Zero Trust is understood as a broad strategy, but how does it tangibly present itself in everyday work? These three Zero Trust examples demonstrate the evolution a Zero Trust model brings to cybersecurity and how it benefits employees organization-wide.
Meet Amar, CTO at Reynholm Renewables
Amar is a fictional character, but his responsibilities at Reynholm Renewables are similar to many people in similar positions. Amar joined the growing manufacturer of electric vehicle chargers almost two years ago with the goal of bringing more power to its Zero Trust initiatives. To do this, Amar focuses on building internal alignment among the entire company to move past its current stall on security.
After 18 months on the job, Amar summarized three of the best Zero Trust architecture examples he’s seen at the company to show how doing the work to create better security at Reynholm Renewables is benefitting everyone from the C-suite to temporary production staff.
Zero Trust Architecture Examples in Everyday Work
1. Zero Trust Improves Employee Onboarding Processes
A welcoming onboarding process helps new team members add value quicker, and it helps companies achieve better employee retention. Identity is a strong starting pillar in Zero Trust because the benefits are nearly universal across companies. Onboarding and offboarding procedures define access credentials, while conditional access ensures employees can only view relevant information for their responsibilities.
This is significant to Reynholm Renewables especially when they add temporary production workers to meet the demands of their busy season. Even though Zero Trust cannot ensure the user behind the account is who he or she claims to be, defining the process for intentional access is a step forward in mitigating greater threats. Part of that process means once a contractor’s responsibilities are complete, the temporary access is revoked.
2. Zero Trust Protects Confidential Personal Data
Network segmentation is an important part in Zero Trust because it limits unintentional access to private information. Under Reynholm Renewables’ current architecture, even if a threat actor does gain access, network segmentation ensures he or she is unable to retrieve all the company’s data without putting in extra effort to breach another network boundary. The location of trade secrets is different from the location of HR information, bolstering the security of proprietary information inside the network.
3. Zero Trust Brings Visibility and Verification to Company Credit Card Usage
Zero Trust adds another layer of security to company credit card transactions, on top of the potential alerts sent to the financial team. When devices are logged in to the system, they are easy to track by SOC-logged activity. This helps ensure employees don’t use company credit cards unintentionally by detailing the action through device registration and monitoring and a network activity alert. Zero Trust models reduce the potentially risky activities employees could perform, whether on purpose or not.
Zero Trust is a broad strategy with many moving parts among teams. By breaking down the tangible benefits of these Zero Trust architecture examples at Reynholm Renewables, the broader team can start to understand how greater security enhances productivity and the employee experience across the entire firm.
Aim for Internal Alignment by Reviewing Zero Trust Architecture Examples
Amar summarized each of these Zero Trust architecture examples in a presentation. He delivered it first to the technology team, then to the C-Suite, and finally, empowered the company leaders to communicate these examples to the production teams.
While these three Zero Trust architecture examples are fictional, they are based on real-world scenarios that companies experience across industries. Zero Trust is a unique strategy for every company, but the benefit of easing friction for internal teams applies to every business.
Partnering with a managed security provider brings clarity to the right steps to take to continue progress with Zero Trust. Request an assessment through our Zero Trust Launchpad to speed up your security evolution. Reach out to info@meetascent.com for more information.
