Implementing Zero Trust Security
Aiming for Zero
Some old-school admins are still philosophizing about secure internal networks, but the experts have already moved on: Zero trust architectures use a reliable but complex strategy to protect the network from all threats – inside and outside.
In the third year of the coronavirus pandemic, it has now long been clear that many companies are likely to remember the virus as beneficial to their own business. VPN solution vendors definitely fall into this category: When home office and teleworking mutated from the exception to the rule in many companies, existing VPN solutions became substantially more in-demand. Hardly anyone expected the load on the VPN gateways to explode overnight. The large network manufacturers were happy to help out their customers as many admins purchased more powerful systems for OpenVPN (Figure 1).
But do VPNs really solve the problem of network security? Many experts are not so sure. Implicitly, all parties involved with VPNs start from the following premise: There is a difference between the internal and the external network, and it is safe to treat internal clients differently from external clients. VPNs are regularly used specifically because admins do not want certain services to be accessible from the Internet at all. In many companies, VPNs form part of a security architecture that has grown organically over many years. Because security requirements have increased continuously over the past two decades, companies have invested more and more money in private networks and cut off more and more services from the outside world.
But cutting off external users only solves part of the problem. The classic division into an insecure external and a secure internal network implicitly assumes several things. First of all, it assumes that you can reasonably make assumptions about expected usage behavior based on location. This misguided narrative invites the belief that the company's own employees couldn't possibly mean any harm, unlike sinister hackers who hack into other people's environments from the Internet. Another faulty assumption is that you can safely make inferences about who the client is and what permissions they should have based on location. Anyone who makes it onto the internal network is automatically considered trustworthy and enjoys expanded privileges, including access to infrastructure components that remain closed to external clients.
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
US / Canada
UK / Australia
Direct Download
Read full article as PDF:
Price $2.95
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Find SysAdmin Jobs
News
-
KDE Plasma 5.27 Beta is Ready for Testing
The latest beta iteration of the KDE Plasma desktop is now available and includes some important additions and fixes.
-
Netrunner OS 23 Is Now Available
The latest version of this Linux distribution is now based on Debian Bullseye and is ready for installation and finally hits the KDE 5.20 branch of the desktop.
-
New Linux Distribution Built for Gamers
With a Gnome desktop that offers different layouts and a custom kernel, PikaOS is a great option for gamers of all types.
-
System76 Beefs Up Popular Pangolin Laptop
The darling of open-source-powered laptops and desktops will soon drop a new AMD Ryzen 7-powered version of their popular Pangolin laptop.
-
Nobara Project Is a Modified Version of Fedora with User-Friendly Fixes
If you're looking for a version of Fedora that includes third-party and proprietary packages, look no further than the Nobara Project.
-
Gnome 44 Now Has a Release Date
Gnome 44 will be officially released on March 22, 2023.
-
Nitrux 2.6 Available with Kernel 6.1 and a Major Change
The developers of Nitrux have officially released version 2.6 of their Linux distribution with plenty of new features to excite users.
-
Vanilla OS Initial Release Is Now Available
A stock GNOME experience with on-demand immutability finally sees its first production release.
-
Critical Linux Vulnerability Found to Impact SMB Servers
A Linux vulnerability with a CVSS score of 10 has been found to affect SMB servers and can lead to remote code execution.
-
Linux Mint 21.1 Now Available with Plenty of Look and Feel Changes
Vera has arrived and although it is still using kernel 5.15, there are plenty of improvements sure to please everyone.