Intelligent SME.tech Issue 21 | Page 35

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Alonso Bustamante , Senior Director , Strategy & M & A at Cloudflare

Continuous monitoring and validation

Adopting a Zero Trust approach to your network security is a crucial next step once you have your assets in order . Zero Trust is a holistic IT security model that ’ s based on the principle of not trusting anyone by default and implementing strict access controls . Taking your mapped assets you can discover , categorise and control access to everything in your organisation and prevent the use of unapproved applications too .

When resources are protected with Zero Trust access restrictions , users are only allowed to access resources after verifying details such as their identity and device and the context and policy adherence of each specific request as necessary . This is because attackers can be both within and outside of your network , so it ’ s best not to automatically trust any machine or user .

This might sound like it could slow you down but with the right technology provider , it doesn ’ t have to . Authenticating legitimate users , preventing unauthorised users or risky devices from accessing your files or data , or giving privileged technical users access to your critical infrastructure remotely without experiencing trade-offs is all safe and fast with Zero Trust .

Securing inboxes

The beauty of a Zero Trust approach is that it secures your organisation ' s entire risk landscape , with layers of defence purposebuilt to work seamlessly together . Email security must be part of this as one of the most critical of today ’ s business applications .

A staggering 316.9 billion emails were sent and received every day in 2021 , set to increase to 376.4 billion by 2025 . Email is one of the largest cloud applications for any business , one of the biggest security threats organisations face and the number one place where security threats often originate . Spam filters are not enough .

Primary risks are malicious phishing emails ( an email that attempts to steal money , identity or personal information through a spoof website link that looks legitimate ) and business email compromise campaigns ( an email that looks like a known source to an employee asking to e . g ., to wire an amount of money ) that can both be incredibly costly .