Zero Trust Reference Architecture

Zero Trust (ZT) is a cybersecurity strategy and framework that embeds security throughout the architecture to prevent malicious personas from accessing our most critical assets. It provides zones for visibility and information technology (IT) mechanisms positioned throughout the architecture to secure, manage and monitor every device, user, application, and network transaction occurring at the perimeter and/or within a network enclave. Zero Trust is an enterprise consideration and is written from the perspective of cybersecurity. The foundational tenet of the Zero Trust Model is that no actor, system, network, or service operating outside or within the security perimeter is trusted. Instead, we must verify anything and everything attempting to establish access. It is a dramatic paradigm shift in philosophy of how we secure our infrastructure, networks, and data, from verify once at the perimeter to continual verification of each user, device, application, and transaction.

dodcio.defense.gov/Portals/0/Documents/Library/(U)ZT_RA_v1.1(U)_Mar21.pdf