Zero trust strategy, state of the art security solution for cloud computing – The Times of India Blog

Industry 4.0 defines our reality today. In todays digital first day and age, virtual environments, online consumer experiences and technology enabled interactions are part of our every day. Maintaining the sanctity of enterprise and consumer driven data, thus, is key to ensure the competitive edge as well as organisational agility in cloud specific contexts. Over the last few years, Zero Trust Security has emerged as the standard protocol that most companies follow and ever since remote working became the new normal in 2020, this has slowly gained more popularity. As cyber-attacks become more sophisticated and vicious in nature, going the zero trust architecture route is not just a matter of choice, but more a necessity.

What is Zero Trust Architecture?

A proactive approach to eradicate malware, security threats and phishings attempts, Zero Trust is an integrated security approach cast over all digital layers of an organisation that explicitly verifies each and every transaction in real time. With the rise of cloud native hybrid working environments and remote working systems, this model has successfully overtaken traditional cybersecurity initiatives. Since cloud networks are hosted publicly and workloads can move outside the confines of corporate networks, accelerating this adoption is critical to ensure secure data deployment. This is a framework, and not a single product or service.

Creating a Zero Trust Strategy for cloud native environments

In very simple terms, one can look at zero trust architecture like a centralised intelligent switchboard in the cloud, where inspection is undertaken at every step of the way. Its main aim is to connect users and networks seamlessly to prevent the risk of lateral data movement. In some cases with extremely confidential information, developers may also be asked to create zero attack surfaces with apps that are invisible. As cloud and IoT become the backbone of digitally transforming enterprises today, IT security teams are facing a unique dilemma: How can we always ensure that legitimate user entities without hampering end consumer experience? The answer is to not rely any longer on static authentication decisions, rather on step-up, adaptive, contextual access security methods that continuously validate the identity of the entity requesting access to corporate data.

Decisions related to cybersecurity are no longer just operational- they directly impact the business bottom and top line. The zero trust architecture market is expected to increase cybersecurity efficacy and reach USD 59.43 billion by 2028, registering a CAGR of 15.2% from 2021 to 2028. Thats a huge growth opportunity! There are some guiding principles that define the concept of a foolproof security strategy, namely:

Least privilege access: Organisation specific risk averse strategies are put into place to limit access to internal users only. Hierarchies may also come into place for compartmentalised access. Only the right users get access to the right data.

Breach assumptions: Networks and company databases are continuously monitored with automated threat detection algorithms to minimise attack blast radius. End to end encryption also ensures responses are generated in real time.

Explicit verification: Things like user identity, device status and health, restoration options, location etc. are verified through multiple factor authentication. Proxy architecture may be used to quarantine files and prevent data loss.

A complete zero trust integration thus requires consistent visibility, enforcement and control that can be delivered directly on the device or through the cloud. This not only provides software driven, secure user access regardless of where the users are, but also takes care of which devices are being used, or where your workloads and data are hosted (i.e. data centres, public clouds or SaaS applications).

Trends to look out for

As the year comes to a close, there are a few cybersecurity trends that will act as the foundation blocks for zero trust cybersecurity:

Enterprise wide proliferation: Integrated extended detection and across all digital pillars will drive organisation wide adoption. Policy unification and the convergence of access between network, controls and user identities has become key, especially in the rising era of co-working, virtual and hybrid workspaces.

DevSecOps and secure software: Routine in house and external testing is critical to mitigate the risk of data loss. This is where DevSecOps processes will come in for native applications and APIs. A DevOps approach to security will cut down not just developer time and effort, but also be cost effective in the longer run

Upskill to scale: Almost every other organisation needs zero trust security today, regardless of the size and scale of their IT departments. Addressing skill shortages, need to upskill specific portfolios and the state of pre-existing security systems will go a long way in supporting secure architecture.

Zero trust is a dynamic model of security that will continue to evolve rapidly. The faster IT teams get onto this bandwagon, the better they will be able to take care of their companys security needs in the longer run!

Views expressed above are the author's own.

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Zero trust strategy, state of the art security solution for cloud computing - The Times of India Blog