As organizations continue to strengthen their defenses, technology leaders must account for an ever-growing list of attack vectors: ransomware, phishing, DDoS attacks. With the exponential increase in breaches and a seemingly never-ending pool of solutions to combat these attacks, it can feel like an impossible task.
To meet these challenges, Zero Trust, an evolving set of cybersecurity paradigms, has organizations transitioning from static, network-based perimeters to cybersecurity defenses that focus on the identities of users, assets, and resources.
It’s a promising trend to be sure. In order for it to be effective, organizations must be deliberate and strategic in their implementations, which is easier said than done. It takes time, resources, and patience.
While there’s no one way to achieve Zero Trust, breaking it up into maturity stages can make the whole journey more digestible and provide milestones to measure your cybersecurity success.
Embarking Towards Zero Trust
It’s cliché, but true. The first step is the hardest. Before your organization even begins to map out your Zero Trust destination, you need executive sign off. Often this is the biggest (but most important) hurdle to overcome.
A thorough assessment will build the case for Zero Trust by identifying weaknesses and areas for improvement. This data will also provide your blueprint for implementation. This early assessment ensures you’re able to more quickly implement and integrate the initial, fundamental capabilities of your Zero Trust architecture, which establish core, foundational tenets.
Staying the Course
Once you’re up and running, maintaining that momentum over time can be challenging. Unifying (and automating where possible) your identity and access management (IAM) solutions and processes at this stage will make this more manageable.
However, there is no such thing as set-it-and-forget-it cybersecurity and Zero Trust is no exception. Continue to refine processes and build on your capabilities with frequent self-assessment. By regularly putting your practices to the test, you’ll be able to expand efforts in an informed and deliberate manner, ensuring your systems remain secure as you scale.
Tackling New Challenges
Even those who are acclimated to the philosophy of Zero Trust can still face challenges. You've built your foundation, implemented your Zero Trust policies and processes, now you must identify the technology to get there.
Advanced Zero Trust maturity calls for advanced analytics and orchestration. Solutions with predictive intelligence and automation like Bravura Discover can make the most of your data to protect you against attacks today and down the road, providing valuable time to prepare and patch any vulnerabilities.
The Road Ahead
Building a complete cybersecurity plan and deployment requires strategic thinking to carefully map out the journey. Often organizations are quickly pulling together the various policies, processes and workflows to create Zero Trust with an eye on efficiency. However, to build a lasting cybersecurity strategy, attention needs to be paid to how it’s done. By taking the time now to ensure it’s built right, organizations can save countless hours and resources.
Join us for one of our three executive roundtable discussions to learn more about and share your experiences designing the information security strategy and program for your organization.
