Trust IP and Zero Trust: a Critical Path for Public-Facing Services

In today's fast-paced digital world, security breaches and cyberattacks have become everyday occurrences. In addition, cybercriminals constantly evolve their tactics, making it difficult for organizations to protect sensitive data. One approach to combating these threats is adopting a Zero Trust model. In this blog, we'll explore Zero Trust, the concept of Trust IP, and the dangers of credential harvesting.

What is Zero Trust?

The Zero Trust security model assumes that no user, service, or device should be trusted by default. In the past, traditional security models were built to believe that the internal network was trusted (often referred to as Castle and MOAT), while the external network was untrusted. However, this model is no longer effective with the increasing adoption of cloud services, mobile devices, and remote work.

The Zero Trust model aims to provide an additional layer of security by verifying every user, device, and network request before granting access. The verification is achieved by authenticating and authorizing every user, service, and device, monitoring their activity, and continuously verifying their identity throughout their session.

Zero Trust Architecture

Zero Trust architecture consists of four key components:

1. Identity and Access Management (IAM) - Identity is the foundation of Zero Trust. IAM ensures only authorized users and devices can access sensitive data and applications.

2. Network Segmentation - Network segmentation involves dividing the network into smaller segments to limit the attack surface and prevent lateral movement.

3. Policy Enforcement - Policy enforcement enforces security policies to ensure that only authorized access is granted.

4. Analytics and Visibility - Analytics and visibility provide real-time monitoring and threat detection capabilities to identify and respond to threats as they occur.

Trust IP

Trust IP is a concept within the Zero Trust model that involves identifying trusted IP addresses that can access sensitive data and applications. In a traditional security model, IP addresses identify trusted devices within the internal network. However, this approach is no longer practical with the increasing adoption of cloud services and remote work.

Trust IP allows organizations to identify trusted devices, regardless of their location. This identification is achieved by creating a list of trusted IP addresses that can access sensitive data and applications. Any request from an IP address not on the list is denied access, even if the user has valid credentials.

Credential Harvesting

Credential harvesting is a common tactic cybercriminals use to obtain sensitive information such as usernames, passwords, and other credentials. For example, phishing attacks typically achieve harvesting by tricking users into entering their credentials into a fake login page. Once the attacker has obtained the user's credentials, they can use them to access sensitive data and applications. Credential Harvesting and Phishing attacks are just one reason why protecting sensitive data with a Zero Trust model and other security measures is essential.

Protecting Against Credential Harvesting

There are several steps that organizations can take to protect against credential harvesting:

User Education - Educate users on identifying and avoiding phishing attacks.

Multi-Factor Authentication - Implement multi-factor authentication to provide an additional layer of security.

Password Policies - Enforce strong password policies, such as complex passwords and regular password changes.

Security Awareness Training - Provide regular security awareness training to employees to keep them up-to-date on the latest threats.

Including Trust IP into the organizational Zero Trust security model will create a needed additional layer of security. By leveraging this enhancement, the solution will add to the existing Zero Trust process of verifying every user, device, and network request before granting access. This addition will help protect against a user or device's credentials being compromised and attempted to be used from another device. When Trust IP is enabled and access is requested using harvested credentials, the attempt will be denied since the access request would not be coming from network space defined as trusted to the data source.

Conclusion

By including Trust IP in your organization's Zero Trust model, you will have better access control of sensitive data and applications (whether off or on-premises).