What is Zero Trust and Why Does It Matter in Today’s Cybersecurity Landscape?

In today’s interconnected world, the traditional boundaries of network security have all but disappeared. Traditional castle-and-moat security architectures are no longer able to meet the needs of the average company, from SMBs to large enterprises. Employees work from anywhere, applications live in the cloud, and cyber threats are more sophisticated than ever. This new reality calls for a modern approach to security - enter Zero Trust. Every cybersecurity player recognizes Zero Trust as the future of security where we see a proverbial arms race happening to get to the top.

Palo Alto: https://www.paloaltonetworks.ca/zero-trust

ZScaler: https://www.zscaler.com/products-and-solutions/zero-trust-exchange-zte

Cloudflare: https://blog.cloudflare.com/cloudflare-sse-gartner-magic-quadrant-2025/

What is Zero Trust?

When presenting definitions, or standards - what better place to start than with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA)?

Zero trust provides a collection of concepts and ideas designed to minimize uncertainty in enforcing accurate, least privilege per-request access decisions in information systems and services in the face of a network viewed as compromised. (CISA Zero Trust Maturity Model April 2023 V2)

Restating this to something more applicable day-to-day technologist: Zero Trust is a framework that guides an organization’s strategic, operational, and technical behaviours. It operates on the principle that threats originate both internally and externally, requiring every transaction to be validated before trust is granted. We'll dig further into this in a subsequent post.

Why Does Zero Trust Matter?

Let's look at some quick statistics to orient ourselves with the challenges of modern cybersecurity.

• The Top 5 types of cyber incidents in organizations world wide by September 2024 was 29.1% Hacking, 28.7% Misuse, 15.4% Malware, 13.5% Social, 7.7% Error. (statista)
  

• The average monthly number of ransomware victims world wide between January 2023 and November 2024 was 405 (Max: 632, Min: 166) with an average month on month (MoM) growth of 10% (Max: 69%, Min: -40%). (statista)
  

• 28.6% of Ransomware Attacks were from VPNs as the initial access point. (statista)

~30% of ransomware attacks actually start by exploiting VPNs, showing how these "enablers" can create vulnerabilities in an organization’s defences. When you add in that ~37% of cyber incidents begin with user misuse or error, it’s clear that people (especially remote users) remain one of the biggest security risks. On top of that, ransomware attacks are growing at about ~10% every month, meaning the threat is not just here but rapidly increasing. Taken together, these facts make it obvious that relying on VPNs for remote access leaves organizations exposed to significant and escalating risks.

Through the 2000s we entered into the remote and hybrid era of the workforce. Companies sought to overcome risks associated with partially remote workforces largely with a combination of VPNs and Terminal (Remote Desktop) services.

Traditional perimeter-based security models were built for a world of on-premises data centers and office-bound employees. But today’s environments are hybrid, cloud-driven, and borderless. Zero Trust adapts to this reality by:

• Protecting remote workforces without relying on outdated VPNs. Forbes

  
  

• Enhancing cloud security by enforcing granular access controls. TechCrunch

  
  

• Mitigating insider threats through rigorous access policies. CISA

  
  

  

VPN, thy name was remote connectivity.

Organizations that adopt Zero Trust have reported measurable benefits, from fewer breaches to faster incident response times. For instance, CSO Online highlights how companies that implement Zero Trust reduce their attack surface and improve their compliance posture, even in highly regulated industries. CSO Online | CSO Online

-------------------- What’s Next? --------------------

Zero Trust isn’t a product you can buy off the shelf - it’s a mindset shift and a strategic journey. In upcoming posts, we’ll break down key the architectural framework of Zero Trust, and concepts like SASE, SSE, and Least Privilege, helping you understand how they fit into a Zero Trust framework.

Let’s demystify together.