How Zero Trust Improves Data Protection

December 22, 2022

Are you looking for how zero trust improves data protection? Zero-Trust architecture reduces the attack surface by assuming that defenses have breached. As a result, the damage caused by breaches limited. Additionally, a Zero-Trust architecture can increase security by increasing the number of layers of protection. However, it has its limitations.

Segmentation

Segmentation is a fundamental aspect of zero-trust security. It reduces the attack surface of an organization by limiting access to sensitive data and applications. In this case, a low-level employee provides login information to a cyber-criminal, who then has wholesale access to the organization’s data and applications. This type of breach could be far worse than one that would occur if the cyber-criminal only had limited access.

Segmentation allows companies to monitor their data, including who has access to what information and when they should share that information. Forcepoint, for example, offers advanced user activity monitoring solutions that personalize data protection based on user actions. Companies must determine who should have access to what data and make sure they only allow those users the minimum privileges they need. Additionally, they must consider the culture of the company to ensure that Zero Trust supported by all employees.

Zero-trust security emphasizes verification first and never trusting. It uses micro-segmentation to isolate environments and distribute workloads. By limiting access to data and applications, zero-trust is more secure and helps with incident response. It also helps reduce lateral threat attacks.

Zero-Trust architecture is a fundamental shift from traditional network security. In the past, organizations relied on “trust but verify” models that implicitly trusted everything on their network. This posed a risk from malicious internal actors and legitimate credentials stolen by external actors. As the cloud and distributed work environments continue to evolve, traditional network security is no longer sufficient. Organizations must implement an integrated, end-to-end security solution that can protect their data, applications, and systems.

Monitoring

Zero Trust is an architecture that provides continuous monitoring and analytics to limit the attack surface and minimize damage from security breaches. This approach reduces the workload of security operations center analysts and promotes real-time risk mitigation. It also enhances the user experience through adaptive conditional access. By automating these tasks, organizations can save time and resources for innovation.

Zero Trust security frameworks use advanced technologies to validate user identity and system access. The security framework also ensures the hygiene of assets. Threat intelligence can also gather using intelligent monitoring and analytics. Integrated with Zero-Trust technology stack, advanced analytics can provide real-time insight into a company’s security posture and vulnerabilities.

Zero Trust can help organizations achieve continuous compliance across multiple industries and regulatory frameworks. As a result, organizations can streamline audits and reduce the effort required to produce evidence. However, there are still some challenges associated with Zero Trust. For example, the security model needs to evolve to meet the needs of the digital world.

Zero Trust is an information technology security framework that authenticates and authorizes users inside the network and checks for security posture continuously. It addresses modern challenges facing business today, including securing remote workers and hybrid cloud environments. It also accommodates growing data processing needs and can protect against ransomware threats.

Logging

Zero-Trust architecture provides protection against the risk of compromised credentials and keeps intruders from moving laterally within a network. However, because network activity is not always visible, logs from zero-trust architecture should collected. This information can then use to detect threats, such as intrusions.

Zero-Trust architecture requires continuous monitoring and logging to prevent and detect breaches. In case of a breach, real-time monitoring capabilities can limit the damage to a network and notify a security team immediately. The components of a zero-trust architecture should include components for logging, analyzing, and reporting activity.

The foundation of a Zero Trust architecture is continuous monitoring and analytics, which helps the security operations center reduce the load of security analysts. The system evaluates access requests to identify whether they are legitimate and flag them accordingly. The implementation of Zero Trust architecture will help organizations improve the efficiency of their operations by enabling employees to access data and collaborate with each other more effectively. It will also improve the user experience because of adaptive conditional access.

The Zero Trust architecture is an information technology security framework that requires authentication and authorization of users, and continuously validates each user’s security posture. It can be local or cloud-based, or a hybrid of both. It will allow organizations to accommodate workers in different locations and meet security certification requirements.

Micro-segmentation

Micro-segmentation improves data protection by limiting an attacker’s ability to move across the data center. It helps eliminate server-to-server attacks and minimizes the total attack surface. The benefits of micro-segmentation include reduced complexity and increased visibility.

Micro-segmentation provides granular visibility into who is accessing what and why. It also allows fine-grained control over data and users. It implemented through three main components: access management identities, fine-grain access policies, and pinpointed security controls.

Micro-segmentation also helps improve regulatory compliance posture. By isolating and segregating segments of IT infrastructure, an organization can demonstrate that it is meeting PCI DSS security requirements. This can accomplish using sophisticated labelling functionality.

Micro-segmentation can help protect sensitive data, especially in zero-trust architecture. This approach eliminates the need for multiple firewalls and manages east-west network traffic by isolating individual workloads within the same virtual network. It also allows for better network performance.

Micro-segmentation is a key component of zero trust architecture, which helps organizations protect their data by separating infected systems from the rest of the network. This ensures that attackers can’t piggyback on a single system’s approved policies. It also keeps data and applications isolated and prevents attacks from moving past endpoint protection.

Micro-segmentation allows organizations to implement zero-trust in their existing infrastructure. It reduces the blast radius of attacks, enabling faster incident response, and is a key element to secure data centers and multi-cloud environments. Additionally, it enables users to define security policies based on zero-trust principles.

Identity-based validation policies

Identity-based validation policies are essential to improve data protection in a Zero-Trust architecture. These policies continuously verify the identity of users accessing sensitive data, apps, or other resources. They also identify suspicious behavior and deny access to potential threats. Using this approach improves data protection and reduces the cost of data breaches. According to IBM, organizations with a mature zero-trust architecture will spend approximately $2 million less per breach.

The Zero Trust approach focuses on identity-based policies for enterprise access control. This means that enterprise access controls are based on an individual’s identity and assigned attributes. A person’s identity serves as the primary requirement to access corporate data, though access policies may also consider other factors.

In addition to identity-based policies, organizations can implement other advanced technologies to improve data protection. For example, organizations can use micro-segmentation tools, software-defined perimeters, and identity-aware proxies to improve data protection. They may also use VPNs, multi-factor authentication, device approval, and intrusion prevention systems. Identity-based Zero-Trust models can support a diverse range of applications and platforms.

Identity-based validation policies are a crucial part of Zero-Trust architecture. They ensure that a user’s identity is valid, and the system properly protected against threats. The Zero-Trust model focuses on minimizing the chances of human error and increasing overall data protection. However, implementing a Zero-Trust architecture can be costly and difficult to achieve. Fortunately, this architecture can build into existing architecture.

Ransomware attacks

Implementing a Zero-Trust architecture is one way to improve the security of your business systems and help prevent ransomware attacks. This approach helps protect your on-premise and cloud assets by limiting access to corporate resources to users with the appropriate privileges. It helps limit the attack surface, reducing the chances of an attacker stealing sensitive or intellectual data. Implementing a Zero-Trust solution is a long-term solution for protecting your data.

Using PAM to prevent privileged users from using privileged accounts for business purposes can help minimize the risk of ransomware attacks, while reducing the time administrators authenticated on a system. Moreover, the use of WORM data storage is highly secure and cannot modified, minimizing the risk of data exfiltration. AI-powered advanced anomaly detection can reduce the threat radius in the event of ransomware attacks.

The first step to combat ransomware is to identify the affected data and the most recent un-impacted backup. The next step is to restore the data as quickly as possible. The longer the recovery time, the higher the chance of downtime and business interruption. Fortunately, there are now zero-trust encryption tools available that can help secure your data.

The threat of ransomware is a growing concern for both businesses and governments, but it has the potential to cause more than just a monetary headache. The attacks can disrupt daily business and threaten the integrity of the energy grid. A weakened power grid could result in blackouts, gridlocks, and the release of oil spills and toxic chemicals.

Ammar Fakhruddin

ABOUT AUTHOR

Ammar brings in 18 years of experience in strategic solutions and product development in Public Sector, Oil & Gas and Healthcare organizations. He loves solving complex real world business and data problems by bringing in leading-edge solutions that are cost effective, improve customer and employee experience. At Propelex he focuses on helping businesses achieve digital excellence using Smart Data & Cybersecurity solutions.


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