The Future of Zero Trust Architectures
Jun 18, 2021
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The Future of Zero Trust Architectures
Cybersecurity, digital security solutions, malware, cybercrime, Zero-Trust: so much esoteric technospeak is floating around the IT and technology industry these days. All of this, however, is for a very good reason. There is quite a significant global risk at large that we call cybercrime, which may not sound like it is - shockingly - the number one global threat at present to the public and every organization in the world. This information may be hard to believe, but let’s pull up some statistics that support these claims to consolidate these arguments; according to Purdue Global, “Data breaches increased by 17% in 2019 over 2018, according to the Identity Theft Resource Center’s 2019 End-of-Year Data Breach Report. While the number of breaches in 2019 increased, the number of sensitive records exposed decreased; 2019 saw 164,683,455 sensitive records exposed, a 65% decrease from the 471,225,862 sensitive records exposed in 2018.” How do statistics fair now in 2021? Well, according to global statistics organization Statista the average cost of a data breach (cybercriminal organizational hack) has reached close to $4m. The estimated value of insurance premiums worldwide is expected to be around $20bn by 2025. Ransomware, which is by far the worst type of attack taking place today, is forcing over 50% of victim organizations worldwide to pay ransom to cybercriminal groups.
As internet usage increases and the internet itself grows (meaning the apps, tools, and features available on the internet) the amount of sensitive personal information (PII especially) also grows. With that in mind, cybercriminals have their candy store from which to maximize their return on investment (ROI). World leaders in both insurance and IT have confirmed that cybercrime is the number one global threat as of the new decade. For these reasons, the risks to organizations, governments, companies (small or large), and last but not least individuals have never been greater. To have a clearer picture of what is transpiring as well as what news to be done, we’ll look at why Zero-Trust will be indispensable for any organization.
What is Zero-Trust?
According to the well-established U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) which is a part of the U.S. Department of Commerce, “Zero trust (ZT) is the term for an evolving set of cybersecurity paradigms that move defenses from static, network- based perimeters to focus on users, assets, and resources. A zero trust architecture (ZTA) uses zero trust principles to plan industrial and enterprise infrastructure and workflows. Zero trust assumes there is no implicit trust granted to assets or user accounts based solely on their physical or network location (i.e., local area networks versus the internet) or based on asset ownership (enterprise or personally owned). Authentication and authorization (both subject and device) are discrete functions performed before a session to an enterprise resource is established. Zero trust is a response to enterprise network trends that include remote users, bring your device (BYOD), and cloud- based assets that are not located within an enterprise-owned network boundary.” Following this definition, we can say that Zero-Trust is a no-mercy impenetrable iron wall defense strategy for cybersecurity. ZT/ZTA is focused on the protection of resources such as network accounts, workflows, services, assets, and more.
What is Cybersecurity?
Cybersecurity is the core protection paradigm against digital threats, without which the world’s connected systems could not operate. IBM best defines cybersecurity as so: “Cybersecurity is the practice of protecting critical systems and sensitive information from digital attacks. Also known as information technology (IT) security, cybersecurity measures are designed to combat threats against networked systems and applications, whether those threats originate from inside or outside of an organization.” At least half of organizations and government institutions worldwide today have not yet implemented a sound cybersecurity strategy that is impervious to hardcore cybercriminal group attacks (like Russian or Chinese APTs, for example). A sound cybersecurity strategy must include; good network, application, cloud and general information security built-in from the ground-up. Furthermore, cybersecurity education for the end-user should also be included, as well as disaster recovery scenarios and regular monitoring with penetration testing capabilities. Common cyber-threats are malware, ransomware, phishing and insider threats like malicious employees who give out credential information. Further on in the list, we have DDoS attacks, man-in-the-middle attacks and of course APTs or Advanced Persistent Threats.
Why is Zero-Trust so Important in Digital Security?
A proper cybersecurity strategy is not going to be complete or ready for the future without what we call Zero-Trust. Yes, access management, privilege control and managed security solutions should automatically be part of a sound cybersecurity program that an organization will utilize, but will it be enough? Not quite. This is where Zero-Trust security strategy comes in as the kryptonite that mitigates risks from cybercriminals, as well as insider threats. Today, the world economy is more interconnected and interdependent than ever before. Any organization worth its salt today must rely on everything from social media for marketing to cloud computing for storage. This is why classical models of ‘perimeter-based digital security are no longer adequate. Zero-Trust steps over these classical systems and introduces a different approach to cybersecurity. Zero-Trust Architectures are different in that these approaches assume the worst from the start, and are built with layered defense-in-depth security. For Zero-Trust to work, organizations need to first pass compliance protocols like HIPAA and GDPR, as well as prepare their data in such a way that a Zero-Trust strategy can be applied to all endpoints, devices, and networks in the organization. Zero-Trust is complicated, costly, and inefficient to implement for any organization but it is a necessary evil that brutally stops any possibility of cybercrime attacks, as well as strictly controls user access in an organization, therefore, nipping any cybersecurity vulnerabilities in the bud right at the start.
The Future of Cybersecurity Solutions With Zero-Trust
Posing the question of cybersecurity to any worthy CISO (Chief Information Security Officer) will most often return the same answer: we need to eliminate classic perimeter defenses and efficiently transition to a Zero-Trust approach. The key difference between the two approaches is the number of times a user is authenticated, that is once versus multiple times at several junctures respectively. Continuous authentication will be the future of cybersecurity. The utilization of constant monitoring applications and APIs combined with continuous authentication is a Zero-Trust approach. As real-time monitoring advances thanks to artificial intelligence, Zero-Trust will become more and more convenient and less troublesome for the user side of the process. The dream of Zero-Trust which any CISO out there knows is the combination of application and API protection coupled with identity and access solutions where continuous authentication is smoothly integrated into any organization without loss of efficiency, or disgruntled employees having to constantly authenticate at every junction. Zero-Trust is inevitable, and cybercriminals will no longer be able to breach, infiltrate and exfiltrate an organization’s systems via simple malware, phishing, or even ransomware attacks.
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