Think about everything you trust.
You trust your employees are doing their jobs. You trust your office manager with the keys to your office. You trust your accountant is filing your taxes.
What about your company information that lives in the cloud? Is it being handled safely and securely? Do you trust your employees are handling it appropriately?
The concept of Zero Trust is centered on the belief that you shouldn’t automatically trust anything at any point in the security process. Every aspect of your network has a risk factor, and you shouldn’t believe any access is safer than another.
Flat Networks
In most businesses, we think in forms of trust. We have people in the inner circle we trust with our data. Everything else is lumped together as “other.”
In a flat network, trust is given to the inner circle. You trust your employees to handle patient files with care. You trust medical staff to access data files in safe ways, no matter what device they pull from or where in the world they access it. The further away from that inner circle, the less trust you have.
You build your security protecting your data from “others” while assuming those closest to you are a far lower risk.
Zero Trust takes a different approach. There isn’t trust unless you prove you’re authorized. It won’t allow access to anything unless you have proper authentication. Only then can you gain access when you prove who you are.
According to Cybersecurity Ventures Official 2019 Annual Cybercrime Report, cybercrime is expected to cost the world $6 trillion annually by 2021, up from $3 trillion in 2015.
The Ponemon Institute/IBM Security’s 2019 Cost of Data Breach Report revealed that the average cost of a data breach has increased by 12 percent over the past five years, with the average cost at $3.92 million.
Businesses are spending more money, yet they are at higher risk than ever. Clearly, something isn’t working.
Close Up The Holes
One of the biggest IT problems is most companies exist in a default manner. They leave too much open and assume too high of a level of trust.
That’s what made the internet great - we can share anything, at any time.
It’s also what caused too many open doors.
The more highly valued the data is, the more at risk it becomes. (Hello, EHRs.)
Zero Trust isn’t an overnight solution. It isn’t something you can implement easily. Legacy systems often don’t merge gracefully into this new design.
Yet building a Zero Trust model will help you close doors that have weakened over time. They will build an infrastructure designed to protect you at every level, from every angle, from this point forward.
Who do you trust with your data?
For IT Strategy, Cloud Conversion, or Help Desk Services reach out to us at Silver Linings Technology 360-450-4759.
