What is this new “zero trust” thing?

Zero trust is a relatively new cyber security strategy that is rapidly becoming the security model of choice for businesses. In fact, we anticipate this to be the new standard to meet data protection compliance for all organizations, large and small.

Essentially the only application and logins allowed are those preapproved by you, and everything else is treated with zero trust, locking down your network. Here’s an example of how it works…

Imagine you own a shopping mall and want to protect it from a shooting, shoplifters or other bad people. You place cameras and guards by every door to monitor people coming in and out. Maybe you even have a metal detector.

Problem is, the doors are wide open and you are relying on the people running security to spot a bad guy, which means there’s room for error. How do you spot a shoplifter or mugger? They don’t wear a sign that says, “I’m a shoplifter!” as they enter the mall.

A zero trust environment ONLY lets the people into the mall who you know personally. You essentially have “zero trust” for anyone who wasn’t invited in, and you block them ALL except for those specific people (applications) you know and trust.

On a computer network, that means applications like Office or QuickBooks are allowed, but NOT something that is new or unvetted.

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-Adrianna