*By Kelvin Vasques
With an increasingly dynamic and sophisticated cyber threat landscape, businesses certainly cannot afford to adopt the traditional concept of “implicit trust” when it comes to cybersecurity. The assumption that everything within a corporate network can be automatically considered secure is becoming increasingly outdated and dangerous. Given the complexities of today’s digital world, organizations need a proactive and resilient strategy to establish new standards of business security.
Zero Trust is a method that establishes a new way of acting in relation to the protection of critical data and systems, considering technologies, policies and processes, for simpler or more complex networks. It becomes especially important considering the rise of digital, the increase in hybrid or remote work and the implementation of emerging technologies in a highly decentralized way in corporate environments, such as Internet of Things devices, Artificial Intelligence and Cloud. These changes increase the attack surfaces and greatly increase business vulnerabilities. As a result, usual security models that assume automatic trust in everything within the perimeter of the corporate network are no longer acceptable and need to be verified.
Based on the fundamental principle of “never trust, always verify,” Zero Trust is at the forefront of a major shift in cybersecurity. Companies should adopt this model, which makes no distinction between location, user, or device, as soon as possible. Zero Trust goes beyond simple security and involves creating an architecture that continually checks cyber status and activity. This means that every access attempt, whether from a device, user, or application, is validated and verified, regardless of its origin. This ensures that all access to the organization’s information is treated with the same level of rigor and caution to keep the environment monitored against any threat.
Zero Trust Network Access solutions provide the ideal path to implementing this advanced security based on modern technologies and initiatives that allow, for example, mapping the network and data flows to understand how information moves through the organization and who or what needs access to it. Using Zero Trust Network Access, it is possible to delimit which device or user will have access to a given resource or application on the network, maintaining continuous monitoring of their behavior.
In this way, the organization ensures that employees, who are also constantly validated by multifactor authentication tools, only access what is actually necessary for their work, avoiding unnecessary risks of exposing data and other assets. This access segmentation reduces the attack surface of systems and limits the ability of hackers to move freely within the organization's network, should they manage to invade part of it. In addition, it provides greater visibility of the network, increasing the ability to detect and respond quickly to intrusions and anomalous behavior. This reduces the complexity of managing the network architecture, making monitoring and controlling traffic more agile and efficient.
Implementing Zero Trust must be meticulous and requires adaptation and joint effort from the IT team and all company employees. It is necessary to adopt well-defined access policies that are constantly reviewed and updated to ensure security control aligned with the real demands of users. Likewise, internal communication and synergy are essential for the success of the initiative. Security policies will only be effective if they are understood and followed by employees, promoting a culture of security within the organization. In this way, through a robust and adaptive approach, it is possible to mitigate common intrusion techniques aimed at employees to attack systems.
Advances in a connected world require responses to emerging threats. Zero Trust is not just a passing trend; it is a necessary response to the increasingly complex cyber threat environment. Using the Zero Trust cybersecurity model, companies can take action and prepare for a more protected and resilient digital future. Companies that adopt Zero Trust as an allied strategy are definitely ahead in protecting their assets and securing their businesses.
* By Kelvin Vasques, QA Manager at Blockbit
Notice: The opinion presented in this article is the responsibility of its author and not of ABES - Brazilian Association of Software Companies