What is Zero Trust?
A security model that eliminates implicit trust based on network location, requiring continuous verification of identity, device posture, and context for every access request.
Zero Trust is a security philosophy, not a product. Its core principle is 'never trust, always verify.' Traditional perimeter security assumed that anything inside the corporate network was trustworthy. Zero Trust discards this assumption entirely. Every user, device, and workload must authenticate and be authorized for each resource they access, regardless of whether they are on the corporate LAN, a branch office, or a coffee shop.
The three pillars of Zero Trust are identity verification (who is the user, validated through strong authentication and an identity provider), device posture (is the endpoint healthy, patched, and running required security controls), and least-privilege access (grant the minimum permissions needed, scoped to specific applications rather than network segments). Continuous monitoring across all three pillars is essential; a session that was authorized at login may need to be revoked if the device posture degrades or behavioral anomalies are detected.
The most common mistake is equating Zero Trust with ZTNA. ZTNA is one implementation of Zero Trust for remote access, but a complete Zero Trust architecture also covers internal east-west traffic (microsegmentation), workload-to-workload communication, and data-centric controls. NIST SP 800-207 provides the most widely referenced framework for building a Zero Trust architecture.
An access model that grants users connectivity to specific applications, not networks, based on identity and device posture, verified continuously per session.
A security technique that divides a network into granular segments, enforcing least-privilege access policies between individual workloads rather than relying on broad network perimeters.
The framework of policies, processes, and technologies that manages digital identities and controls what resources each identity can access across an organization's systems.
An authentication method requiring two or more independent verification factors (something you know, have, or are) to prove identity before granting access.
The real-time assessment of an endpoint's security health, including OS version, patch level, disk encryption, EDR status, and compliance state, used as an input to access control decisions.
The technique by which attackers move from an initially compromised system to other systems within a network, escalating privileges and expanding access to reach high-value targets.
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