Zero Trust: the digital security model of today and tomorrow

According to an INTERPOL report focusing on online security across different continents, there was an increase during the pandemic in major criminal activities in this area, such as scams, phishing, malware, malicious domains, and widespread disinformation aimed at obtaining data. Along these same lines, the Catalan Cybersecurity Agency notes that in 2023 there were more than 5,000 cyberattacks and that threats such as ransomware were among the most prevalent. Furthermore, the Catalan agency points out that the sectors most affected by these incidents were healthcare, local government, and education.

In this context of digital vulnerability, security approaches such as Zero Trust have emerged, aiming to provide organizations with maximum security. The core principle of Zero Trust is to never trust any device —even if it belongs to the local network— without first performing authentication. In this article, we will explain what Zero Trust is, how it is currently being implemented, its advantages, and what the outlook is for the near future

It is an innovative security system that provides businesses with a higher level of protection. The concept is based on not trusting any device without first authenticating it, even if it belongs to the company’s internal network. As a result, users who wish to access applications or websites from inside or outside the corporate network perimeter—such as when working remotely—must go through an authentication process to verify their identity.

In addition to identity verification, Zero Trust gathers contextual information such as date, time, location, and the device’s security status to grant access.

Companies in sectors such as healthcare and finance have already implemented this security system, as they hold sensitive medical, personal, and financial data belonging to patients and customers. A breach in network access at these companies could cause serious reputational or financial damage if guidelines such as Zero Trust were not followed. For this reason, corporations are opting for single sign-on (SSO) or multi-factor authentication (MFA) methods to establish additional barriers to accessing their cyberspace.

A few years ago, most companies accessed their networks from anywhere using a VPN, which in most cases allowed them to access all resources. This made it very easy to access company data, which today poses a significant risk of malicious attacks given the current situation described above.

However, Zero Trust offers a number of advantages over traditional VPNs.

1. Lower access risks. No device is trusted until its identity is verified at every login and the connection context is rigorously checked.

    

2. Location-independent. This system is not confined to a specific perimeter because it does not “trust” any user regardless of their geographic location.

    

3. Faster connection speeds. Unlike VPNs, there is no need to reroute traffic to a specific location to enforce the company’s security policies; instead, a secure and stable connection is established directly.

    

4. Lower risk of attacks. Zero Trust hides the most vulnerable corporate resources and applications from the internet so they are not exposed throughout the connection, as was often the case with VPNs. This way, a critical part of the network is segmented so that unauthorized individuals cannot access it.

The trend toward remote work is set to continue in the future, and more companies are expected to gradually adopt this model. The report “New Ways of Working: Reflections on the Future” by the Boston Consulting Group notes that six out of ten companies predict at least two days of remote work by 2025. Meanwhile, 94% of surveyed employees expect their companies to offer this flexibility when it comes to working from home.

All of this indicates that there is a digital path ahead for many companies that can produce goods and services from anywhere using ICT. Therefore, cybersecurity approaches such as Zero Trust are vital in the present and the near future to protect companies’ connections.