Why automation is essential to a zero trust security model
A security model driven by automation is appropriate for professionals managing multiple IT environments across vendors
Security breaches are on the rise, with 58% of European companies now reporting that they've been compromised at some point. And when the breach is internal - that is, a trusted account inside your company is compromised - it can go unnoticed for weeks on end, posing a far bigger threat than external breaches. Preventing internal breaches can clash with the traditional cybersecurity rationale, where the sole purpose is to assess threats coming from outside the organisation.
To address this threat, many organisations are looking to the Zero Trust security model. This framework allows CISOs and security teams to adopt a new mindset when it comes to security threats, treating every attempt to access the network as a potential threat and performing a thorough risk assessment.
Zero Trust has to verify every connection across an enterprise's data, applications, and devices, significantly reducing the chance of a security breach internally. To achieve this all routers, switches, cloud devices, IoT and supply chain points are subjected to rigorous and automated access controls, with access permissions being both granular and adjusted in real-time based on the user's requirements at that time.
The complex architecture of Zero Trust can be applied to a vast amount of enterprise infrastructure, including public and private clouds, as well as data centres and edge environments. For Zero Trust to successfully maintain strict controls, it requires an agile framework to manage IT and cloud environments at scale. Security teams can use this framework to manage both internal and external risks with the same level of assessment and reduce their effect.
Automation's value for Zero Trust
To date, traditional cybersecurity models have been made up of multi-vendor solutions that often silo teams and create more friction between different technologies. There's never been a one-size-fits-all approach to security operations, and we need to recognise this in order to master Zero Trust.
Zero Trust, fundamentally, is enabled by automated processes and workflows to enable granular yet real-time user permissions. Practically implementing this across an entire organisation's IT stack requires teams to leverage open source standards, which has the bonus of enabling collaboration between security, ITOps, NetOps, and DevOps teams to form more agile security environments.
A security model driven by automation is appropriate for professionals managing multiple IT environments across vendors. When collaborating through open standards, teams across the board have a better understanding of what part they have to play in the project, allowing them to integrate Zero Trust security functions seamlessly through enhanced collaboration.
Building a protected network
In a Zero Trust security environment, all parties must be authenticated through a profile that highlights their digital identity, device health verification and application validation. A Zero Trust will then determine whether or not the user, device or application will be verified and allowed to access the system. The segmented environment that underpins the architecture limits the movements of attackers, whilst creating a methodical process to authenticate parties as needed.
However, implementing this permissions process can be very difficult. Only through automation can Zero Trust reliably navigate the real-time complexities of an enterprise environment, and operate seamlessly across devices and clouds. And it is only through automation that the central premise of Zero Trust - modifying user access in real-time - can be achieved.
In order to adapt to the evolving business landscape - where threats and attacks could arrive at any time - CISOs need to be able to make informed and strategic decisions across the organisation and the tools they should be adopting. Between security and IT teams, Zero Trust offers organisations the opportunity to react instantly to the threat of internal breaches, while also strengthening the relationships between security and DevOps teams.
Faz Sadeghi is senior specialist solutions architect at Red Hat