The SolarWinds supply chain attack has rocked the business world, stirring a whirlwind of supply chain security evaluations. The pernicious effects of the SolarWinds cyberattack (which is likely to take months to fully comprehend) reveals an uncomfortable truth causing stakeholders globally to reconsider their business model - vendors introduce a significant security risk to an organization.

Hackers are continually finding more and more pathways into an organization’s internal environment. Not only is access widely available, it can also be alarmingly simple. Rather than having to actively hack systems, hackers often just log in using easily-obtained or compromised user identities and credentials.

Network security has changed a lot over the years, it had to. From wide open infrastructures to tightly controlled environments, the standard practices of network security have grown more and more sophisticated. This post will take us back in time to look at the journey that a typical network has been on over the past 15+ years. From a wide open, “chewy” network, all the way to zero trust networking. Let’s get started.

The network is rapidly changing – What was once known as the ‘perimeter’ that comprised of a crunchy solid exterior with a soft chewy center consisting of endpoints has eroded into a mush of mobile devices, BYOD, IOT and hybrid cloud.

Productivity suites have changed the way we work With the advent of cloud productivity platforms, tablets and smartphones have become an integral part of our work and personal lives. At any time, we are one tap away from accessing the same content as our desktop computers. In some ways, mobile devices have replaced those traditional devices as our main productivity tool. To borrow a line from a current ad campaign for tablets – “your next computer is not a computer.”

“Doubt is an unpleasant condition, but certainty is an absurd one.” Whilst I claim no particular knowledge of the eighteenth-century philosopher Voltaire, the quote above (which I admit to randomly stumbling upon in a completely unrelated book) stuck in my mind as a fitting way to consider the shift from traditional, perimeter-focused ’network security’ thinking to that of ‘ZTA’ (Zero Trust Architecture.)