breaches.
If your organization must adhere to industry compliance standards such as the GDPR, PCI DSS, or HIPAA, for example, the closed connection tenant of zero trust helps prevent widespread exposure and exploitation of sensitive data. Organizations can establish controls to segment regulated data from non-regulated data, providing more visibility for audit purposes and helping to limit and mitigate data breaches.
General Risk Reduction
Zero trust's “never trust, always verify” approach to data protection prevents applications and services from communicating until verified by predefined trust principles such as authentication and authorization specifications. By providing insight into how a network's various assets and resources communicate, zero trust delivers granular visibility and reduces the risk of erroneous user access. This strategy can also provide continuous confirmation of the validity of all communicating assets to reduce the risk of over-provisioned software and services.
Zero trust's “never trust, always verify” approach to data protection prevents applications and services from communicating until verified by predefined trust principles such as authentication and authorization specifications. By providing insight into how a network's various assets and resources communicate, zero trust delivers granular visibility and reduces the risk of erroneous user access. This strategy can also provide continuous confirmation of the validity of all communicating assets to reduce the risk of over-provisioned software and services.
Improve Cloud Environment Access Control
If you’ve moved workloads to the cloud, or are operating in a hybrid environment, the fear of losing control and visibility is not unfounded. With zero trust architecture in place, however, you can apply security policies to validate identities of users and workloads.
This helps to keep your security measures tied to the assets most in need of protection, and your organization's security posture won't rely on potentially vulnerable network elements such as IP addresses, protocols, or ports. Zero trust architecture protects the network's workloads themselves, meaning security persists even through changes to the environment.
If you’ve moved workloads to the cloud, or are operating in a hybrid environment, the fear of losing control and visibility is not unfounded. With zero trust architecture in place, however, you can apply security policies to validate identities of users and workloads.
This helps to keep your security measures tied to the assets most in need of protection, and your organization's security posture won't rely on potentially vulnerable network elements such as IP addresses, protocols, or ports. Zero trust architecture protects the network's workloads themselves, meaning security persists even through changes to the environment.
Data Breach Risk Reduction
As cybersecurity pros increasingly express, a data breach is much less a question of "if" and much more a matter of "when." Zero trust’s foundation of least-privilege access assumes any entity could be hostile, meaning organizations can gain more peace-of-mind knowing all transactions, users, and their devices are authenticated before “trust” is granted. Furthermore, this validation is under continuous assessment to account for changes in the users’ devices, locations, data requests, and unusual activity.
Should an attacker still breach your network or cloud environment, with zero trust principles and practices applied, network segmentation severely hampers their ability to move laterally within the network to access more sensitive data.
As cybersecurity pros increasingly express, a data breach is much less a question of "if" and much more a matter of "when." Zero trust’s foundation of least-privilege access assumes any entity could be hostile, meaning organizations can gain more peace-of-mind knowing all transactions, users, and their devices are authenticated before “trust” is granted. Furthermore, this validation is under continuous assessment to account for changes in the users’ devices, locations, data requests, and unusual activity.
Should an attacker still breach your network or cloud environment, with zero trust principles and practices applied, network segmentation severely hampers their ability to move laterally within the network to access more sensitive data.
Fortra's Integrated Zero Trust Strategy
With the combined power of our defensive security solutions, Fortra enables organizations to take a holistic approach to zero trust, breaking the attack chain and preventing data breaches before they happen. Here's how we accomplish this:
Data Protection at the Core
Implementing zero trust across your organization primarily means shifting the focus of your security efforts from the network edge or "perimeter" to your sensitive data itself. From discovery, to sensitivity labeling, to real-time protection, Fortra's Data Protection solutions serve as the core of our approach to zero trust. While Fortra Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) helps discover where your sensitive data lives and moves within your hybrid and multi-cloud environments, Fortra Data Classification uses context to identify data that's sensitive, regulated, or business-critical to facilitate compliance and drive downstream data loss prevention tools like Fortra DLP. Meanwhile, Fortra Secure Web Gateway (SWG) actively protects users against web-based threats like malware, zero-day, and browser-based attacks to limit network attack vectors.
Identity, Access, Vulnerability, and Configuration Management
Protecting your sensitive data itself is undoubtedly a key component of achieving and maintaining zero trust, but ensuring the integrity of your network and zero trust architecture is just as critical. While Fortra Vulnerability Management (VM) identifies and assesses the severity of your system's vulnerabilities, Fortra Integrity and Compliance Monitoring (ICM) centralizes asset configurations, detects changes and misconfigurations, and provides detailed remediation guidance. Fortra ZTNA provides secure remote access to all private and cloud applications, replacing typically less-secure VPNs, and our Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB) acts as a security guard for these applications, monitoring the use of shadow IT and spotting otherwise unusual or unsafe user behavior.
The Human Element
The human element of successful zero trust implementation is often overlooked, but Fortra has a solution for that too. Fortra Human Risk Management employs people-centric security training to instill behaviors that disrupt attacks and then allows SecOps teams to use these positive behaviors to efficiently mitigate threats.
Interoperability
Fortra's defensive security products are each robust and intuitive on their own—even a single product can go a long way toward improving your organization's security posture and laying a clear path toward comprehensive zero trust implementation. But the way in which our security solutions integrate and benefit one another is what makes Fortra the best-possible partner in your organization's zero trust implementation. Together, Fortra's cybersecurity solutions deliver deep visibility to break the attack chain and prevent breaches, with multiple modules that give organizations starting points tailored to where they are in their zero trust and overall cybersecurity journey.
Streamline Your Zero Trust Journey with Fortra
Ready to accelerate your zero trust implementation? Contact us today to learn how our integrated data protection solutions can streamline your digital transformation and provide comprehensive protection for your organization's most critical assets.
