Insights
Its Monday, 9:02 AM. Your CFO opens an email that looks perfect, brand voice, invoice number, even the right project code. A click, a login prompt, and the adversary almost gets what they came for. Almost. Because in a Zero Trust world, “almost” is exactly where attacks end.
We see Zero Trust not as a product to buy, but as a way to operate, an everyday habit of verifying, limiting, and continuously watching. The principle is simple: never assume trust based on where a user, device, or workload sits. Grant access only after strong authentication and authorisation, every time. That’s the core of NIST’s Zero Trust Architecture (SP 800207).
Why this mindset now?
The threat environment has accelerated. Verizon’s 2024 DBIR shows credential misuse leading the pack and exploitation of vulnerabilities surging, with a 180% yearoveryear jump in exploitdriven breaches, largely due to mass exploitation of web app flaws.
Businesses took ~55 days to patch half of critical vulnerabilities while attackers scan at scale within days. In parallel, Microsoft’s latest Digital Defence insights report more than 600 million identitybased attacks per day, underscoring identity as the modern battleground.
Zero Trust gives leaders a practical compass. CISA’s Zero Trust Maturity Model (v2.0) organises capabilities across five pillars, Identity, Devices, Networks, Applications and Workloads, and Data, with crosscutting functions for visibility, automation, and governance. It’s a roadmap to move from “traditional” to “optimal” over time. And as attackers increasingly rely on lateral movement, microsegmentation has become foundational, limiting blast radius, isolating highvalue assets, and making “silent spread” far harder. CISA’s 2025 guidance on microsegmentation explicitly calls out its role in advancing Zero Trust and containing breaches.
Zero Trust in action (a customer story)
That sophisticated invoice phish? In a Zero Trust environment, the login attempt triggers phishingresistant MFA and riskbased conditional access; the device fails health attestation, so access is denied. Even if an account were compromised, justintime (JIT) leastprivilege means there are no standing admin rights to abuse. Microsegmentation confines access to the specific finance app, no lateral movement into HR, backups, or production workloads. Continuous monitoring flags the anomalous path, automated response revokes tokens and quarantines the endpoint. The “almost” remains a nearmiss.
Five moves you can make
- Make identity your control point. Enforce phishingresistant MFA and conditional access tied to user risk, device posture, and session context, map policies to CISA’s Identity pillar.
- Cut standing privileges. Implement RBAC, JIT/PAM for admins, and timeboxed access for sensitive operations; verify explicitly before elevation. (Aligned to NIST’s “no implicit trust.”)
- Segment by business process. Start microsegmentation with highvalue workflows (finance, backups, crownjewels data). Limit eastwest traffic and enforce servicelevel policies.
- Close exploit windows fast. Tie vulnerability data to access policies, if a service is unpatched, gate or isolate it. The DBIR trend on exploits is clear; treat patch latency as a risk signal.
- Instrument for visibility and automation. Centralise telemetry across identity, endpoints, networks, and cloud; automate containment and token revocation as crosscutting capabilities.
Metrics that matter
- Timetocontain (from alert to isolation)
- Standing admin accounts (target: zero; use JIT)
- Microsegments protecting crownjewel assets (target: 100% coverage)
- MFA coverage & strength (phishingresistant methods > 90%)
- Exploittopatch delta (days between external exploitation and your remediation)
Zero Trust isn’t about making users’ lives harder, it’s about making attackers’ lives impossible. As threats rise, resilience is what separates disruption from business continuity. With the right architecture, you can turn every “almost” breach into a teachable, containable moment and keep momentum on your side.
Ready to see Zero Trust in action? Northwick Cyber can run a Zero Trust Baseline across your five pillars, identify quick wins, and design a phased microsegmentation plan that reduces risk without slowing the business. Contact us at Northwickcyber.com and we’ll get you from “traditional” to “intentional”, fast.
This Northwick Cybersecurity thought leadership piece explores how Zero Trust is a practical operating model for today’s escalating threats, credential misuse, rapid exploit campaigns, and identity attacks, by verifying explicitly, enforcing least privilege, and continuously monitoring across identity, devices, networks, applications, and data. With microsegmentation plus riskbased controls like phishingresistant MFA, conditional access, and justintime admin, organisations can shrink blast radius, stop lateral movement, and turn “almost breaches” into containable nearmisses, building measurable resilience without slowing the business. (www.northwickcyber.com)
Northwick Cybersecurity delivers comprehensive protection for businesses by combining advanced threat detection, proactive risk management, and strategic security consulting. Our services cover everything from vulnerability assessments and penetration testing to incident response and compliance support, ensuring enterprises stay resilient against evolving cyber threats. We focus on safeguarding critical infrastructure, securing cloud environments, and implementing robust governance frameworks, all tailored to meet your unique needs.
