As cybersecurity threats continue to evolve and grow more sophisticated, organizations are realizing that traditional “castle and moat” security models (or only securing the perimeter) are no longer sufficient. The concept of Zero Trust has emerged as a powerful paradigm shift, but for many, it remains shrouded in confusion and misconceptions.
That’s why I recently sat down with Jeff Lockewood, founder and CEO of Invicta Solutions Group, to gain some much-needed clarity on this critical security approach. Our conversation unveiled insights that help demystify Zero Trust and provide a roadmap for organizations to embark on this transformative journey.
One of the first things Jeff emphasized is that Zero Trust is fundamentally a mindset – a different way of thinking about and approaching access to systems and data. “In a Zero Trust model, I’m assuming that the network I’m operating on is hostile, including the network that I’m operating on,” he explained.
This contrasts starkly with traditional security models where everything inside the network perimeter is implicitly trusted after passing through the initial “moat” of external defenses. Instead, Zero Trust operates under the assumption that breach is inevitable, if not already occurring. All users, devices, and activities are considered untrusted and potentially hostile.
“Zero Trust changes that castle and moat model; it assumes that all network devices, all users, and all activities are hostile,” Jeff clarified. “And not only does it assume that eventually you’re going to be breached, but it assumes there’s a breach that may have already happened.”
To help illustrate this core principle of continuous validation and no implicit trust, Jeff provided an analogy relating to air travel:
“If you think of the concept of an airport, to get into the airport, you have to have a ticket and show your identity. When you check a bag, you verify again by showing your ticket and ID. Then you have to go through security again to verify you are a legitimate passenger with access to that area. When you board the plane, you verify your identity and permissions one more time for that specific flight.”
Just like how travelers must repeatedly validate their identity and authorization at every checkpoint, a Zero Trust architecture requires continuous validation of users, devices, and activities at every single step before allowing access to resources and data.
“If you think about a user wanting to access something, the user has to continuously be validated every step of the process until the final point where they get access to the application or resource,” Jeff summarized.
One common misconception Jeff addressed is the idea that Zero Trust is a specific product or platform that organizations can simply purchase. “It’s not really a product,” he clarified.
While there are various product offerings that provide capabilities aligned with Zero Trust principles like identity management, device security, data protection, and monitoring, Zero Trust itself is an overarching model and security posture.
“Zero Trust encompasses a much broader set – identity, devices, users, monitoring, data. It’s all of it coming together,” said Jeff. “It’s nothing that you can just go buy and say ‘this one product will make me Zero Trust compliant.'”
He compared it to building a house, where you can’t construct it with just bricks alone – you need plumbing, electrical wiring, roofing, and all the other integrated components. Similarly, achieving a true Zero Trust posture requires implementing multiple technologies and solutions holistically.
So why are more organizations, especially in sectors like federal government, exploring Zero Trust adoption? According to Jeff, there are compelling drivers from both a compliance and risk mitigation perspective.
On the federal side, he cited Executive Order 14028 which mandates deploying Zero Trust architectures to bolster the nation’s critical infrastructure cybersecurity. But even in the private sector, the prevalence of high-profile breaches, surging ransomware attacks, and the failure of traditional security models is prompting companies to embrace Zero Trust.
“The traditional castle and moat, traditional siloed security is not working. We’re still getting breaches, breaches are on the rise, ransomware is on the rise,” Jeff stated. “If our current technology and architectures were truly effective, we wouldn’t be seeing such proliferation and growth of these threats.”
While implementing a comprehensive Zero Trust architecture is undoubtedly a major undertaking, Jeff highlighted the critical benefits that make it worthwhile. Chief among them is improved visibility into an organization’s assets, devices, users, and activities.
“With a Zero Trust approach, you have the ability to gain improved visibility into your organization,” he explained. “It requires you to really understand and analyze what assets you have, what state they’re in, and what interactions are occurring.”
This elevated visibility paves the way for significant risk reduction by allowing organizations to identify vulnerabilities, anomalies, and potential threats more effectively. When combined with the core Zero Trust principle of restricting access and enforcing least privilege, the result is a much stronger security posture and minimized attack surface.
“With that visibility comes risk reduction,” said Jeff. “Because now I know what’s on my network, what state it’s in, and I can manage that state much better.”
For organizations with particularly complex IT environments, legacy systems, or proprietary software, the journey to Zero Trust can seem especially daunting. However, Jeff assured that these realities don’t necessarily impede Zero Trust implementation.
“You have your pillars of Zero Trust – identity, device, user, data, network,” he explained. “With legacy systems, one of the biggest challenges is often identity and using modern identity protocols. But that doesn’t mean you can’t implement other Zero Trust components.”
He cited examples like network segmentation, data controls, monitoring, and other measures that can be adopted even with the presence of difficult-to-modernize systems and applications. The key is taking an incremental, prioritized approach focused on the highest-risk areas.
“There are more and more vendors adjusting their product sets to accommodate organizations with legacy environments as Zero Trust continues gaining traction,” Jeff added. “About 78% of companies are looking to adopt some form of Zero Trust architecture.”
For organizations feeling overwhelmed by the prospect of Zero Trust adoption, Jeff offered pragmatic advice: “Don’t make the problem bigger than it is. Look at it for what it is.”
He outlined a recommended step-by-step approach for getting started on the Zero Trust journey:
“A lot of companies are already moving towards components of Zero Trust with their roadmaps,” Jeff pointed out. “We’re just helping refine the architecture and framing under the umbrella of a complete Zero Trust model.”
As threats continue to evolve, it’s clear that Zero Trust will remain a critical paradigm for robust security in the years ahead. While the journey can be complex, experts in the Federal space are helping demystify this approach and turn seemingly overwhelming challenges into actionable, step-by-step roadmaps.
By understanding Zero Trust as a mindset rooted in eliminating implicit trust, embracing core principles like continuous validation, and taking a pragmatic step-by-step journey, agencies can raise their security resiliency to meet the threats of today and tomorrow.
If you wish to learn more about charting your path to Zero Trust or explore professional guidance tailored to your environment, don’t hesitate to reach out to Wildflower. The road ahead may have its challenges, but our team of security experts can guide you through this critical mission.
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