Getting started with Zero Trust can seem daunting. Not only is the concept is new and challenging to comprehend, but it also employs various existing technologies – making it difficult to choose the starting point to implement this security policy.
This article explains exactly how you should start with implementing Zero Trust in your business network. You must treat it as more of a mindset than a technological solution. Therefore, it is essential to address it in that manner. The below steps will help you define Zero Trust, communicate the change to your staff, and then implement technological solutions.
Table of Contents
Define Zero Trust for your organization
To start, get your team together and agree on a definition of zero Trust. Define the goals of the policy and develop a roadmap to achieve them. Zero Trust can mean different things to different organizations. As a business leader, you are in the best position to define Zero Trust for your organization. Do this before you implement any Zero Trust technology.
Consider your user experience for defining your Zero Trust. A never trusting, constantly verifying principle can change the way users interact with your systems and data. You need to know who your users are, the apps they access, define the various phases, and how they connect to those apps.
Identify your most at-risk users along with the critical Data/Assets/Applications/Services (DAAS). Focus on protecting these users and DAAS first. Determine who/what needs access to the DAAS and create security policies around that. Apply these security policies across all environments (LAN, WAN, endpoint, and others)
Changing Employee’s Mindset
Everybody believes that a firewall protects the network from bad guys – that lie outside the network. For Zero Trust, people need to adjust their thinking and assume that the bad guys are already inside their network. To effectively implement this security model, users must understand why Zero Trust is the best solution for their business needs.
Further, it is essential to note that this security model requires ongoing effort and is a continuous process, with some pieces being more challenging than others. We must be patient and keep implementing this model incrementally throughout the organization. For example, creating micro-segmentation could lead to misconfiguration leading to inconsistent user access. The users must be prepared for these mishaps and quickly fix issues when they arise.
Zero Trust is a journey, not a destination. Implementing the model requires thoughtful planning. It can be boring and unglamorous to implement this policy in your organization and require good work from the core internal team. It is essential to implement this security model in a phased manner, over a period, focusing on small wins!
Implement in Phases
Zero Trust takes time and effort. It cannot be implemented overnight. Depending on the technologies already deployed at your organization, the timeline can vary. Furthermore, the transition to a mature Zero Trust architecture requires additional capabilities. Implementation of Zero Trust must be done in a phased manner, allowing it to mature over time.
Zero Trust can seem extremely complicated. Therefore, it is essential to aim for “quick wins” to keep your employees engaged and show progress. Simultaneously, work on your long-term plan to get to the advanced level.
First, focus on generating a policy for your most critical users. Then slowly move towards other areas of your IT landscape until you have the entire network on Zero Trust. Remember, Zero Trust, like cybersecurity in general, is a highly active topic, and observe frequent changes. Be aware of the latest trends and modify your strategy.
Implement Identity Management
Robust identity management will allow you to manage users and devices and tie them together to enable consistent authentication across your organization. Identity management will allow you to implement passwordless entry via Single Sign-On (SSO), improving the user experience.
Identity is the foundation for Zero Trust! Okta provides a good resource on how to implement identity management better. Use this resource to improve your identity maturity.
Real-time data analytics
Establish complete visibility of all activity across all layers from endpoints and the network to enable analytics to detect suspicious activity. Real-time data will help you understand and control how users, processes, and devices interact with data and other resources. You need to monitor information like location, time, the normal behavior of the user or device, and others to allow access.
Automate
The ultimate goal of a Zero Trust policy is to automate the network security of your business. Manually managing the entire infrastructure can be time-consuming. A policy engine, enabled by automated orchestration, will compare any request to what you have already defined as legitimate business connectivity requirements. Only requests that are not defined as the acceptable need to be reviewed and approved by human experts.
Conclusion
Zero Trust is the future of cybersecurity. Small businesses can easily apply this security model as they have much simple network architecture and few assets compared to large corporations.
For a successful implementation of Zero Trust, the whole company must embody its philosophy - from the owner to the recruit. First, determine your assets, networks, data, and users. Classify them as per their needs and access requirements and define the critical users and data. Focus first on the critical assets and then move towards other parts of the business network.
Remember that this security model requires you to have patience and consistent effort. While it is not a quick fix, it is the best security model for today’s distributed workforce.