Zero Trust Network Access is a crucial part of any cybersecurity strategy. While it can seem intimidating, implementing a ZTNA solution is easier than you think. Modern solutions do the heavy lifting for you, leveraging multi-factor authentication providers and other software to verify users and devices. This allows IT teams to focus on more critical security-related tasks and prioritize their efforts.
ZTNA Defined
How does ZTNA work? Zero trust network access (ZTNA) provides IT security teams with a framework and technology to secure all enterprise applications, regardless of where they live. This is done by separating application and network access via a software-defined perimeter. The ZTNA solution hides IP addresses and makes the rest of the infrastructure invisible to users, preventing malware-compromised endpoints from lateral movement in case of a breach. ZTNA is scalable and efficient, improving performance by avoiding clogged internal networks. ZTNA is a security architecture that replaces traditional network perimeter solutions like VPNs with a “never trust, always authenticate” model. This approach uses protocols to verify users and devices before granting them access to the business network. This ensures that only the applications and services they need are accessed. This approach also takes advantage of micro-segmentation, which isolates networks around individual assets to control traffic flow and limit threat movement during a breach. Zero trust also enables businesses to bridge users to applications not on the corporate network, which is increasingly essential in today’s multi-cloud environments.
Key Principles and Protocols
Zero trust network access provides a more secure alternative to traditional VPNs. This model enforces several security principles to protect the enterprise network. It verifies user identity and context, enforces policies granularly, and continuously monitors users and devices. Zero-trust networks can connect users to applications and cloud resources securely. They also help reduce third-party risk by limiting the apps that contractors and other external users can access. This helps organizations meet compliance requirements and prevents data breaches with severe financial and reputational consequences. A ZTNA solution can be either agent-based or appliance-based. Agent-based solutions require software installation on each authorized device to send a security context to the gateway. The gateway then uses this information to decide whether the device is authenticated and has a good security posture.
On the other hand, Appliance-based solutions do not require endpoint software to function. This eliminates the need to maintain and update endpoint software and can improve security overall. Choosing the right zero-trust technology depends on an organization’s needs and security requirements.
Benefits
Zero trust network access is a security architecture that provides various benefits for organizations. For starters, it can help to reduce the risk of breaches in remote and mobile working environments. Moreover, it can protect against data loss and other negative impacts of cyber attacks. It does this by isolating users and devices from the rest of the corporate network, which makes it much more difficult for attackers to find ways into the organization’s most sensitive data. Furthermore, ZTNA solutions also put strict restrictions on the actions that an intruder can take once they gain access to a network, preventing them from doing too much damage. Another critical benefit of ZTNA is that it can improve network performance by reducing latency. This is because it eliminates the need to send traffic back and forth between a device and the corporate network, which can slow down performance.
Additionally, it ensures that users are always connected to the fastest available connection. Finally, ZTNA can secure Internet of Things (IoT) devices and other cloud-based assets. This is done by imposing authentication and authorization procedures on all connections, ensuring that only correctly authenticated IoT devices can access critical resources. This can also help limit the effects of data breaches on the business, as it can prevent unauthorized access from devices compromised by malware or stolen credentials.
Challenges
While implementing ZTNA is not the simple paid quick-fix it sometimes gets made out to be, it does offer a solid framework to help an organization move towards a zero-trust model. The most challenging aspect of the process is breaking away from the reliance on traditional VPNs. While the VPN model is generally considered secure, it allows malware-compromised endpoints to access the rest of the network, causing significant disruptions and damage. ZTNA helps mitigate this risk by separating network access from application access and authenticating every connection to the cloud. It also hides the IP addresses of connected devices, making it harder for attackers to target specific applications and hosts. ZTNA can be implemented as a service or on a device, with service-based ZTNA often using an agent on users’ managed devices to connect them to the service via an outbound connection and validate their identity and security posture. Device-based ZTNA, on the other hand, avoids requiring an agent by allowing any device to establish an outbound connection to the service via an inbound validation of its security posture and authentication. Connections to apps are then established based on the service’s evaluation of the user’s device, security posture, and identity. This eliminates the need to open inbound firewall ports for application access, protecting them from direct attack and shielding them from DDoS and other internet threats. As with any cybersecurity solution, implementing ZTNA requires an ongoing commitment to ensuring the system stays updated and delivers the best possible performance. The continuous monitoring of the system’s behavior is a significant challenge for many IT departments. The need to support various operating systems, browsers, and devices increases the complexity of managing these updates. The need to deliver a good user experience on all networks, including those with limited bandwidth and slow connections, adds another layer of complexity.
