What is Zero Trust Security?

Zero Trust is a security architecture that eliminates implicit trust. Every request — regardless of where it comes from — must be authenticated, encrypted, and authorized before processing.

Core Principles

1. Never trust, always verify: No request is trusted based on network location alone
2. Least privilege: Every workload gets only the permissions it needs
3. Assume breach: Design so a compromised component cannot access everything
4. Verify continuously: Not just at connection establishment — on every request

Zero Trust in Kubernetes

Kubernetes NetworkPolicies restrict traffic by labels but do not encrypt or authenticate. True Zero Trust requires mTLS (encryption + authentication) and workload identity (cryptographic proof of who is making the request).

Learn Zero Trust

Start with Module 5: Zero Trust Fundamentals in our free Cloud Native Security course.