{"id":5563,"date":"2020-02-18T21:26:07","date_gmt":"2020-02-18T21:26:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.n-able.com\/?p=5563"},"modified":"2021-04-06T21:29:07","modified_gmt":"2021-04-06T20:29:07","slug":"how-zero-trust-models-apply-msps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.n-able.com\/fr\/blog\/how-zero-trust-models-apply-msps","title":{"rendered":"How Zero Trust Models Apply to MSPs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Information technology enables businesses to grow rapidly and accomplish their goals. As a result, IT professionals should balance enablement and productivity with security.<\/p>\n

This balance led to the development of perimeter-based security and defenses. If something was located on a corporate network, it was assumed to be trusted (for the most part). For decades, this was an acceptable level of risk for businesses. It made sense that if someone was in the building and using a corporate-owned device, they were likely a safe actor.<\/p>\n

However, as business goals changed, security needed to change with it. The rise of personal mobile devices, growing investments in cloud services (and the sheer number of them proliferating), and the increasing number of ways hackers can compromise a business has shown a weakness for perimeter-based security. In short, the goalposts for security and technical enablement have moved.<\/p>\n

In place of this old castle-and-moat style of security came the zero-trust model. Zero-trust models assume that devices and users cannot be trusted until proven. Essentially, it treats all users and devices as though they were coming from the internet (and therefore may not be entirely safe). To top it off, you\u2019ll have to shift your thinking from the perimeter to the application level. Today, we\u2019ll talk about how to apply this model as an MSP.<\/p>\n

The Components of Zero-Trust<\/b><\/h3>\n

Initially, customers may balk at the idea of putting up hurdles against their productivity. However, these hurdles don\u2019t need to be extreme and can often provide more flexibility for the customers. One of the first steps involves matching authentication levels to the risk presented by an application. You should always turn on MFA for your personal banking applications and should do the same for sensitive business applications. You should understand what applications are in use, which present the most risk, and who should have access. This is where the complexity comes into place.<\/p>\n

While zero-trust models were developed for enterprise networks and can get extremely complex\u2014requiring multiple tools acting in concert\u2014you don\u2019t need to have all the tools in place to make a major difference in reducing risk at customer sites.<\/p>\n

Here are some important rules to keep in mind:<\/p>\n