What is Zero Trust Security and how can it Protect your Organization?

by Tim Hohman | Thursday, May 14, 2020 | Security Kubernetes

I allocate a fair amount of time tracking emerging software projects and watching which solutions/companies I think might successfully meet enterprise needs. Lately, based upon discussions with Boxboat’s engineers and customers, I’ve heard more about the promise of Zero Trust architectures.

What is Zero Trust Security? Zero Trust security is a rigorous approach to security focused on identifying roles to secure access, rather than a single perimeter. At BoxBoat, we believe Zero Trust should be an integral part of any digital transformation strategy as traditional security architectures seem unable to adequately address modern cyber attacks.

The most popular network defenses today are firewalls and Virtual Private Networks (VPNs). While these approaches are able to control access to your systems, a perimeter breach is catastrophic because a large portion of your private data becomes accessible during a single event. The alternative is Zero Trust, where no one user is inherently trusted. Each access is validated, and one asset being breached only compromises a small subset of the network.

The key to Zero Trust is role identification - people and services are assigned one or many roles, from a single source of truth. Access is granted for only what is required to accomplish their tasks, and no more. If a user’s account is breached, only the tools and services available to that user are at risk.

Another important component of Zero Trust is authentication of ALL traffic flow, continually. This is essential for effective compliance with laws such as HIPAA, GDPR, FISMA, PCI and other current and future data privacy regulations.

As our world moves to more remote access by both internal and external users of our business critical enterprise systems (mission critical for the federal government), Zero Trust is the best way to architect your security strategy. As data breaches accelerate and become more sophisticated, a proper Zero Trust implementation allows all traffic flow to be authenticated at all times, minimizing the risk that one breach will allow access across your network.

BoxBoat’s team is deeply committed to Zero Trust and believes it is a core component of any work we do. Please contact us to see how this new approach can transform your organization’s data security.