With the increasing number of cyberattacks targeting large enterprises, many companies have turned to zero-trust security measures to protect their networks and data. According to a recent report, Gartner predicts that 10% of large enterprises will have mature zero-trust programs in place by 2026, up from just 1% today.
Zero trust is top of mind for most organizations as a critical strategy to reduce risk, but few organizations have actually completed zero-trust implementations. Gartner, Inc. predicts that by 2026, 10% of large enterprises will have a mature and measurable zero-trust program in place, up from less than 1% today.
Gartner defines zero trust as a security paradigm that explicitly identifies users and devices and grants them just the right amount of access so the business can operate with minimal friction while risks are reduced. Furthermore, the report predicts that by 2026, over 50% of cyberattacks will target areas that are not protected or cannot be prevented by zero-trust controls.
Also read: To trust or not to trust? “Zero Trust” for maximum security
“Many organizations established their infrastructure with implicit rather than explicit trust models to ease access and operations for workers and workloads. Attackers abuse this implicit trust in infrastructure to establish malware and then move laterally to achieve their objectives,” said John Watts, VP Analyst at Gartner. “Zero trust is a shift in thinking to address these threats by requiring continuously assessed, explicitly calculated and adaptive trust between users, devices, and resources.”
To help organizations complete the scope of their zero-trust implementations, it is critical that chief information security officers (CISOs) and risk management leaders start by developing an effective zero-trust strategy which balances the need for security with the need to run the business.
“It means starting with an organization’s strategy and defining a scope for zero-trust programs,” said Watts. “Once the strategy is defined, CISOs and risk management leaders must start with identity – it is foundational to zero trust. They also need to improve not only technology, but the people and processes to build and manage those identities.
Gartner analysts predict that through 2026, more than half of cyberattacks will be aimed at areas that zero- trust controls don’t cover and cannot mitigate. Gartner also states that CISOs and risk management leaders should not assume that zero trust will eliminate cyberthreats. Rather, zero trust reduces risk and limits impacts of an attack.
“The enterprise attack surface is expanding faster and attackers will quickly consider pivoting and targeting assets and vulnerabilities outside of the scope of zero-trust architectures (ZTAs),” said Jeremy D’Hoinne, VP Analyst at Gartner.” This can take the form of scanning and exploiting of public-facing APIs or targeting employees through social engineering, bullying or exploiting flaws due to employees creating their own “bypass” to avoid stringent zero-trust policies.”
Gartner recommends that organizations implement zero trust to improve risk mitigation for the most critical assets first, as this is where the greatest return on risk mitigation will occur. However, zero trust does not solve all security needs. CISOs and risk management leaders must also run a continuous threat exposure management (CTEM) program to better inventory and optimize their exposure to threats beyond the scope of ZTA.
