# Zero Trust Troika: The Who, The What, The How

- Link: https://www.agilicus.com/zero-trust-troika-the-who-the-what-the-how/
- Published: 2023-05-19T02:31:33+00:00
- Author: Don Bowman

**A Zero Trust Network Architecture is a powerful, modern way to protect your network
from cyber-attacks.**

In the past, organizations relied on perimeter security to protect their networks.

This meant that they built walls around their networks and only allowed authorized
users to access them: access everything or nothing.

However, this approach is no longer effective.

With the rise of cloud computing, mobile devices, and remote work, the perimeter
of the network has become increasingly porous. This makes it easier for attackers
to gain access to networks. We now have the ironic situation of making it harder
for legitimate users while lowering security for the illegitimate.

There has to be a better way.

And there is: [Zero Trust](https://www.techtarget.com/searchsecurity/definition/zero-trust-model-zero-trust-network)
Network Architecture.

Zero Trust Network Architecture is a new approach to network security that is designed
to address the challenges posed by the modern threat landscape. Zero Trust Network
Architecture assumes that no user or device is trusted by default. Instead, all 
users and devices must be authenticated and authorized before they are allowed to
access any resources on the network.

There are three key things you need to ensure in order to have a Zero Trust network
architecture:

 * **Who**: Who is this actor (person, system) proposing to do something with my
   systems?
 * **What**: What is this actor entitled to do on a specific system?
 * **How**: How will I get the traffic from the actor (the Who) to the resource?

Rephrased, the three key things are:

 * **Unified authentication:** A single authentication mechanism for all users and
   devices. This makes it easier to manage authentication and reduces the risk of
   passwords being compromised. Unify the authentication across multiple types of
   users, and multiple types of identity. Allow a contractor, a temp, or your peer
   in a joint venture each and all to have a single sign-on without a new account
   or identity.
 * **Precise authorization:** A VPN is the definition of imprecise. You are all-
   on, or all-off. Precise authorization to control access to resources individually,
   with roles. Can you edit the Wiki? Or only read it? This means that users are
   only granted access to the resources they need to do their job with the least
   privilege. This helps to reduce the risk of unauthorized access to sensitive 
   data.
 * **Simple access:** A simple and user-friendly access experience. This makes it
   more likely that users will follow security best practices. Make multifactor 
   and single-sign-on ubiquitous. Make it work regardless of network, regardless
   of device. Overlapping IPs and lack of public IP should be immaterial.

Zero Trust Network Architecture is a powerful security architecture that can help
organizations to protect their networks from attack. By implementing Agilicus AnyX,
organizations can reduce the risk of data breaches, improve their security posture,
and save money on security costs.

Here are some of the benefits of using Agilicus AnyX:

 * **Increased security:** Increase the security of your network by assuming that
   no user or device is trusted by default. This makes it more difficult for attackers
   to gain unauthorized access to your network, and, if they do, they cannot travel
   laterally. Defense in Depth.
 * **Reduced risk of data breaches:** Reduce the risk of data breaches by preventing
   unauthorized users from accessing sensitive data.
 * **Improved user experience:** Improve the user experience by providing a simple
   and user-friendly access experience, browser-first, and device-agnostic. This
   makes it more likely that users will follow security best practices.
 * **Reduced security costs:** Reduce security costs by consolidating security infrastructure
   and eliminating the need for multiple security products. Implement multifactor
   policies in an Identity-Aware Web Application Firewall to provide ubiquitous 
   audit without rework of existing systems.

If you are looking for a way to improve the security of your network while simplifying
the end-user experience, Agilicus AnyX is the best option.

Learn more: [https://www.agilicus.com/what-we-do/ ](https://www.agilicus.com/what-we-do/)