Every business needs to protect its business data. Sometimes you need to provide access to various contractors, customers, partners, and suppliers. This is always a scary task for your IT security team.

It is a complex process even if you are using a private data center. You need access to on-premise software and hardware. There are various tools like VPN, ADC, and IAM systems that you can use.

However, even after using all these technologies you will still stay exposed to various security risks. These security risks are associated with your internal applications. It is important to deal with these security challenges. Most companies are implementing ZTA for dealing with this issue. In this article, we are going to talk about Zero-trust architecture.

Definition of Zero trust security:

It is a very famous IT security model that requires your employees to verify their identity. They can’t use their devices to access your resources until they have verified their identity. Even internal devices need to verify their identity. There is no specific technology that you can associate with zero trust architecture.

It is a complete approach to network security that uses different principles. Zero Trust security model simply states that you can’t assume that your network devices are safe. It will verify each request similar to how your network verifies every open network request. This request can originate from any resource and device.

Every access request will be first authorized and authenticated. After that, your security tools will encrypt the request.

You have to always assume that your network is hostile. This will help you in implementing better security controls.

You can’t use network locality for authenticating your devices. It is important to ensure that you are authorizing and authenticating every user, and device present in your network. These policies must be dynamic in nature as you might need to change them with time.

Zero Trust will use tools like security user behavior analytics and security information management. These tools will help security experts in analyzing your network in real-time. They can check the things that are happening in your network. This will help security experts in orienting these defenses more intelligently.

Benefits of Zero-Trust architecture:

These are the main benefits of using ZTA:

Reduced attack surface.
Increase visibility.
Reduce the attacker’s movement in your network.
Reduce the possibility for data exfiltration.
Improved security posture.
Protection against both external and internal threats.
Ability to provide access according to the current use case.

How to implement zero-trust architecture?

Use network micro-segmentation

Most zero trust networks are using network micro-segmentation for dealing with cyber attacks. It is a simple practice of breaking up your security perimeters into smaller zones. You might have various separate secure zones in your data center. It is always difficult to manage a large complex network. Thus, it is a good idea to break up your network into smaller subsegments. This will help you in managing and securing your network subsegments.

A person or device will have access to only of these network zones. If they need access to other network zones, then they need to take proper permission from network admins. This will help you in isolating your network in different zones. If one of your network zones gets compromised, then you can protect other network zones as all the zones are disconnected.

Use MFA

MFA or multi-factor authentication has become a building block of effective security strategy. You can’t effectively protect your network without using MFA. It is used to implement the never trust principle of ZTA.

MFA is used for verifying the identity of your users. Your users need to first enter their password, pattern, or PIN. Sometimes hackers can steal the passwords of your users. The second factor is the possession factor. It simply means that your user should have access to their mobile phone or smart card. You can send OTP to your users. Your users need to enter this password for verifying their identity. Some companies are using the inherence factor. In this, you can use biometric scanners for verifying the identity of your users. This will ensure that only legit users will have access to your network.

Check your endpoint devices

You can’t trust devices without properly verifying them. If you want to achieve ZTA, then you should use identity-centric controls for checking the identity of your endpoint devices. It simply means that first, all your user’s devices need to enroll. This will help you in verifying and recognizing these devices.

Principle of Least Privilege

This is another very important privilege as it will help you in protecting your data. It simply means that you need to limit the access rights of new users to a bare minimum. Make sure that your users only have access to the data and resources that they need to complete their work. You can give read, execute, or write-only permission to your employees. If they need access to more data, then they need to contact the network admin.

You can use this principle for restricting access rights for some devices, processes, and systems. This will ensure that only devices with proper permission will have access to these devices.

Conclusion

You can protect your network by implementing the best zero trust security practices. This will help you in reducing the attack surface. Also, you can prevent lateral attacks as attackers won’t have access to other devices. It will also help you in properly monitoring your devices and network. Experienced MSPs like Bleuwire can help you in implementing this security architecture. They can also help you in implementing the best security tools available in the market. Thus, you don’t need to worry about losing access to your data and applications. If you need more information regarding IT security services, then you can contact Bleuwire.

Contact us today to learn about Bleuwire™ services and solutions in how we can help your business.