Zero Trust Networks: Building Secure Systems in Untrusted Networks

Perimeter defenses guarding your network aren’t as secure as you might think. Hosts behind the firewall have no defenses of their own, so when a host in the "trusted" zone is breached, access to your data center is not far behind. This practical book introduces you to the zero trust model, a method that treats all hosts as if they’re internet-facing, and considers the entire network to be compromised and hostile.

Authors Evan Gilman and Doug Barth show you how zero trust lets you focus on building strong authentication, authorization, and encryption throughout, while providing compartmentalized access and better operational agility. You’ll learn the architecture of a zero trust network, including how to build one using currently available technology.

• Understand how the zero trust model embeds security within the system’s operation, rather than layering it on top
• Examine the fundamental concepts at play in a zero trust network, including network agents and trust engines
• Use existing technology to establish trust among the actors in a network
• Learn how to migrate from a perimeter-based network to a zero trust network in production
• Explore case studies of zero trust on the client side (Google) and on the server (PagerDuty)

Evan Gilman is an Operations Engineer with a background in computer networks. With roots in academia, and currently working in the public internet, he has been building and operating systems in hostile environments his entire professional career. An open source contributor, speaker, and author, Evan is passionate about designing systems that strike a balance with the networks they run on.

Doug Barth is a software engineer who loves to learn and shares his knowledge with others. He has worked on systems of various sizes at companies like Orbitz and PagerDuty. He has built and spoken about monitoring systems, mesh networks, and failure injection practices.