The Zero Trust Model is exactly what it sounds like. A model that indicates that organizations must place zero trust into anything inside or outside their perimeters. Essentially, its motto is “Don't trust anyone”.

The Zero Trust Model was developed by John Kinervag in 2010 and has become one of the mainstream buzzwords around information security. This model helps prevent potential data breaches by placing the least amount of trust in a network and system architecture of an organization, and by ensuring that all components trying to connect to the system are verified before access is granted.

Principles of the Zero Trust Model

The Zero Trust Model ensures that data breaches do not occur. For this, it follows a set of principles that organizations should follow to ensure added security and reduced chances of breaches.

The architecture of the Zero Trust Model

The Zero Trust Model essentially includes the following components:

Zero Trust Data

One of the most important aspects of the Zero Trust Model is the data. Since data is the main target for an insider as well as outsider attackers, it is the most important part of the Zero Trust architecture that must be secured, segmented depending on its sensitivity, monitored, and managed.

Zero Trust Network

Networks are used to steal data, hence this is another component that must be segmented, isolated, and restricted with firewalls.

Zero Trust People

Since people are the weakest link in security, they must be monitored, limited and their access should be managed strictly. People should not be trusted in the Zero Trust Model and must be verified and checked at all available instances.

Zero Trust Workloads

The entire stack of applications and the backend software is defined as the workload of a system. Workloads are also under constant attack and must be protected at all costs.

Zero Trust Devices

The more devices used in a system, the more exposed is an organization to attack. Hence, devices are also an important threat vector in this model that must be verified, monitored, and controlled.

Visibility and Analytics

Every incident that occurs within a system should be visible and analyzed within a system. Furthermore, analytics must be carried out on all incidents to separate the normal incidents from potential breaches and act on it as soon as possible.

Automation 

Another important component of the Zero Trust Model is the automation capabilities of a system, which keeps everything running and secured without the need of human interference. 

How to deploy the Zero Trust Model?

• Identify what needs to be protected.
  Identify the most critical aspects of your data, networks, people, and workloads, and work on protecting it to the fullest extent possible. 
  
  
• Map the flow of the transactions.
  Map how user access takes place, how the workflow occurs, and what can be done to ensure that the Zero Trust Model is incorporated into the generic system workflow.
  
  
• Build an architecture that follows the Zero Trust Model principles.
  When building or updating the system architecture, make sure it follows the principles of the Zero Trust Model.
  
  
• Create policies that follow the Zero Trust Model principles.
  Create well-written policy documents that incorporate all the Zero Trust Model principles.
  
  
• Monitor and maintain
  Following the Zero Trust Model is not about deploying policies and creating architecture once, but it is about constant monitoring, maintaining, and updating the model as time passes. Make sure to identify new sensitive aspects of the infrastructure, update policies according to the new transaction flows, and maintain the Zero Trust environment at all costs.

Advantages of the Zero Trust Model

How can Foxpass help you implement the Zero Trust Model?

Foxpass is a state-of-the-art solution designed to meet your access control needs. Foxpass offers a comprehensive SSH key and privileged access management solution, to ensure that the most critical parts of your infrastructure are secured and that users only have access to what they need when they need it. 

Foxpass also streams logs back to a customer's SIEM system (Splunk, Sumo Logic, etc.) thus following another major principle of the Zero Trust Model effectively. It allows you to deploy advanced access control in minutes, to avoid internal and external breaches.

Apart from the security benefits, Foxpass offers, its flexibility and ease of use, as well as its immaculate support and cost, makes it a perfect solution that is aligned with the principles of the Zero Trust Model.

Sign up and reap the benefits of Foxpass today!