Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA) is a security point of view that has gathered enough momentum in 2020 and 2021 to frequently appear in marketing literature. The big idea of zero trust in network computing is roughly, “I confidently know who you are and have applied an appropriate security policy, but I still don’t trust you.”
My understanding of ZTA continues to evolve. This post represents my understanding today, with an emphasis on what ZTA means for network engineers.
How Is ZTA Different From Firewall Rules?
At first glance, zero trust sounds mostly like a firewall policy. Of course I don’t trust you. That’s why we apply all these filtering rules to the VPN tunnel, network interface, etc. Yes, but simple filtering implies a level of trust. The trust comes in the assumption that if you get through the filter, what you’re saying is trustworthy.
Zero trust does away with that assumption. For example…
- ZTA could mean that just because a VPN user passed a complex authentication scheme, their transactions are not assumed to be wholesome. Well done–your username and password check out, and we’ve applied a filtering policy to your tunnel. With that completed, we’re now going to monitor Continue reading