"From Zero to Zero Trust
Blockchain, IOT, Neural Networks, Edge Computing, Zero Trust. I played buzzword bingo at RSA 2020, where the phrase dominated the entire venue. Zero Trust is a conceptual framework for cybersecurity that characterizes the principles required to protect modern organizations with distributed infrastructure, remote workforces, and web connected [sic] applications. Zero Trust has gradually emerged over the past two decades as organizations attempted to keep pace with the growing complexity of public and private computing infrastructure.
This article will examine its evolution to contextualize the growing consensus that a network-centric, perimeter-based approach to cybersecurity has become insufficient. We will take a look at early cybersecurity threats in the 1980s, the development of the perimeter security framework, and its shortcomings that birthed Zero Trust in the past decade....
Conclusion
Adopting a Zero Trust cybersecurity framework ranges in difficulty. Companies that host their entire infrastructure and applications on cloud providers will have an easier time than companies that have been around for decades and have a varying array of outdated to contemporary technologies. But the fact remains that network perimeter security is no longer the advised best practice. Networks grow in complexity day by day: Labor forces will continue to spread across the globe, infrastructure will continue to fragment across physical and virtual servers, and applications will continue to communicate through public networks. Facing these realities, organizations will need to adapt and modernize, or risk being another headline."