Even as some aspects of life return to “normal” in 2021, security modeling will never go back to a pre-pandemic state. In this episode of What That Means, Camille and guest Cathy Spence, Senior Principal Engineer at Intel, discuss the importance of zero trust adoption as more and more people work from home.

The conversation covers:

• The basic facets of the zero trust model, and how those can be compared those against older concepts like digital rights management and IDAM (Identity and Access Management)

• How the pandemic accelerated the use of more modern provisioning models, and why zero trust is so important when so many people are working remotely

• The kinds of vulnerabilities people face outside the firewall

• What the workplace could look like post-pandemic, as well as predictions about the future of AI

... and more! Listen in on the fascinating discussion!

The views and opinions expressed are those of the guests and author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Intel Corporation.

Here are some key take-aways:

• As more and more people work from home, and management tools become more cloud-based than on-premise based, zero trust securities become especially vital; if one device becomes infected, you don’t want it to affect the entire network.

• Currently, threat modeling is largely “cloud-first”, but in the future, it’s likely to be “AI-first”.

• As new solutions are implemented, it will be key to find the right balance between tracking and preserving people’s privacy.

• The general consensus is that adopting zero trust models is the way forward for data and asset protection as the world becomes less predictable.

• Things will not go back to the way they were, and so it’s crucial to fully adopt and embrace new models.

Some interesting quotes from today’s episode:

“2021 is the year for zero trust, of people really fully embracing the zero trust kind of model, and it’s because of these challenges that are beyond basic security hygiene.”

“When the pandemic struck, it really accelerated a move to modern [management techniques], and some companies were better positioned than others to survive in this environment.”

“Security is always an arms race, because as you address certain security problems, the attackers find a way to get around those, and you have to keep upping your game. This kind of approach really provides a great foundation for you to protect yourself.”

“It’s really about setting yourself up so that you can take better advantage of AI. What the pandemic has taught us is that the world’s becoming less and less predictable.”

“We’re very sensitive about privacy at Intel. We have a process for that. We check ourselves, we go through a privacy review, and we make sure we’re doing the right thing when it comes to people’s privacy.”

“We’re not going to go back to working the way that we used to work, we’re not going to look backward to the old security models. If you don’t really implement the full model, and you let certain applications or certain things skirt the guidelines of zero trust, then it really does fall apart. You really want to embrace that.”