There is no doubt the cyber threats have reached a whole new level — they have become more and more sophisticated, making it tough for security professionals to deal with them. This is also trying to show that the InfoSec industry is not exactly doing the right thing, or is it just running in circles behind ideas and concepts to strengthen cybersecurity.
How do we deal with these ever-increasing cyber threats? And the ultimate answer to all these questions is the fact that companies are not having a right and ultimate goal — the goal has to be about reducing, mitigating cyber threats and protect the valuable sensitive data from getting exposed.
Don’t Trust. Verify.
While there are new concepts coming up in the cyber security domain, there is one concept that seems to be gaining a lot of popularity, lately — Zero-Trust Approach. When it comes to fighting cyber threats and prevent the exfiltration of sensitive data, Zero Trust architecture is considered to be a great approach for businesses across the world.
Zero-Trust is basically all about the concept of verifying before trusting. It is designed to address lateral threat movement within a network, and it can be done by leveraging micro-segmentation and granular perimeters enforcement, based on user, data and location.
The biggest advantage of taking a Zero-trust approach to security is that it is not biased — it doesn’t differentiate between insiders and outsiders when it comes to security. Amid all the data breaches happening across the world, it is the best way to protect mission-critical data and systems. Simply put, if someone is not trying or attempting to access any company data, that doesn’t mean that person is trusted. Rather, the company can make use of ways to verify the person at first.
Base For A Zero-Trust Architecture
A zero-trust model for access control has several benefits; however, in order to implement this technology strategy, an organisation must keep a few things in mind.
Make Sure Data Is Accessed Securely
Irrespective of who the employee is, what is his/her designation, it is imperative for organisations to verify the identity of every single user, every single time, who is accessing the data. It is all about implementing a least-privileged access strategy and strictly enforce access control.
Implement Authentication Methods
When you strengthen the access control by imposing strict protocols, you also need to implement authentication methods for the authorized people to access the data and that can be done through a combination of single sign-on, multi-factor authentication (MFA), or even biometrics if required. Also, it is important to keep an eye on employees who are not granted access and still attempts to access that data. That is not all, one must also ensure that what applications users are using and the appropriate connection method. When it comes to data, no organisation can compromise with security.
Make Use Of Behavioral Analytics
When the prime motive is to keep the data safe, no one is trusted in this approach — until and unless they pass verification. One of the verification methods could be behaviour-based analytics, which basically about providing insight into the actions of people. This can be achieved by using AI that would keep an eye on the person who is accessing the data. Every time it accesses the data, the AI would record what s/he is doing with it. This would allow the company to understand whether the person is trustworthy or not.
Outlook
While many organisations are focusing on their perimeter-based security, many have almost forgotten that sometimes the attack starts inside. Meaning, the point of infiltration of an attack is not the target location all the time. With time, even hackers have curated sophisticated techniques to compromises data of organisations across the world.
If your organisation is still using traditional methods for the cybersecurity infrastructure, then it is high time to give Zero-trust approach a shot.
