One of the most effective ways to secure modern IT infrastructure from internal and external threats is by designing and deploying a zero-trust security architecture.
SecOps teams can leverage the immense benefits of zero trust architecture like traffic segmentation and Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) to ensure comprehensive network security against various threats and risks. Irrespective of the immense benefits that it imposes on businesses, zero trust security architecture poses some inherent challenges that organizations need to address to have an efficient cybersecurity posture and tech stack to keep the threats and vulnerabilities out of the business network.
Here are a few inherent pitfalls of zero-trust architecture that every CISO, CSO, and SecOps team should be aware of:
A disjointed cybersecurity strategy
Many SecOps teams customize their zero-trust strategy utilizing a disjointed approach, which creates multiple gaps that might reduce the capabilities of the zero trust. Many organizations still have multiple legacy hardware and software integrated into their IT infrastructure, which might result in unexpected security gaps that increase the attack surface area, which the cybercriminals can exploit to infiltrate the network. To ensure a successful deployment of zero-trust security architecture, organizations need to do major architectural, hardware, and software updates.
A one-size-fits-all zero-trust approach doesn’t exist
Disjointed cybersecurity strategies will leave gaps in security, and the one-size-fits-all approach is not effective for organizations of every size, type, and sector. Zero trust security architecture is not a single product, service, approach, or strategy. It is a perfect amalgamation of policies, technologies, and people that do not trust new users until they are validated. CISOs should consider creating a perfect alignment between governance policies, technologies, and people to enforce it on the workforce, device, workload, network, and data security.
Zero-trust security architecture can hamper productivity
Traditional and legacy applications on the IT infrastructure designed to execute on perimeter networks have become obsolete in supporting the zero-trust framework. Designing and implementing a zero-trust network architecture can have a substantial impact on productivity.
One of the biggest pitfalls of zero trust is restricting access which might compromise and create latencies in accomplishing the business goals.
Users need access to sensitive data to accomplish their daily operational tasks and ensure cross-functional teams. If the users change particular settings in their profile, they will lose access to the application, server, or file, which will lead to delays in completing the tasks. Disruptions in the business will hinder the cash flow and other operations that can have more devastating impacts on the business continuity than a cybersecurity breach itself. Zero trust security architecture needs communication across various applications, data, devices, systems, and users to ensure seamless operations. Lack of alignment in any of these aspects will have a tremendous impact on the productivity and collaboration between the departments.
Also Read: How Privacy and Security Are the Biggest Obstacles Facing Metaverse Adoption
Zero trust security has security risks
Organizations, while implementing zero trust security architecture, are strengthening their cybersecurity posture and tech stack. However, it is not immune to various risks and vulnerabilities. SecOps teams might leverage trust brokers’ services to bridge the gaps between applications and users, becoming a potential infiltration point that cybercriminals can leverage to infiltrate the business network. Malicious actors can leverage local physical assets to infiltrate the network and extract sensitive information. Even though zero trust security architecture does not trust any user before validating them, cybercriminals today have become very sophisticated, and they can easily hack the user credentials to infiltrate the network and gain access to sensitive data. The zero-trust admin account credentials are one of the prime suspects of cyber criminals and simplify their work substantially.
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