“Trust nobody” sounds like a line out of a trashy action film but it’s also the logic behind the latest way to approach cyber security.
Move over multi-factor authentication – ‘zero trust’ is the new buzzword in town.
It might sound negative but it’s actually about proactively approaching your IT security and it’s something we all should be doing. The principle behind it is never trust and always verify first.
It creates far more work for your IT provider, but your system will be much more secure – reducing the chance of attacks on your business.
Why do we need it?
Before the Cloud and working from home, our IT networks had an edge which was a parameter to secure within. Now, businesses are so much more vulnerable to cyber risks because of the way we operate.
Unlike traditional security models that assume everything inside a company’s network is safe, zero trust operates on the assumption that threats can come from both outside and inside the network.
Employees accessing company systems from various locations and devices create potential entry points for cyber criminals. A zero trust approach mitigates this risk by enforcing strict identity verification and continuous monitoring, regardless of where users are connecting from.
What does this approach look like?
If for example, you ran a medium-sized financial service company, you could have hundreds of employees working remotely. The old way of working would see each of those employees logging in to the system with a username and password, giving them broad access to the network. If one of those accounts became compromised, that could affect the entire business, risk exposing confidential client information and seriously damage the company’s reputation and profitability.
Taking the zero trust approach would see the employee only gaining access to the system through multi-factor authentication, ensuring they are who they say they are. The system access would be monitored to see if what they are doing is coming from their usual device and if their behaviour is typical, and they will be given minimal access to perform their task and no more, further reducing the chance of being compromised.
This real-time monitoring can flag any unusual behaviour to nip potential attacks in the bud. The speed of detecting and responding to threats can make the difference between a minor incident and a major breach.
The approach goes deeper still, with encryption of data, securing email accounts, and verifying the cyber hygiene of assets and endpoints before they are used.
Our approach at Start Tech
At Start Tech we have invested heavily in the tools to adopt this approach to safeguard the businesses we work with. Part of our role is to protect our client’s data and furthermore, their reputation.
Zero trust expands on our proactive approach to IT. By assuming that nothing is trustworthy and by implementing verification and continuous monitoring, we can make businesses cyber secure. If you’d like to find out more about our zero trust approach to managing your IT, drop us a message here or call us on 01743 298611.
