Zero-Trust and the State of Modern Cybersecurity

Since the beginning of the pandemic, companies globally have started investing heavily into cybersecurity due to the large rise in cyber attacks. The FBI reported that cyberattacks have spiked nearly 400% since the pandemic. Hackers located all over the globe are targeting businesses with sensitive data like healthcare organizations, insurance companies, law firms, and more. Enterprises of all sizes have started to look for the most advanced cybersecurity to protect their enterprise data and client data. Many of these enterprises have begun exploring a zero-trust approach to cybersecurity. 

What is the zero trust model?

A zero trust model is a security framework in which all users have to be authenticated, authorized, and continuously validated to keep accessing the applications and data. With a zero trust model, there’s no implicit trust for any user across the organization. All attempts at gaining access to a network are considered threats unless proven otherwise. This is a great approach to cybersecurity because the majority of breaches are a result of compromised credentials. Under a zero trust model, companies have observability for all the endpoints in their business and can prevent and mitigate any cyber attacks. 

Benefits of using a zero-trust model

Implementing a Zero Trust Model in network security offers a range of significant benefits for organizations. Here are some key advantages:

Authentication

A zero trust model requires rigorous authentication at basically every step and user permission requested. Each time a person accesses a file, device or application, they will be required to do re-authentication. This continuous authentication framework prevents anyone internally or externally from accessing data they should not be. 

Limiting the impact of cyber attacks

One of the best benefits of using a zero-trust model is that it limits the impact of a cyberattack. In a scenario where a hacker gains access to your network or company account, they are very limited by what they can do. This is because zero trust adopts a least privilege access model to security. This means that each user will only be given permission and access based on what they need to do for their day-to-day work. Any additional actions will require re-authentication and will alert the company. 

Securing endpoints

With many enterprises increasing their remote work pool of employees, companies are multiplying their endpoints and increasing their vulnerabilities to cyberattacks. In an office setting, there are limited endpoints in which someone can access company data. With remote work, any tablet, smartphone, laptop, or device can get access to companies’ networks and data. Zero trust secures all those endpoints by verifying each access attempt to your company’s networks.

Complete visibility

A zero trust model also provides your company with extensive logging and tracking of data. This allows your company to see exactly who is requesting permissions to what files in the company. With this complete visibility to your network, it makes it extremely easy to pick up on irregularities and identify compromised accounts. This makes it easier for your company to be proactive and stop attacks at their source.

To learn more about how your business can adopt a zero-trust model for your cybersecurity, talk to an expert here.