“What is the most important aspect of Zero Trust to your business?”
MindPoint Group’s Zero Trust team asked this crucial question in the latest LinkedIn poll with four possible answers: Identity, Data, Applications, or Hosts. See the results in the figure below.
As the answers flowed in, they prompted more questions. How do we talk about these elements in relation to the others? Why did “Identity” and “Data” resonate with people?
From Identity to Data
The results show exactly why MPG has based its Zero Trust Foundation on the analogy of an “Identity” that is trying to access a resource (“Data”), while the “Network” and “Applications & Hosts” are the supporting pillars that enable policy engines and decision points to permit or deny each access request.
MPG’s Zero Trust Foundation was designed from NIST and DOD’s zero trust reference architectures that merges and rearranges the pillars to picture a ZT journey that depicts the Identity and Data pillars as the beginning and destination respectively, with the remaining pillars as stepping stones along the journey.
Zero Trust presents a challenge to many organizations because while it is a set of principles, it is also a technical implementation of tools and policies. Because the destination isn’t always clear, getting started can be the hardest part. MindPoint Group feels that a roadmap approach suits many organizations, where we start with organizational goals aligned with Zero Trust principles, baseline current capabilities, and then build a plan over time to adjust and incorporate policy and process, user training, and security technology to achieve those goals. Check out our Zero Trust Readiness Assessment or schedule a discovery session to learn more about how MindPoint Group can help you set up a roadmap to Zero Trust implementation.
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