The New Cybersecurity Motto: Trust is Not an Option

The discovery of the  as part of the zero-trust approach.

Here are some of the key components of a zero trust practice organizations should consider:

• Device compliance monitoring and enforcement. This confirms the security posture for devices and gives security teams the control to take action if something is not right. 

• IAM. Provides authentication checks to confirm an individual’s identity and compares the user’s access against role-based rules.

• Network access. Organizations can control access to resources and network segments based on a user’s persona and the device being used. 

Laying the security fundamentals

Along with deploying the zero-trust approach, organizations should be sure to pay heed to security fundamentals. For example, they need to patch vulnerabilities as soon as they are identified. The Log4j development showed why that is important.

Patches should be installed and updated, but not in a haphazard way. Comprehensive  and taking care of the cybersecurity “basics,” organizations can put themselves in a position to defend against the latest threats, including ransomware. 

Security today requires more than simply managing identities and authenticating users. It needs to assume that anyone or anything trying to get into the network is an intruder until proven otherwise.

Embracing the age of zero-trust security 

It’s a perfect confluence of events for  were the second biggest security challenge for organizations transitioning to a distributed workforce. The problems with legacy VPNs have not only imperiled the security of traffic flows, they are also contributing to a growing risk of security threats related to endpoints.

When the pandemic hit and organizations were forced to allow many employees to work from home, they relied on VPNs to support their distributed workforces, but with less than stellar results. While VPNs are familiar to many users and already in use for remote access, they are not the ideal tools to provide secure access for so many users relying on devices that in many cases are not as secure as they should be.

VPNs will not provide adequate defense against threats aimed at the home networks many users rely on when working remotely. In addition, the sheer number of VPNs a company might need to support an enormous mobile or hybrid workforce means the management and maintenance burdens could be overwhelming.

Zeroing in on zero trust

To truly provide secure access for a large number of remote workers, organizations need to think beyond VPNs and fully adopt the zero-trust model of cybersecurity.

With a zero-trust strategy and tools, it’s easier for security teams to provide secure access to applications, because they have more granular access controls and users do not get blanket permissions. Access rights are very specific and require continuous verification.

Device validation also makes up a key tenet of a successful zero trust strategy, and with remote work making up a large portion of end-user access today device posture is extremely important. Devices in many cases are the new “perimeter” within organizations, and device validation enables organizations to protect against stolen credentials or even stolen devices that cybercriminals can use to gain access to networks.

This is why practicing strong endpoint management is such an important part of a zero-trust approach. Without real-time and accurate endpoint management, organizations can’t enforce compliance or validate device posture as a prerequisite for access. Authentication alone can’t ensure that a device is secured.

The right tools can allow security teams to continuously check device posture against policies, to ensure that the zero-trust approach really does trust no one, even after identity and access policies are in place. Ideally, organizations should be able to integrate new zero-trust solutions with the tools they already use, so they don’t have to start from scratch.

The concept of zero trust might come across as negative—even paranoid: Don’t trust anything, whether it’s devices and other endpoints, applications, networks or individuals. But what the model really indicates is that organizations are operating in uniquely challenging times, and much is at stake when a data breach or ransomware attack occurs.

More people are working remotely, in many cases using their own devices and networks. Companies are relying on cloud services more than ever. Attacks have become more sophisticated and can  is a truly effective way to achieve this level of security.

Learn how to migrate to a zero-trust architecture with real-time visibility and control of your endpoints here.