The Zero Trust mindset for optimal protection

In today's digital world where advancements in technology can empower not only innovators but also cybercriminals, cyberattacks have been rampant and continually on the rise.

In fact, Asia Pacific saw a 168% increase in cyberattacks in 2021 alone, with 80% of the cases reported to be ransomware. This has led to 51% of organisations and businesses paying to regain their stolen data, assets, and resources.

One way to help protect anyone with an online investment or property and to increase their cybersecurity is to adopt a zero trust philosophy. Zero trust is “a security concept centered on the belief that organisations should not automatically trust anything inside or outside its perimeters and instead must verify anything and everything trying to connect to its systems before granting access.”¹

Developed by analyst John Kindervag in 2010, a zero trust network monitors, limits, controls, verifies, and secures all network traffic and resources.² It teaches users to “never trust, always verify,” ensuring that “every access request is fully authenticated, authorized, and encrypted before granting access.”³

The minimum requirements for an adoption of zero trust include: identity, devices and workloads, and least privilege access.⁴

● Identity. Identity defines the existing zero trust security policies managing access across all users and privileged accounts. The use of multifactor authentication and biometrics must also be implemented to ensure strong authentication for user-backed identities.

● Devices and workloads. Defend the organisation with zero trust security practices—from data and applications to endpoints. All device types and operating systems must meet a required minimum health state as a condition of access

● Least privilege access. Monitor the behavior of all users, resources, and data connecting within the business, and resolve issues that arise.

Having a zero trust framework in any company, especially those in major industries such as education, healthcare, logistics, and retail, is crucial. With high-value data like research, personal information, and intellectual property, zero trust security protects users and communities from being targeted by malicious and dangerous attacks.

To successfully adopt a zero trust philosophy, all users and decision makers must be on board in terms of narrowing and aligning on access policies, securing connections, and providing access and sharing data.

Simply put, adopters must implement the three basic principles: 1) verify data points explicitly, 2) use least privileged access, and 3) assume breach.

They must also specifically implement the following⁵:

● Knowing all applications and services, and understanding the workflows.

● Classify data

● Mapping how technologies interact, and isolate and protect workloads during any transmission.

● Improve defences and establish monitoring schedules

● Perform maintenance

Zero trust security is hard to achieve without a reliable partner that can ensure round-the-clock protection. To truly adopt and maximise the model and to strengthen your organisation’s cybersecurity, it’s necessary to have a partner like Singtel.

Having a reliable partner also makes top zero-trust-related security technologies available to enterprises. An improved security architecture is needed to secure any network’s edge and cloud environments. Secure Access Service Edge, or SASE (pronounced “sassy”), is the key. SASE is a cloud-based enterprise security framework, which reduces complexity, improves agility, and empowers multi-cloud networking.

When organisations and businesses use SASE, which is embedded with the zero trust approach, their cybersecurity systems are transformed and strengthened for the better. SASE means “organizations do not have to stand up separate infrastructure to address both internet and private applications, as was once the case with conventional proxy- and software-defined perimeter products.”⁶

For instance, organisations in the healthcare industry can greatly benefit from having SASE. As it provides security and access for select users using direct internet and cloud-based storage and delivery, even remote clinics and patients’ homes can enjoy full security capabilities. Sending and receiving medical data is safer, faster, and more cost-efficient.

As the online world gets more complex and with many people across the globe working remotely, there are more ways and possibilities that advanced cyberattacks and cybercrime can happen. Some of them can even come from both outside of the network and within the network itself. To protect data from today’s threats, it is imperative that organisations adopt a zero trust framework.

Further, in a report by Gartner, 60% of organisations are predicted to use zero trust security by 2023 to improve their cybersecurity and make their systems more cyber resilient.⁷ These entities will benefit from a “stronger network security, streamlined network management, reduced costs associated with deploying security at scale, and a single, holistic view of the entire network.”⁸ With the ever-changing landscape of cyberspace, companies can run their businesses with ease and peace with zero trust.

Strengthen your organisation’s cybersecurity now.

Reference:

1. CSO, What is zero trust? A model for more effective security, 2018.

2. Help Net Security, Zero Trust creator talks about implementation, misconceptions, strategy, 2021

3. Microsoft. Embrace proactive security with Zero Trust.

4. IBM, What is zero trust?

5. Security Scorecard. What is Zero Trust Architecture? 9 Steps to Implementation, 2021.

6. Prisma by Palo Alto Networks, How Zero Trust and SASE Can Work Together

7. Gartner, Gartner Unveils the Top Eight Cybersecurity Predictions for 2022-23, 2022

8. Prisma. How Zero Trust and SASE Can Work Together.