Defeating Lateral Movement: Stopping Cyberattacks in Their Tracks with Zero Trust
- APRIL 3RD, 2025
- 1min read
April 3
Zero Trust is a security framework that enforces identity verification for every user and device attempting to access resources, regardless of whether they are inside or outside the organisation’s network. This framework prevents a cybercriminal’s lateral movement through the network after initial access by ensuring continuous authentication, authorisation, and validation of security configurations before access is granted to applications and data.
Zero Trust Principles
- No Assumed Trust: Never trust, always verify users and devices using authentication and authorisation.
- Implement Least Privilege: This will ensure that users and devices are granted access to only those resources that they need to complete their jobs or functions.
- Assume Your Network is Breached: This will help prepare for the worst by implementing controls to reduce your attack surface.
Implementing Zero Trust
To implement the zero trust framework to your business, you will need to:
- Visualise: Identify all resources and their access points, and map out potential risks.
- Mitigate: Detect and stop threats, or at least minimise their impact when they occur.
- Optimise: Expand protection across the entire IT infrastructure while optimising the user experience.
Recommendation
Zero Trust is essential if your organisation needs to address cyber threats like ransomware, supply chain attacks, and insider threats, especially if you must protect an infrastructure deployment that includes complex environments, unmanaged devices, legacy systems, and SaaS applications.
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