Sustainable security is no longer a luxury; modern cyber threats have made it necessary for businesses that manage a remote workforce. Without an effective security solution, many organizations have suffered from malware attacks and loss of sensitive data. Therefore, data security needs to be your top priority, as it can help you retain your integrity and competitive edge.
Zero trust security is one of the most sustainable cybersecurity solutions to help secure your remote workforce, protect sensitive data, and enhance productivity. A Zero Trust solution uses identity access management to track the usage behavior of your employees as they use your cloud network for their daily tasks.
Elements of a Sustainable Security Solution
If you’re looking to build a sustainable security solution for your business, you need to consider these four elements:
- Agility
Your remote employees can access the cloud from multiple locations, so your security solution needs the agility to allow access to requests originating from numerous locations. - Scalability
You must ensure that your security solution can instantly scale to accommodate the influx of remote users without requiring additional resources. - Flexibility
Remote workplaces must be flexible enough to handle large amounts of traffic simultaneously. Without flexibility, user load can cause a system shutdown. - Security
Your solution needs to limit the attack radius by converting your network into numerous micro-segments according to the roles assigned to your users.
Steps to Build a Sustainable Security Solution
Here are four steps to adopt Zero Trust as a security solution for your organization.
Auditing security system
You must assess your business’s nature, operations, and sensitivity to define the needs and management system that will protect your remote workplace. At this stage, you’re looking for gaps in your existing system that can make your business vulnerable to cyberattacks. In this step, you can work on the safety of your remote employees to build a conducive work environment.
Developing security policies
Security policies play an integral role in determining the success of a cybersecurity solution. Policies act as rules that apply to every member of the business, especially those who will access cloud resources and facilities. An Enterprise Resource Planning system can help you design the necessary security policies that are in your business’s best interest.
Once your team has finalized the policies, you can use Zero Trust to enforce them over your cloud. Zero Trust uses AI and ML tools to identify users and evaluate them according to your predefined security policies. All requests go through automated authentication and authorization; Zero Trust only approves requests that are fully compliant with security policies.
Setting a security standard
Bring Your Own Devices policy is ineffective as it lacks the essential security policies you can use to implement an identity access management system. You should enforce the use of company-provided hardware to make it easier for your teams to secure them. Even if your business wants to adopt a BYOD policy, you can ask them to share their device IDs with the IT team so that they can be a part of your ecosystem.
By linking the device ID with user credentials, you can restrict your employees and automate Zero Trust to grant access to known devices while tracking their behavior on the internet. You can define a security standard that needs to be followed for every segment of your network based on user credentials, location, device ID, and roles.
Configuring endpoint security
Endpoint security protects the endpoints of your organization’s ecosystem from external threats. If your business moves towards a remote workforce, you must manage hundreds of endpoints regularly. Zero Trust architecture will help you automate endpoint security by continuously authenticating and authorizing access requests.
Benefits of Having a Sustainable Security Solution Like Zero Trust
Here are six benefits your business will enjoy by implementing Zero Trust security:
- Protects against internal and external threats
Zero Trust reduces your network’s perimeter and contains threats. Hackers find it difficult to access your cloud even while using malware, phishing, or trojans. Even when internal threats are harder to detect, Zero Trust can notify the administrators if a user tries to access resources that they are unauthorized to use. Therefore, it reduces the overall exposure to risks. - Offers visibility into user access
Since Zero Trust focuses on identities, you get enhanced visibility into all sessions and see what resources are utilized. You can also automate data usage monitoring and set alerts when the system detects unwanted behaviors or entries. - Stops data exfiltration
Malicious actors use data exfiltration to target, copy, or transfer sensitive information, which can be easily done remotely through compromised user credentials. Zero Trust continuously authenticates user sessions before granting access and closely monitors all data interactions to reduce the risk of data exfiltration. - Protects the cloud
With increased visibility and access control, businesses can easily manage their cloud resources and protect them from unauthorized access. Even when the cloud is a part of the unsecured Internet, only secure connections aligned with the security policies are allowed. - Offers security to hybrid workforce
Zero Trust can evaluate user credentials and device IDs before granting access to your remote workplace if your business relies on a diverse and distributed workforce for business transactions. You can leverage real-time analytics to ensure the protection of users, devices, and cloud resources. - Retains data privacy
Businesses rely on a complex ecosystem that makes it difficult to keep their customer’s information private and protected from the Internet. Zero Trust uses strong authentication and validation to ensure data privacy by allowing limited access to the users while building better customer relations.
Conclusion
A sustainable security solution is the only way to protect yourself from external and internal threats. Businesses can adopt the Zero Trust model containing a collection of concepts, ideas, and frameworks that can reduce cyber threats by converting your network into micro-segments. You can enforce security policies on different network segments that protect your critical systems and services through continuous credentials authentication before granting access.