Zero trust is often presented as a product. It is better understood as a change in default: no user, device or network location is trusted just because it is inside the office.
The three questions every request answers
- Who is asking, and have they proved it with more than a password?
- Is the device healthy, patched and managed?
- Is this request normal for this person and this application?
A practical four-step start
- Turn on multi-factor authentication for email, VPN and administrator accounts.
- Build a device inventory so you know what is on the network.
- Segment the most sensitive systems from general users and guests.
- Replace broad VPN access with application-level access where possible.
Each step reduces risk on its own, so you do not have to finish the whole journey to benefit. Leave the largest and most disruptive changes, such as full micro-segmentation, until the basics are stable.
Common mistakes
Buying a platform before defining policy, enabling MFA without recovery processes, and forgetting service accounts and legacy applications that cannot support modern authentication.