What was the state of zero trust security 2021? What were the trends a year ago? How did it shape the trends this year? Find out below.
The State of Zero Trust Security 2021
In 2021, the state of zero trust security was secure, trusted, and governed. The state of zero trust security 2021 was driven by the following trends:
- Trust is Broken. Zero trust security became a reality as organizations learned that they could no longer rely on perimeter defenses to provide security. (See Zero Trust Security: Data Is the Key .)
- The perimeter is dead. Long live the perimeter. This has been a recurring theme for many years now but it is certainly true that the traditional way of securing IT environments has changed. Following a spate of high-profile cyber attacks, people began to realize that data was always at risk, even within the so-called sanctity of their networks. Thus, the zero trust model emerged as a response to this realization, where every user and device is treated as a threat rather than an ally in securing the network.
So, zero trust security was essentially an evolution from traditional network security where users were trusted. And data was secured by relying on defense in depth (i.e., multiple layers of security) on the network perimeter through firewalls and intrusion detection systems (IDS). Now, every user and device is considered untrusted. And anything entering or leaving an organization’s network will be thoroughly vetted before being granted access to any resources.
Organizations have been very proactive in adopting this model. Because they have had no other choice if they want to protect their data.
Zero Trust Security Benefits
Zero trust security provides several benefits compared to traditional network security, including:
- Greater visibility into your environment. Network security enforced a level of isolation between different zones within an organization’s environment (e.g., DMZ). This enabled organizations to monitor activity within their environments effectively. But making it difficult for them to monitor traffic between them which could include malicious activity.
- Enhanced security. By enforcing a level of isolation between these different zones, you also reduced the scope for error within them. This meant that if an attacker was able to breach the perimeter, their activity was limited to a certain zone. And so the damage they could cause was limited to that zone as well.
- It is designed with defense in depth in mind. This means that many layers of defense are in place to mitigate any security threat. For instance, network security and endpoint security are used together to lock down an organization’s environment. Which makes it more difficult for an attacker to gain access to an organization’s assets in the first place.
- Enhanced speed of response. This enables organizations to react much quicker when faced with a security incident. Because it provides them with a centralized source of truth on users and devices accessing resources within their environments. It also speeds up the identification process.
Conclusion
As you can see, it is a very different approach to securing IT environments compared to the traditional one. And it is certainly a more secure one. This is why it has become so popular in the last year.