Zero Trust solutions are gaining popularity as they enhance security without impacting user productivity. The solution sits at the network’s edge, and brokers secure application connections. The “zero trust, always verify” approach assumes that users, devices, networks, and systems are not trusted and require authentication before access is granted. The solution can be agent-based (installed on endpoint devices) or service-based.
1. Zero Trust Security
What is ZTNA? Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) is a security architecture that removes trusted connections to remote users and applications. Instead, it provides identity-based validation and a secure tunnel between devices and cloud environments that prevents unauthorized access.
ZTNA can be used to protect against several threats, including account compromise, lateral movement during a breach, and data loss. Organizations can reduce their attack surface and minimize risk by limiting access to the most valuable assets and enforcing strict multi-factor authentication policies.
By segmenting the network into smaller zones, ZTNA can make it easier to control traffic flow and limit threat movement during a breach. Each asset has its perimeter and can only be accessed by verified and authenticated devices.
Additionally, with the rise of BYOD in the workplace, Zero Trust network access can help protect personal devices from being exposed to corporate resources. By assessing the value and vulnerability of each device, ZTNA can provide access to only those applications that are necessary for a specific task. The system can even hide infrastructure from public product discovery and bridge users to applications without connecting to the network.
2. Data Integrity
Organizations can deploy ZTNA in various ways to fit their network ecosystem and business needs. It can be done via standalone solutions inserted into the security infrastructure, as part of a digital transformation initiative to replace VPN with SD-WAN or SASE, or as part of an IT operations management solution to provide a unified gateway for secure access.
With ZTNA, users can be given granular access to specific applications while restricted from accessing other resources in the private network. This helps reduce the attack surface and prevents lateral movement by malicious actors once they are in your corporate network.
ZTNA can also give IT teams broader visibility into user activity at the application level, making it easier to detect unusual behavior that could indicate a compromise or malware. This cannot be accomplished with VPNs, as they do not offer this level of visibility at the app level.
3. Compliance
As organizations adopt new technologies for their remote workforce, it’s essential to remember that they must adhere to regulatory compliance and security requirements. ZTNA can help them do so by allowing users to authenticate to applications regardless of whether the application is located on an internal network or in a cloud environment.
This is especially helpful for modern organizations collaborating with multiple clouds and needing granular access control to data in these environments. This is achieved by utilizing end-to-end encrypted TLS tunnels, providing access on a one-to-one basis to specific applications for verified users.
It also helps reduce risks by isolating applications from the network and hiding the network infrastructure from unauthorized users and attackers. When implementing a zero-trust approach, looking for solutions that provide granular visibility and reporting is essential.
This will enable you to understand your organization’s overall security posture better. In addition, look for solutions with built-in resiliency and optimization capabilities to ensure a positive user experience without impacting performance. This will ensure that your solution can withstand DDoS attacks and DPI threats.
4. Ease of Use
The ZTNA solution hides apps from the public internet, ensuring verified users can only access them on managed devices. This includes OT/IoT devices and third-party applications. It also prevents the lateral movement of threats inside the data center by granting access to specific applications based on user and device context.
Unlike legacy solutions, zero trust is transparent to users and does not require changes to workflows or additional tools. This is critical for today’s workforce as many organizations continue to adopt a mobile and work-from-anywhere strategy.
In addition, the software-defined perimeter makes it easier to implement and support security policies at the application layer rather than the network perimeter, which can be a significant challenge for some networks.
Conclusion
Finally, the principle of least privilege ensures that each user gets only the permissions they need to complete their tasks. This is important because unauthorized users can cause severe damage by exploiting unprotected applications or using the backdoors found in them. Zero Trust also continuously monitors users, workloads, and devices to identify malicious behavior.
