Zero Trust in the modern IT landscape
For years, companies have relied on familiar security tools like network segmentation, VPNs, and firewalls. But the way we work has changed dramatically. We’re more mobile, use more devices, and our company systems are more complex than ever. These changes have also led to more sophisticated cybersecurity threats. To address these challenges, a new approach called ‘Zero Trust’ has become increasingly important. In this blog, we’ll explain what Zero Trust means, break down its key elements, and discuss how it can benefit your business.
What is Zero Trust
Before we dive deep, let’s start with what Zero Trust is.The Zero Trust security model fundamentally shifts how organizations approach cybersecurity. Instead of relying on the traditional concept of a secure “perimeter,” Zero Trust operates on the principle of “never trust, always verify.” By dynamically coupling traffic to an Identity instead of a device to a user with specific rights, you can be very specific in what is allowed in what context. So maybe a user is able to open the company HR portal from any device (even personal), but for connecting to production systems a company secured device is required. You stop thinking about networks and ip addresses and start thinking about the actual requirements that your application requires to securely use it.
Tip: Would you like to learn more about Zero Trust? Join SUE, Cloudflare, and Wiz at the Cloud Security Unlocked event on 15 May 2025 in the Cobra Museum in Amstelveen. Registration is free!
The four areas of trust
Gartner identifies four distinct areas within a Zero Trust framework. These areas build upon each other, forming a layered security approach. By addressing each of these areas, organizations can effectively implement a robust Zero Trust model.
Area 1: Identity of users and devices
The first area is all about identity. Both the identification of it and the trust that brings to the rest of the process. The goal is to have a verified identity and state coupled to the packet-streams leaving the source and entering the destination. This gives the end-devices the possibility to determine the verdict on allowing, logging or denying the traffic or even specific requests. The goal is not only to determine the identity of the user, but determine their characteristics such as role, security-level and projects/team, device OS, update status, av status, etc.
Area 2: Application governance and logging
The second area focuses on the destination of the traffic, the application. Instead of hosting applications on different platforms in your environment, with Zero Trust you create a central catalog of services to base your routing and security on. Applications are in control of the traffic they accept and what rules are bound to that traffic, but this can also be centralized if required. The purpose of this is to create a single source of truth to base your network on.
Area 3: Enforcement
The third area evolves around security and encryption. At the core of Zero Trust is encryption. Everything from the packages to the policies are encrypted and/or signed with cryptographic material. By setting policies you can specify what conditions need to be met to allow, block or log traffic. This can be done centrally or from the application by the administrators. This makes Zero Trust not only secure but very flexible in its setup. The organization can control guidelines that traffic needs to match (updated systems for example) but the rest is up to the administrators of the application.
Also the policies are evaluated both at the source and destination. That means that there are no requirements for centrally hosted appliances to handle traffic and malicious attackers cannot influence traffic because both sides of the connection apply and check policies.
Area 4: Enrichment
The last area of Zero Trust revolves around insights. Both in monitoring and security of the network, devices and users. Because of all endpoints metrics can be easily obtained and centrally gathered to gain insights in traffic, decision and other activity like compliance. And because it’s collected on all devices you get insights from all possible perspectives in the network.
Benefits of decentralized policy based
By focusing on the end devices and building in security and verification in all the areas of Zero Trust, this technology enables your business to take advantage of the power of end-devices and evaluate security and compliance as soon as possible (shift left). This gives both your organization and the administrators of applications the power of policy based control. Policies are also much more comprehensive than a typical IDS/IPS solution can offer because of the inherent trust in the network and requirement for every device to verify their identity and be compliant before they even connect to the Zero Trust network.
The next steps: thread intelligence, analytics, automation
But not only access control and fine grained metric can help the modern business, also stepping up the security-game is possible with Zero Trust. By leveraging tools that natively integrate within Zero Trust you can increase your security posture and detect and block even more advanced threads than are possible with more traditional security and networking setups.
By detecting differences in configuration, used browser or OS version for example, you can determine patterns for a user and spot fake or hacked sessions. Think of it like pattern recognition but then without manual intervention. But also a quick way to block access to sensitive data the moment a big security issue has been identified and actively exploited. Instead of requesting or even forcing people to update their end devices you can just simply block access for users and systems that did not mitigate the security issue in a certain way.
What can SUE do for you?
Zero Trust has a lot of advantages within the modern business, but implementing it or even showing the value and advantages in a Proof of Concept can be a daunting task That is where the expertise and people from Sue come in. We have a lot of engineers and consultants that have experience with both traditional networking/security solutions and Zero Trust setups and can help your business make the transformation into a more secure and easier to manage network.
Our trusted partners
We collaborate with industry-leading Zero Trust providers like Cloudflare, Wiz, and Aqua Security to create customized security solutions for your organization. We also offer in-depth training to ensure your team can confidently manage and utilize these solutions. Contact us today for a consultation and discover how a Zero Trust approach can enhance your business with a more secure, streamlined, and scalable network.
