If you work in the IT field, you probably know about the zero-trust model. It has exploded onto the scene in recent years, and it can help companies in many ways.
If you don’t work in IT, and someone starts talking about zero trust, you may not know what they mean at all. As a company owner, you should know about the zero-trust model, though, and how it can help your business succeed and thrive.
We’ll talk about zero trust in the following article. There are different ways to attain this concept, and the technology exists, so you can make it happen if you have the right team and technological resources to put it in place.
What Precisely is the Zero-Trust Model?
The zero-trust model exists in the IT landscape and has grown increasingly prominent, especially with companies with proprietary information that they need to guard. Essentially, the zero-trust model is a protocol that your IT team can implement.
Not inherently trusting any entity that tries to contact your computer network is the basic idea. If you set up zero trust, you’re using security measures that confirm someone’s identity if they try to reach out to your computer network through email or some other means. This is a way to block hackers from stealing your data or crashing your network.
Setting up zero-trust can take 2-3 years in some instances. It might not take that long if you own a smaller, simpler company. If your business has a complex structure, or if it starts small and then grows exponentially as your products and services catch on, you will need to set up a more complex zero-trust model as a result of that.
Why is the Zero-Trust Model Worth It?
Some people who work in IT call the zero-trust model “perimeterless security.” Increased hacker attacks are the reason why they might push hard for their company to implement it.
If you don’t have the zero-trust model in place for your company, you might use other or different security measures and think they are sufficient. Ideally, hackers won’t penetrate the system you have in place, so you won’t have to worry about data breaches.
However, companies that don’t bother implementing the zero-trust model seem to run into problems a lot easier these days. That’s because the zero-trust model, by its very nature, makes it extremely challenging for hackers or bad actors to get by the defense lines your IT team puts into place.
Implementing the zero-trust model costs money, and as a company owner, you may not want to do it. You should definitely consider it, though. A data breach might end up costing you not just more cash than you’d spend on the zero-trust model but also both worker and customer confidence.
How Do You Set Up a Zero-Trust Model for Your Company’s Computer Network?
Let’s say you have a computer network your company uses. Maybe you have desktops or laptops onsite, or perhaps you have remote workers who use their own computers. Perhaps you have a hybrid model with both onsite and offsite workers.
The first thing you’ll need to do is locate the right IT team that knows how to put a zero-trust model in place. You might hire a full-time IT team, or perhaps you feel like you can afford a freelancer if you don’t have enough regular IT work to justify a full-time hire.
Either way, they’ll first need to define the surfaces you need to protect. In other words, the IT team must examine your network and the devices you use since there is no one-size-fits-all zero-trust setup.
Next, they will map the daily transaction flows that occur between your network devices. Then, they can create or “architect” a personalized zero-trust system that fits your company’s business model perfectly.
They will create a zero-trust policy that they will give to all your employees. That will instruct them to follow the safety precautions the IT team maps out.
Monitoring the network is the final step. You should understand one more thing about the zero-trust security model. Much like a website or app, it does not remain static. It’s malleable, a living entity that changes because people and devices constantly use it, and threats can always arise.
If you use the zero-trust model, though, those threats succeeding and penetrating your network is not a very likely scenario. That’s precisely why you should strongly consider zero-trust for your business in 2022.
