Better Visibility and Control Through Zero Trust

For the Defense Department (DoD), implementing zero-trust cybersecurity principles are an absolute must to protect against vulnerabilities and to continuously monitor evolving threats.

The DoD needs to ensure that their personnel are properly trained, since about a third of cyber-related threats come from the inside. Controlling access and privileges for users and devices on its networks is another must, ensuring that devices are secured and that network identities don’t have unnecessary privileges.

That’s where zero trust comes in, a security framework that authenticates all users before being granted access to an agency’s applications and data. Check out these three examples of how zero trust can improve security:

Detecting Compromised User Credentials

With traditional network security, a threat actor who compromises a user’s credential is likely to gain access to the network. A zero-trust environment, however, could foil the attempt in a couple ways, including through multi-factor authentication.

Limiting an Attacker’s Mobility

In the event an attacker gains entry to the network, the intruder’s ability to move about will be limited due to network segmentation. Segmentation has been added to prevent movement within the network without authentication and authorization at each stage.

Detecting Anomalous Activity

Once zero trust is in place, continuous monitoring and analytics can detect anomalous activity in user accounts, network activity, connected devices and data access.

Want to learn more on how zero trust can protect a system from bad actors? Download this report, “How DoD Can Extend Zero Trust to the Tactical Edge.”