Vendor access management has become an indispensable element of business security, as businesses increasingly rely on external vendors and partners. Unfortunately, many vendor access management methods use obsolete perimeter based security models that assume everyone inside a network can be trusted, which leaves businesses vulnerable to cyberattacks and data breaches.
Businesses have increasingly adopted Zero Trust security to combat this challenge. With vendor access management built on Zero Trust, an organization can protect its assets while strengthening security.
Training employees, vendors and partners is an integral part of an effective Zero Trust strategy, because a control that nobody follows is not a control at all.
Why Zero Trust matters for vendor access
- Apply least privilege access. Under Zero Trust, users should only reach the systems and data they need to do their jobs, so vendors gain access to exactly the resources their roles require.
- Monitor and detect suspicious activity. Protecting network traffic means watching it for anything out of the ordinary and using monitoring and analytics to detect threats quickly.
- Prevent privileged account abuse. Cybercriminals often target privileged accounts, so those accounts must be protected and used carefully.
- Employ multifactor authentication. True Zero Trust relies on MFA, which restricts vendor access to critical systems and data.
- Create a security culture. Everyone plays a part in cybersecurity, and a culture of safety reduces breaches and other threats.
Vendor access management is essential to security, and to avoid cyberattacks and data breaches it should be implemented using Zero Trust approaches. By investing in security practice and culture, a business can safeguard its assets while meeting modern threats head on.
Related: Network Security Management and RIM Support Services.