A remote workforce is a uniquely powerful thing. It allows an organization to recruit and retain the best talent for the job regardless of their ability to report to an office suite every morning. Yet, as a certain comic book uncle once informed his young nephew, with great power comes great responsibility. To meet that responsibility of providing both access and security, you need to know how to implement zero trust.

Last year, organizations all around the world collectively suffered more than 10,000 data breaches. These attacks may have exposed more than 360 million people to potential cyber threats, from identity theft to ransomware. As remote employment, cloud computing, and mobile devices become more common in the workplace, threat actors have more methods than ever to compromise legitimate accounts and steal sensitive data.

The increasing sophistication of cyber attacks, the proliferation of cloud services, and the new normal of remote work have all changed the modern cybersecurity landscape. As traditional perimeter-based approaches to security become increasingly vulnerable to these modern cyber threats, zero trust has emerged as the modern security strategy of choice. Zero trust architecture is critical for any organization seeking to improve resilience, reduce breach risk, and enhance data protection.

Zero trust has become one of modern security’s most prominent strategies. Zero trust architecture is based on the fundamental idea that every network, user, and system must be verified consistently, instead of granting trust based on past access. Although zero trust is a commonly accepted practice today, it’s important to understand the pivotal role that the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) plays in defining zero trust architecture and other cybersecurity frameworks.

Every day, threat actors devise new plans for breaking into secure systems. The steps they take, from researching a target to carrying out the attack, are known as the cyber kill chain. Traditionally, that kill chain has targeted devices and networks that lie completely within your organization’s control. For better or worse, mobile and cloud-based work have upended that dynamic.

Organizations that work in the cloud face an increasing number of potential threats every day. Fortunately, automated detection and response can block many of these lower-level threats before they even require human attention. Unfortunately, that means the threats that evade automated defenses may be perpetrated by driven and sophisticated attackers — the kinds of threat actors who can infiltrate a system and remain undetected for up to 280 days on average.

Every day, cybersecurity researchers discover dozens of new vulnerabilities, malware packages, and cyber criminals. One way for IT teams to stay on top of these threats is to monitor threat intelligence feeds. These databases provide real-time information on both established and emerging cyber threats, allowing organizations to catalog and analyze the results. This is particularly salient in the era of hybrid and remote work, as mobile devices are particularly tempting targets for cyber attacks.

In the past, an organization’s digital data was safe behind passwords, firewalls, and physical locked doors. Today, cloud computing and remote work have rendered these traditional approaches much less effective. Threat actors can launch attacks from almost any device, almost anywhere. Usernames and passwords are widely available on the dark web. To keep sensitive data safe, organizations must understand that any account — even one with the proper credentials — could be compromised.

Endpoint detection and response (EDR) has been a standard method for securing on-premises devices for years. When combined with antivirus software, it’s proven an effective way to uncover threats before they can cause severe damage. However, the growth of smartphones and other mobile devices means more and more work is getting done outside of the office. Organizations can no longer rely on traditional EDR protections as millions more endpoints are now exposed to the threat of a cyber attack.

Nine in ten Americans now own a smartphone, according to a 2024 Pew Research study. And these smartphones are increasingly being used for work. A general rise in remote work since the COVID-19 pandemic has led to an increase in the usage of mobile devices and personal software for work purposes, as people report in from home, coffee shops, or anywhere. This increased mobility offers many benefits for workers.