What is Zero Trust Access

Zero Trust Access (ZTA) is an innovative cybersecurity approach and architecture with a fundamental paradigm shift: "never trust, always verify." Traditional security models assume implicit trust for users and devices once they gain access to a specified network perimeter, or in other words, the "castle-and-moat" model. In a ZTA approach, no user, device, application, or network connection should ever implicitly be trusted, regardless of their location - whether inside or outside the organization.

In a Zero Trust environment, every access request – human employee, partner, non-human identity (NHI) such as an application, Agent AI, etc. – is assumed malicious until proven to be legitimate and authorized, through explicit, continuous verification. This explicit, continuous verification process is the foundation of new security, which recognizes that breaches originate from anywhere, including the so-called "trusted" network.

Zero Trust Access Core Principles

The Zero Trust approach, which is governed by a number of standards (i.e. NIST SP 800-207), is based on a set of core principles.

• Never Trust, Always Verify (Explicit Verification): This principle is the cornerstone of a Zero Trust Security model. Every access request must be authenticated and authorized using all current contextual data related to that request (identity, device posture, location, time of day, service being accessed, user behavior, etc.), as opposed to just network location. In Zero Trust, verification is a continuous process, not a one-time event.

• Least Privilege Access (LPA): Access is provided on an as necessary and a least privilege access basis. Users and non-human identities are granted the minimum level of privileges required to carry out their function, for the absolute minimum time period (Just-in-Time Access), limiting the "blast radius" of an identity that may have been compromised.

• Assume Breach: Organizations operate with the mindset that a breach has or is going to occur, and security happens to react to new threat intelligence. The organizations focus on containment of the threat and its impact.

• Microsegmentation: The networks are broken down into smaller segments, with security policies applied at a granular level to direct traffic flow to the different segments of their environments. If an adversary gains a foothold in any segment of the network, they are limited in their ability to move laterally among the segments.

• Continuous Monitoring & Verifying: All network traffic, user activity, and system configurations are monitored continuously for anomalous behavior or violations of policy. Real-time analytics and threat intelligence are used to detect and respond to threats dynamically and in real-time.

• All Resources Are Resources: There is no notion of on-premises, cloud, or SaaS. No matter where, every data source, computing service, and application is treated as a resource, and needs to be protected.

• All communications are secured: Secure all communications, including internal only.

Zero Trust vs. Traditional Perimeter Security

The shift from traditional perimeter-based security to Zero Trust is a fundamental transformation:

Advantages of Zero Trust Access

Zero Trust is beyond a buzzword - it is now a security imperative critical to all modern organizations with an ever-growing threat landscape, with increasing remote work, and widespread cloud adoption.

Here are several reasons to deploy Zero Trust Access:

• Dramatically Decreases Attack Surface: ZTA allows Least Privilege Access which removes indiscriminate trust - and, thereby, grows the limited attack surface [Consider: "reduces the attack surface" or "limits the attack surface"], which in turn limits the access point and entry for an attacker.

• Contains Breaches and Limits Lateral Movement: If a breach does occur, you will have deployed micro-segmentation which is a key trait of ZTA and it will also allow continuous verification of access attempts within that segment's boundaries or access to attacker lateral movement.

• Provides Improved Data Protection: Through strict access criteria and continuous validation, data resources can be protected regardless of the data location, or who is requesting access to the data.

• Increased Defenses from Insider Threats: All users use the same level of scrutiny as outside users. Individuals inside an organization can be either malicious, or ignore security posture, making any event riskier.

• Improved Compliance: ZTA principles (i.e., Least Privilege Access, continuous security stance monitoring, explicit authorization) are better suited than other structures for regulatory compliance like GDPR, HIPAA, SOX, DPDPA, etc. There is auditable evidence to demonstrate compliance.

• Secures Hybrid and Multi-Cloud Environments: Zero Trust will afford organizations a common security model that can be applied equally behind on-prem applications, cloud applications, and SaaS applications while providing overall management of multiple, greater, than 1 application with user access to restricted environments while mitigating identity resolution and security across a distributed infrastructure.

• Remote Work and/or Third Party Support: ZTA enables users to verify any user of your systems with similar outstanding stringent verification processes, if not stronger, regardless of where or what device they are working on until they get access.

• Operational efficiencies and automation: It may take time to implement, but your organization can monitor access based on dynamic access policies which limit the reliance on employees to support overall security operations policies.

• Future-proof Security: ZTA is built to run and address changing threats and technology, offering resilient and adaptive forms of security to protect your organizations long-term.

ReShield is here to help organizations begin and implement their Zero Trust vision with confidence. ReShield is an identity security platform that supports numerous aspects of Zero Trust. ReShield offers all organizations valuable Identity and Access Management (IAM), Privileged Access Management (PAM), Identity Governance and Administration (IGA), and Identity Security Posture Management (ISPM) program capabilities. ReShield allows organizations demonstrate true Least Privilege Access and Just-in-Time Access with continuous verification of every single access request, building the foundation of a secure and resilient Zero Trust environment.