Intelligent CIO Europe Issue 21 | Page 45

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// compromised – it could mean trouble for the entire network. Zero Trust aims to create strategies which cannot be undone by a single oversight. Zero Trust is a concept that has become popular in recent years. First conceived by Forrester, Zero Trust demolishes the castle walls on which we have so long relied – not because it wants to stop protecting, but because it wants to protect what’s inside. Building on previous concepts, like the principle of least privilege and defence in depth, Zero Trust does not implicitly trust anything. Any system, device or user that wants to connect to a resource must first be verified and trusted before it gets to connect to anything. Medical environments, especially ones leveraging IoT, will be filled with endpoints, devices, systems and connections all needing to communicate. As important as speedy access to those things are, they have to do so securely and at the level of the individual resources. www.intelligentcio.com With an ephemeral perimeter based on task level identification as opposed to on some increasingly arbitrary basis, resources can be protected individually and granted access to according to their own level of risk. Each can be protected according to the risks against it. So too can the level of authentication required to access it. As the world is joined up through the inescapable march of technological innovation, it’s important that we take a step back. One fatal mistake of embracing IoT is seizing that promise of innovation without thinking about how quickly technology can morph from a blessing to a curse. Healthcare professionals realise this. In the 2017 Internet of Health Things survey, a majority of those surveyed identified three top barriers for IoT adoption in the health sector: privacy concerns, security concerns and legacy system integration. The health sector’s experience is not a unique one, but it does stand to gain FEATURE: INTERNET OF THINGS ZERO TRUST AIMS TO CREATE STRATEGIES WHICH CANNOT BE UNDONE BY A SINGLE OVERSIGHT. and possibly lose more than many of the industries undergoing the same process. The technology is changing and we can no longer build high enough walls to contain it. We have to find ways to build around it, not against it. n INTELLIGENTCIO 45