Zero Trust is a strategic approach to cybersecurity that simplifies risk management to a single use case: the removal of all implicit trust for users, applications, and infrastructure. For years, organizations implemented layer upon layer of defenses – firewalls, antivirus software, two-factor authentication, intrusion prevention systems, URL filters, sandboxes, and more – to protect what was inside of their security perimeter. Essentially, they’ve been playing a game of whack-a-mole, trying to deflect threats and risks as soon as they emerge but never quite catching them all or ever getting ahead of them.

This approach to security was never truly effective. Now, it’s even less relevant because organizations can no longer inherently trust what’s inside of their security perimeter. The perimeter has been eroding for years due to trends like mobility, BYOD, and cloud computing.

A key component of a comprehensive Zero Trust strategy is identity and access management (IAM). This guide will expand on the importance of establishing strong identity best practices, which can help your organization to accelerate both its Zero Trust and digital transformation journeys. It also explains how Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) fits into the overall Zero Trust journey, and how enabling ZTNA 2.0 overcomes the limitations of legacy ZTNA solutions and makes the transition to a broader Zero Trust architecture easier.