How Least Privilege and Zero Trust are Different but Work Together

When managing thousands of workers, devices, and network endpoints, IT used to be broadly uniform in applying permissions. Perhaps HR and finance took a tougher stance, but generally, if someone needed access to an app, voila! As cybercrime grew, especially phishing attacks and social engineering, the huge number of people with access to vital apps and data quickly became a problem.

Today, the primary driver for the push toward fewer permissions is to reduce the risk of a breach, but also to simplify the user experience and ease the working lives of hard-working IT and security administrators, drowning under the weight of a permission-heavy environment.

The current practice works around the concept that fewer permissions are safer for businesses, thanks to the automated nature of modern security and - the big pivot - only having permission to perform appropriate tasks for each role.

The so-called “Least Privilege” model is one of the key driving forces at play in modern IT security. The model applies to applications, networks and devices - as well as identities - so that data is better protected from abuse. On top of this, the whole system can be centrally managed by IT, with the rare escalation dealt with in a balanced way to ensure business compliance with data regulations and the need for strong cybersecurity.

The key benefits of Least Privilege include:

• Improved security, from the reduced impact of successful phishing attacks and malware to the smaller target for hackers to aim at, aka the attack surface - reducing the chance of a successful attack.
• Improved compliance and auditing, which are becoming as much of a time-sink as managing IT security.
• A better life for IT, as users can only access and query apps they have a legitimate use for.

But what about Zero Trust, isn’t that the future?

With the wider cybersecurity industry absorbing this major mental shift and pushing it to end-user corporations and clients, most have gone “yes, least privilege is for us!” However, many IT and security planners then run into the concept of Zero Trust, which is also being heavily promoted as the next wave of IT security.

Zero Trust is slightly removed from Least Privilege in that it’s primarily focused on authorizing both users, networks and devices as valid parts of the business. By making every element untrusted, they have to prove they have valid credentials before the network lets them access services or data in a “never trust, always verify” approach to requests.

Using secure mechanisms to approve and track users, Zero Trust identifies and quarantines suspicious activity. For example, if a user ID is trying to access something out of the ordinary the access request will be authenticated, authorized, and encrypted before granting access to that new request. 

Continuous checks across every digital asset mean that as soon as something abnormal happens, the “culprit” is identified and shut off from causing harm. With that trust constantly being re-evaluated, the business is more secure and less at risk of financial or reputational damage.

These two security strands weave together neatly enabling IT security to pair Least Privilege and Zero Trust applications into a high-fidelity security mechanism – one that is flexible but lightweight across massively complex business IT systems that can stretch around the world, working in harmony as part of the overall security solution.

How to implement Least Privilege in your organization

Digital security should always be an area of IT under constant revision to meet the latest threats and ensure business continuity. In the wider context, many enterprises are undergoing digital business transformation, and the Least Privilege and Zero Trust combo should be applied as a part of these efforts.

As with many IT upgrades, this starts with the audit across the entire businesses’ networks, on-premises and cloud environments, user and privileged accounts, passwords and keys, and devices. Of increasing importance, don’t forget the automated workforce of bots, RPA and other digital workers who also require passwords and keys, and are easily overlooked.

To simplify the adoption of Least Privilege and Zero Trust, remove all redundant accesses, excessive privileges and create a digital vault for privileged account credentials and ensure administrator accounts are continuously monitored.

Across the workforce, explain any practical changes before they happen, detailing the benefits and security implications. Notably, focus on explaining how just-in-time account elevation can be used when workers legitimately need to access data or perform a task not typical of their role.

With the new Zero Trust/Least Privilege applications acquired, installed, tested and operational featuring Identity and Access Management (IAM), Privileged Access Management (PAM), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) and other tools, you can then create the profiles and rules that ensure the business is monitored for any change in trust or privilege.

The automated features of these applications highlight issues and risks rapidly, and through regular reviews and identity updates, the business remains as secure as possible. The risk of rogue insider activity is reduced and the damage that a hacker can do, and the time they remain unidentified is also severely limited.

Together Zero Trust and Least Privilege form the cornerstones of modern enterprise security, moving the equation on from reliance on firewalls to keep the bad actors out. It may sound like a lot for a hard-pressed IT security team to digest, but as the market for security products constantly changes, they’re already becoming a familiar part of the landscape across many applications or defense suites.