(Shared via Microsoft.com) Last week we provided a basic overview of Microsoft’s Zero Trust security model, which can be viewed here. In today’s blog post, we’ll re-share Microsoft’s guide on transitioning to this model and how it can benefit your organization. Zero Trust is a security architecture concept that uses a deny-until-verified strategy for inside and outside network access. In a cloud-based workforce era, this method solves the difficulties of a moving security perimeter. Microsoft even has the capacity to help federal frameworks implement Zero Trust architectures, as evident by a recent Presidential Executive Order.
Converting to the Zero Trust Model
Today, organizations are migrating to modern verification systems in order to manage enterprise security while battling threats. Accessing applications that reside outside the traditional bounds of corporate networks, restrictive network firewalls, and VPNs is required for current cloud-based workplace environments. The Zero Trust architecture expertly handles the security concerns that modern businesses face. Microsoft anticipated that deploying Zero Trust would result in a significant shift in how users access the remote corporate environment, so they developed a tiered strategy to safeguard corporate and customer data. Strong user identity, device health verification, and secure access to corporate resources are all part of Microsoft’s multistep implementation strategy. Rich data insights underpin this method, lowering the risk of unlawful lateral movement across the corporate network.
“One of the most important features of a Zero Trust system is the ability to validate a user’s identity prior to granting access to the corporate network.”
- Azure Authenticator’s modern UI can efficiently establish multifactor authentication. This grants each individual user access to the precise business resources that have been specifically approved for them, in a mobile-friendly interface and across devices.
- Microsoft has worked to enroll all user devices in device management systems as part of their Zero Trust approach. Because unmanaged devices provide an easy entry point for hackers, enterprise security must ensure that only healthy devices have access to critical applications and data.
- Despite Microsoft’s focus on monitoring and maintaining device health, some scenarios—such as vendor hiring, acquisitions, and guest projects, require users to operate from unmanaged devices. In light of these circumstances, the Microsoft team devised a strategy to reduce the number of ways to access corporate resources while requiring identification and device health verification.
Microsoft has moved away from corporate networks and toward internet-first access ways, with the goal of internet-only access methods. For most cases, this method minimizes users’ access to their corporate network, allowing Microsoft to implement a set of managed virtualized services that make programs and entire Windows desktop environments available to users with unmanaged devices. Click here to learn more about how Microsoft is adopting a Zero Trust security architecture.
Azure Sentinel
Azure Sentinel gives users an overall perspective of their organization, reducing the stress of increasingly complex threats, rising alarm volumes, and extended resolution times. Ultimately, it’s a scalable, cloud-native security event management solution. Azure Sentinel provides a single source for alert detection, threat awareness, proactive hunting, and threat response throughout your organization. Azure Sentinel can benefit businesses in a variety of ways:
- With built-in machine learning, users can separate the noise from actual occurrences.
- Pre-built queries based on years of security experience can help your team find preventative threats faster.
- Users can easily view a prioritized list of warnings, get instant correlated analysis of hundreds of security events, and see the full breadth of each assault.
- The automation of common tasks and workflows works to simplify security operations and accelerate attack response.
Tallan and Microsoft will be working together to deliver Zero Trust powered security, helping our customers achieve the highest level of security available on the market. Check out our Marketplace for new offerings as they become available.