Zero trust focuses on security policies at the application level and requires ongoing monitoring and evaluation of user behavior, data movements, device characterization, and network changes. This process combines authentication and authorization with filtering, analytics, and logging.
This means that every person and every device must mutually authenticate and verify authorization. It also means that access should only be granted once the security policy is safe. So, what is a zero trust network security model? Read on to learn more about the zero-trust network security model.
Identity and Access Management (IAM)
Access is granted only in a zero-trust network when a user’s identity has been verified. The identity and access management (IAM) system verifies a user’s credentials using a central directory of users and their predefined access privilege levels. These credentials may include logins, passwords, security codes sent to a device, or biometrics like fingerprint scans. In addition to verifying identities, IAM systems monitor user activity to ensure users don’t abuse their permissions or to detect hackers that have breached a network’s perimeter.
IAM solutions are critical for cloud computing, managing remote teams, and securing mobile devices. They enable organizations to create a zero-trust architecture that reduces the attack surface by creating granular policies that evaluate each request on a user, device, or network basis. For example, a manager may need to access specific business software suites to approve timesheets but shouldn’t have the same privilege to view confidential HR data or payroll records. This allows companies to build a zero-trust environment while also providing flexibility for employees to use the tools they need.
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM)
To implement zero trust effectively, it is essential first to understand how a company’s networks work. Admins must clearly define what data, applications, and systems need protection. Then, they should be able to observe how these applications communicate with others and identify security threats and attack patterns in real time. In real time, this should be done using a SIEM platform. The technology is designed to collect, analyze, store, and report on the large volume of log data generated by a company’s cybersecurity tools. This can include firewalls, NGFWs, servers, databases, and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions.
A zero trust architecture should assume that no user, device, or network is trusted until they prove their identity and authority very granularly. It’s a lot like how security guards verify ID and credentials for visitors to an office building — but more rigorously and continuously. In addition, it should use network micro-segmentation to create isolated perimeters and block access between them. This will prevent lateral movement and potential exposure of sensitive information or system assets.
Data Loss Prevention (DLP)
Data Loss Prevention (DLP) solutions can detect and intercept unauthorized sharing of sensitive information via email or by copying files to USB drives. These tools often leverage machine learning and other analytics to identify suspicious movement, enabling businesses to detect and remediate breaches quickly.
Zero trust models authenticate users and their devices and continuously reassess trust to prevent attackers from exploiting access to gain lateral movement or dwell within the network for extended periods. This helps to eliminate standard attack methods, such as phishing attacks and malicious insiders.
Zero trust solutions should also help protect information at rest, in use, and transit. Encryption enables organizations to secure data at rest by blocking unauthorized access to file contents, even if the malicious actors can penetrate the network perimeter and gain entry into a company’s infrastructure. DLP can scan all incoming and outgoing traffic to identify sensitive information, so the solution can block it from leaving the organization’s infrastructure by email or via external websites, for example.
Network Access Control (NAC)
Zero trust requires more control over the devices that access your network and the information transmitted between those devices. The architecture aims to identify users, applications, and data — not just network traffic — to protect it wherever it goes. Using this approach, you can ensure the security of sensitive or regulated information such as personally identifiable information (PII), protected health information (PHI), payment card information (PCI), intellectual property, and more.
This is achieved by using an NAC solution that verifies the identity of each user, device, and location before granting access to network resources and the Internet. It also uses granular least-privileged access controls, enables continuous monitoring of user and device behavior, and supports deploying policy updates and multifactor authentication (MFA).
As your organization grows, you’ll need to manage identities and their associated permissions at scale. NAC can help automate these processes to save time, resources, and money while reducing the risk of breaches from unauthorized or malware-driven activities. In addition, you can integrate it with other components such as software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN), a secure web gateway (SWG), and a cloud access security broker (CASB) for complete, unified visibility into your zero trust architecture.
Multifactor Authentication (MFA)
Multifactor Authentication (MFA) is one of the core elements of zero trust security that protects data against hackers, whether inside or outside a network perimeter. It requires more than one piece of verification information, usually in addition to a password. This includes common MFA factors like one-time passwords (OTP) sent to a user’s phone or hardware tokens scanned or read by a device during authentication.
Using MFA with zero trust, organizations can add layers of protection to systems at the hardware, software, and personal ID levels, making it much harder for hackers to access sensitive information. Adaptive MFA goes even further to increase security by dynamically verifying users with different methods depending on the risk, such as a user’s location or the device they are using. It can also be augmented by monitoring and analyzing behavior, including what the user is doing and where they are doing it. This type of logging and analytics can help detect anomalies that might indicate a compromise. This is why it’s essential to include a comprehensive solution.