How Zero Trust Opens the Path to Digital Transformation

If you haven’t been a victim of a cybercrime, it’s likely you have a friend or family member who has been. About 2,200 cyberattacks occur every day, resulting in more than 800,000 victims of ransomware attacks, phishing scams, or data breaches every year.

Traditional security models were built for the on-premise IT enterprise. But with the explosion in remote and hybrid work, users, data, and resources are geographically dispersed to every corner of the globe, creating more openings for hackers and bad actors to attack vulnerable data and systems.

To counter the increasingly dangerous digital environment and unlock digital transformation, organizations must look to zero trust security architectures as the key to secure infrastructure solutions.

What is zero trust?

Zero trust is a set of cybersecurity paradigms that focus on users, assets, and resources, rather than network-based perimeters. Zero trust represents a significant shift in implicit trust, meaning users and devices are no longer considered inherently trustworthy.

Compare traditional security models to a castle and moat. The castle is representative of an organization’s network and the network perimeter is the moat. Once the guards open the gate and lower the drawbridge, someone can come into the castle and essentially do whatever they want. If a bad actor were to penetrate to an organization’s network, they can access all of the systems within, stealing sensitive data, implanting malware, or committing other malicious acts. Remote work essentially sets up more drawbridges to locations around the world. More drawbridges equal more vulnerability points.

Zero trust architecture, however, assumes that there are security risks already inside and outside of the network. Nothing inside or outside the network is trusted, requiring strict verification for every user and device before granting access to data and applications.

Zero trust is founded on five tenets:

1. Assume a hostile environment: No asset is trusted; instead they are guilty until proven innocent.
2. Presume breach: Zero trust assumes that malicious assets are already inside the network.
3. Never trust, always verify: Access is denied by default.
4. Scrutinize explicitly: Access to resources is conditional and can change at any time.
5. Apply unified analytics: Provides data, applications, assets, and services.

These five tenets comprise the basic principle of least-privilege access. Users only get the bare amount of access that they need to perform their tasks or missions. This is achieved through technologies like multi-factor authentication, virtual private networks, microsegmentation, and data restriction and accessibility to only privileged users.

Myths of zero trust

Sometimes, to understand something, it’s best to start with what it is not. Zero trust isn’t just one technology. It’s a paradigm shift, which emphasizes a set of cybersecurity principles that organizations implement across a range of technologies to address risk. Technology is just part of this shift. Of equal importance, organizations must prepare for workforce reskilling, adoption of new processes, organizational culture change, and a multi-year transformation process.

There is no silver bullet for zero trust; it is not something you can buy from a single vendor. Zero trust involves many providers and services whose products must work together. Additionally, organizations must identify how to either align or adjust their preexisting tools to meet zero trust requirements.

How to accelerate zero trust

Zero trust is key to achieving digital transformation. It is the North Star to a more resilient, secure organization and framework. As your organization embarks on its zero-trust journey, stay focused on the end goal and the benefits.

Zero trust provides a new virtual perimeter that secures data and application resources and can only be accessed by authorized and authenticated users and devices from anywhere. These users and devices are authorized based on identity and location- or security-posture-based context. The access of resources by users and devices is subject to granular and dynamic access policies that adapt to the current security risk profiles.

Our Zero Trust Playbook recommends a 4-part approach, based on implementation best practices and lessons learned to accelerate the implementation. 

1. Develop the zero trust strategy for the organization. Resist the urge to jump into implementation activities before having created a clear picture of your as-is and to-be environment. Conduct a maturity assessment to understand what investments you have made already and how they align with zero trust requirements. This allows you to identify gaps and then create a realistic plan for filling them. 

2. Deploy technology solutions. They should either focus on expanding or reconfiguring existing technologies or implementing something new (such as micro-segmentation) to fill gaps. 

3. Enhance policies and processes. Although there is a lot of focus on technology solutions for zero trust activities, do not neglect the importance of reviewing work processes and practices and enhancing them to adopt cyber security principles. For instance, define the least privilege policies for systems administrators. 

4. Develop your workforce. Pay special attention to developing your workforce’s relevant skills to enable them to embrace and adopt zero trust. It is important to foster a zero trust culture and mindset.

 Zero trust reduces the attack surface and risk of enterprise-wide vulnerabilities while preventing threats from adversaries both inside and outside of the network. Zero trust also enables data sharing and risk management in mission partner environments, enabling government agencies and members of the Department of Defense to exchange information securely with partners. Information, when compartmentalized based on classification and mission access, can be quickly accessible to any user who needs it.

 Zero trust is not a destination. It’s a journey, and an organization committed to this journey must continually leverage tools like CACI’s Zero Trust Playbook to assess and improve its cybersecurity posture and maturity.