Migrating to Zero Trust: Challenges

Challenges Faced by
Organizations While
Migrating to a Zero
Trust Architecture

Organizations may face a number of

challenges when migrating to a zero
trust architecture, including:
Configuration issues, A piecemeal
approach to zero-trust cybersecurity
can create gaps, Lack of industry
standards, Network segmentation.
Read on to learn more.

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Migrating to Zero Trust: Challenges

Zero Trust
Architecture (ZTA)

Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA) is a cybersecurity framework

that has gained significant attention in recent years due to its
effectiveness in addressing the evolving threat landscape.

Unlike traditional security models that rely on perimeter-based

defenses, ZTA adopts a more proactive and comprehensive
approach to protecting digital assets.
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At its core, ZTA operates on the principle of "never trust,

always verify," meaning that every user, device, and network
component must be authenticated and authorized before
being granted access to resources, regardless of location or
network environment. This shift in mindset and approach aims
to minimize the potential attack surface and mitigate the risk
of unauthorized access or lateral movement within a network.

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Organizations' Challenges When
Migrating To a Zero Trust Architecture

Integration of Existing Technologies

Implementing ZTA requires organizations to leverage the integration of various
existing technologies, which may have different maturity levels and have yet to
be designed to interoperate. Organizations often have a diverse technology
landscape with different security solutions, network infrastructure, and access
management systems. Ensuring compatibility and interoperability between these
technologies can be complex and time-consuming. It may require customization,
the development of connectors, or even the replacement of certain systems to
establish seamless communication and data sharing between different
components of the ZTA. Sechard.com

Lack of Time and Resources

Organizations may need more time and resources to evaluate and determine the
best combination of ZTA technologies that would work for their specific needs.
Assessing different solutions, conducting proofs-of-concept, and evaluating their
effectiveness can be time-consuming. Additionally, organizations must allocate
resources for staff training, implementation, and ongoing management of the
ZTA. The lack of dedicated personnel and budget constraints may hinder the
organization's ability to adopt ZTA effectively.

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Organizations' Challenges When Migrating
To a Zero Trust Architecture

Developing Policies and Resource Prioritization

ZTA requires organizations to identify and prioritize their resources and develop
explicit policies for granting access based on specific conditions. These
conditions can go beyond traditional factors such as subject identity and role
and may include attributes like subject and resource location, time of day,
device health status, and more. Developing and managing such policies can be
daunting for organizations, as it requires a comprehensive understanding of
their resources, data criticality, and the associated risk profiles. Policy
development also demands continuous monitoring and updates to adapt to
evolving threats and changing business requirements. Sechard.com

Lack of Asset Inventory and Data Understanding

Often, organizations need a complete inventory of their assets, including
hardware, software, and data repositories. With a clear understanding of what
assets exist and their criticality, it becomes easier to implement ZTA effectively.
Organizations must identify and categorize their assets, determine the
sensitivity of their data, and understand the interactions between subjects,
resources, applications, and services. This information is crucial for designing
appropriate access controls and segmentation strategies within the ZTA
framework.

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Organizations' Challenges When Migrating To
a Zero Trust Architecture

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Integration with Legacy Technologies

Many organizations have substantial investments in legacy enterprise and
cloud technologies. Migrating to a Zero Trust Architecture requires
organizations to balance leveraging existing investments while gradually
integrating new technologies aligned with the ZTA principles. Understanding
how legacy systems fit into the ZTA framework and ensuring their
compatibility with new security solutions can be complex. It may require
conducting thorough assessments, making strategic decisions regarding
upgrades or replacements, and addressing interoperability challenges during
the integration process.

Lack of Interoperability Knowledge and

Resources
Organizations need to fully understand the potential interoperability issues
involved in implementing ZTA. They may need more knowledge or resources
to assess different technologies' compatibility and identify potential conflicts
or gaps. Network administrators and IT staff may require additional training
and upskilling to manage and maintain the ZTA environment effectively.
Organizations may also find developing a pilot or proof-of-concept
implementation beneficial to identify challenges, evaluate solutions, and
inform a comprehensive transition plan.

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Organizations' Challenges When Migrating To
a Zero Trust Architecture

User Experience and Operational Impact

One concern organizations have when adopting ZTA is how it may impact the
operation of their environment and the end-user experience. ZTA introduces
additional authentication and access controls, which could result in users
needing to authenticate themselves repeatedly, depending on the resources
they are accessing and the strictness of enterprise security policies. While ZTA
should ideally enhance security transparently, organizations must carefully
design and test their implementation to minimize disruptions and ensure a
seamless user experience. Sechard.com

Lack of Common Understanding and Maturity

Assessment
There may be a need for common understanding across the organization
regarding ZTA, its benefits, and how to gauge its ZTA maturity. Determining the
most suitable ZTA approach for the business requires thoroughly assessing the
organization's security posture, risk tolerance, and business objectives.
Developing an implementation plan requires collaboration between
stakeholders, including IT, security, and business teams. A shared
understanding of ZTA and its implications is crucial for successful adoption and
implementation.

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Challenges Faced by Organizations While
Migrating To a Zero Trust Architecture

ZTA deployment requires leveraging Many organizations have a heavy

integration of many deployed existing investment in legacy enterprise and
technologies that are of varying maturity cloud technologies and don't have a clear
and may not all have been designed to understanding of how they can continue
interoperate with each other. It also to leverage existing investments and
requires organizations to identify balance priorities while also gradually
technology gaps to build a complete integrating new technologies to make
ZTA. progress toward ZTA.

Organizations may lack the Organizations may not understand

time and resources to sort out what interoperability issues may be
what combination of ZTA involved or what additional skills and
technologies would work best training network administrators may
for them. require, and they may lack the
resources to develop a pilot or
proof-of-concept implementation
needed to inform a transition plan.
ZTA requires organizations to
identify and prioritize their resources
and develop explicit policies for
determining the conditions that must Organizations also have concerns
be met in order for a subject to be Challenges
that use of ZTA might negatively
granted access to each resource. impact the operation of the
These conditions can depend on environment or the end-user
many factors beyond the traditional experience. Ideally, ZTA should
ones of subject identity and role; enhance security in a way that is
they may involve attributes such as transparent to the user, but there is
subject and resource location, time some possibility that users could be
of day, and the device being used negatively impacted, for example,
and its health status. Some by having to repeatedly re-
organizations may find the need to authenticate themselves depending
develop and manage such policies on the resources they are accessing
daunting. and the strictness of enterprise
security policies.

Often organizations do not have a There may be a lack of common

complete inventory of their assets or a understanding across the organization
clear understanding of the criticality of regarding what ZTA is and how to gauge
their data. They also do not fully the organization's ZTA maturity,
understand the transactions that occur determine which ZTA approach is most
between subjects, resources, suitable for the business, and develop an
applications, and services. implementation plan.

*Source: NIST SPECIAL PUBLICATION 1800-35B | Implementing a Zero Trust Architecture

SecHard Zero Trust Orchestrator, a multi-module software for implementing Zero Trust
Architecture designed to facilitate compliance with NIST SP 800-207, the Executive Office
of Presidential memorandum (M-22-09), and Gartner Adaptive Security Architecture.
Conclusion:

Adopting a Zero Trust Architecture isn't a simple switch.

Organizations face hurdles like making new security
tools work alongside their existing technology, as well as
potential budget and staffing limitations. They'll need to
create well-defined security policies, have a complete
understanding of all their IT assets, and figure out how to
connect older legacy systems into the new model.
Additionally, ensuring seamless operation across
different systems and balancing security with user
convenience is essential.

To overcome these challenges, organizations need

meticulous planning, sufficient resources, and teamwork
across various departments. A gradual, step-by-step
approach to Zero Trust implementation is often the most
successful way to ensure a smooth transition.

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SecHard Zero Trust Orchestrator
SecHard provides automated security hardening auditing, scoring, and remediation for servers, clients,
network devices, applications, databases, and more.

According to CIS, in order to have a secure operating system, it is necessary to change approximately
four hundred security settings on a Microsoft Windows Server running with the default settings. There
are most probably hundreds of missing security settings on the computer that you have. In an enterprise
network with hundreds or thousands of IT assets, reporting and remediating all these deficiencies can
be an operation that will take years for IT teams.

With SecHard, enterprises can easily add their own, unique controls and run them on thousands of
different assets. In this way, special audit and automatic remediations can be produced for both
common and non-common technologies such as Operating Systems, Network Devices, Applications,
IoT, SCADA, Swift, POS and many more.

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Contact us • Get Started • Contact us • Get Started

SecHard Zero Trust
Orchestrator
SecHard Zero Trust Orchestrator is a multi-module software for implementing Zero Trust
Architecture designed to facilitate compliance with the Executive Office of Presidential
memorandum (M-22-09), NIST SP 800-207, and Gartner Adaptive Security Architecture.

It also supports compliance with CBDDO compliance, CIS V7.1, CIS V8, CMMC
Compliance, HIPAA compliance, ISO 27001, ISO 27002, NIST 800-171r2, NIST 800-
207A, NIST 800-210, NIST 800-53r5, PCI DSS, SOX Compliance, GDPR, KSA SAMA,
KSA ECC, Egypt Financial Cyber Security Framework Digital v1 compliance. SecHard
Zero Trust Orchestrator is built on the principles of zero-trust security, which means it
treats all devices and users as untrusted and verifies every access request before
granting access.

SecHard Zero Trust Orchestrator modules, such as Security Hardening, Privileged

Access Manager, Asset Manager, Vulnerability Manager, Risk Manager, Device Manager,
Performance Monitor, Key Manager, TACACS+ Server, and Syslog Server, work together
seamlessly to provide a comprehensive set of tools that facilitate compliance with
industry standards.

Contact us today to learn more

about how Sechard can help you
achieve your cybersecurity goals!

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