11 May Zero Trust is the Only Truth in Security
Treat every account, every credential as it could be a threat
– New York City, N.Y. – May 11, 2021
Before the cloud, data was secured at the perimeter of applications and networks. Everything inside the perimeter was trusted. Everything outside the perimeter was not trusted. When the cloud moved data off-premises to the internet, it eliminated physical borders. Still, there was a time, not that long ago, in which you could imagine a perimeter around your organization and assume that all the risks, such as Gmail exploits, Office 365 email security attacks including malware, ransomware, and phishing, came from the outside.
For email, this meant you would scan all incoming messages for threats and all outgoing messages for data leaks. That’s changed. Today, you must protect each inbox individually while also treating each inbox and each app as a potential threat.
Zero Trust refers to the idea that trusting anyone — including employees and partners — can lead to your downfall in the world of security. It’s built on the assumption that at least one of your accounts is compromised. You must secure every vector, every communication, every piece of data. Just one insecure app or account is enough to tumble the house of cards down.
That’s never been more true of late. Think back to a year ago. We can think of the beginning of the work-from-home eras as the true beginning of the Zero Trust era — ZT Day, for short. That was when the perimeter officially evaporated and companies, overnight, had to adopt Zero Trust. The rapidity of that undertaking was unprecedented, and it understandably led to gaps, particularly in the early days of lockdown when employees were falling prey to COVID-related phishing scams, and were adjusting to working from different devices, on not-always-secure networks. In many ways, that transition to Zero Trust is still underway at many companies.
With so many accounts having to be secure, how do you prioritize? Which are less risky than others? Can you trust any of them?
You can be hit with cyberattacks from any angle. Trusting your employees isn’t enough — they could easily fall prey to Business Email Compromise or Account Takeover.
You need to treat every account, every credential as it could be a threat. In today’s threat landscape, one attack, one compromise could be an organization’s downfall. There was a time when you were entirely dependent upon the email provider. Their security was your security. Today, however, it is possible to add additional layers beyond the default. By doing so, you can add layers of defense to ensure better security.
That’s how security should be approached. Multiple layers of defense. Trusting no one. When you do that, you can secure the entire business ecosystem, every place where data and information are shared. Great security starts with email, of course, securing everything — inbound, outbound and internal. From there, organizations should have complete visibility to every user, configuration and permission change to monitor and prevent account takeover.
Taking the Zero Trust approach requires securing the entire suite. It’s by protecting file-sharing apps like Dropbox, Google Drive and OneDrive, collaboration apps like Slack and Microsoft Teams and protecting every place where business is done.
Zero Trust doesn’t mean that you’re constantly looking over your shoulder or that you’re living in fear, waiting for the shoe to drop. What it does mean is taking a proactive and aggressive approach in securing your organization. By doing so, you can be confident that you can utilize all the modes of communication and collaboration you want without being exposed to data leaks or massive hacks.
Start a Demo to Experience the Power and Simplicity of Avanan
– Gil Friedrich is co-founder and CEO at Avanan.
About Avanan
Avanan is a cloud email security platform that pioneered and patented a new approach to prevent sophisticated attacks. We use APIs to scan for phishing, malware, and data leakage in the line of communications traffic. This means we catch threats missed by Microsoft while adding a transparent layer of security for the entire suite and other collaboration tools like Slack.
Avanan catches the advanced attacks that evade default and advanced security tools. Its invisible, multi-layer security enables full-suite protection for cloud collaboration solutions such as Office 365™, G-Suite™, and Slack™. The platform deploys in one click via API to prevent Business Email Compromise and block phishing, malware, data leakage, account takeover, and shadow IT across the enterprise. Avanan replaces the need for multiple tools to secure the entire cloud collaboration suite, with a patented solution that goes far beyond any other Cloud Email Security Supplement.
