Mistake No. 1: Thinking Zero Trust Can Be Installed
A zero-trust security framework is not a product that can be licensed or installed. It is a strategy that defines a holistic approach to cybersecurity that shifts the traditional network security focus from protecting a perimeter to protecting assets and users.
“Zero trust is the term for an evolving set of cybersecurity paradigms that move defenses from static, network-based perimeters to focus on users, assets and resources,” according to the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Special Publication 800-207. “A zero-trust architecture uses zero trust principles to plan industrial and enterprise infrastructure and workflows.”
NIST adds that zero trust has been made necessary by a number of trends in recent years, including an increase in remote workers and bring-your-own-device policies, as well as the growth of cloud-based assets located outside organizations’ own perimeters. SP 800-207 notes that “zero trust focuses on protecting resources (assets, services, workflows, network accounts, etc.), not network segments, as the network location is no longer seen as the prime component to the security posture of the resource.”
DISCOVER: Check out this infographic to learn the basics of zero trust adoption.