What is Zero Trust Application Security?

Zero Trust is a holistic security strategy for protecting an enterprise’s assets, applications, servers, and data, and securing access to these assets regardless of the identity or location of the user, or the location of the assets. Zero Trust Application Access fundamentally relies on a default deny approach, which means that it doesn’t assign trust implicitly to any resource without verification and validation.

How do you implement a Zero Trust model?

To leverage and implement a Zero Trust Application model, organisations need to implement a system of continuous authentication and authorization, based on a system of repeated trust and risk assessment for every access request that comes in. This means that the purpose of each access request is to be assessed before granting least privilege access, which is done by validation of user identity and device posture, and assessment of their authorisations vis-a-vis their access requests . Zero Trust Application architecture takes into account multiple real-time attributes encompassing user identity, device postures, time and location of access request, authorisations, and more before granting the end user any access to enterprise resources.

What assumptions do Zero Trust Application security models make?

Zero Trust principles rely on the following assumptions:

• Distinctions between “inside” and “outside” the network perimeters no longer stand true. Network locality can’t be alone factor in determining trust.
• Malicious threats exist on the network at all times, and may be internal or external in nature
• Every user, device, network, and data, is to be validated and authenticated before granting access
• Zero Trust Application Policies are to be dynamic in nature, taking into account multiple sources of data, and continuous monitoring of data is to be done for garnering new insights regarding any new vulnerabilities that may crop up

What does InstaSafe Zero Trust Application do?

InstaSafe’s Zero Trust Application Access solutions enable organizations to provide access to internal corporate applications, without compromising the security of their networks. InstaSafe is easy to deploy, hyperscalable, more cost-effective, and a more secure alternative to VPNs. InstaSafe empowers IT Teams to give authenticated users policy-based secure access only to the internal apps that they are authorised to access, and that they need to work productively. InstaSafe’s solutions provide application access without providing network access. Given its cloud agnostic, multi-environment functionality, InstaSafe operationalises Zero Trust in hybrid environments by decoupling itself from the physical network, which means that its software based solutions can be used to seamlessly access applications irrespective of where they are present, be it on-premises or in the cloud.

What are the security benefits of a zero-trust network?

"Reduced Attack Surface: A Zero trust Network uses server blackening method, i.e. it secures critical assets by preventing all unauthenticated traffic from accessing the enterprise network, rendering the network “black,” thereby blocking potential network-based attacks."

• Enables Simplified Management and Control: A Zero Trust Application Security enables users to have visibility over all authorized connections , and helps in real time identification and mitigation of threat vectors
• Helps in integrating security architecture: A Zero Trust Model provides an integrated security architecture that is otherwise hard to achieve with existing security point products, such as NAC or anti-malware.
• Never Trust, Always Verify: Ensures authentication before allowing any visibility into applications. Security teams get a granular control and granular visibility over who accesses what, how, and when