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Managing Active Directory in a Zero Trust World

Applying a Zero Trust strategy to Active Directory management reduces your identity threat landscape, enhances access controls and segmentation, enforces just-in-time access, and improves monitoring and incident response. Overall, this approach strengthens your identity platform and makes it more resilient.

In this blog, learn how Zero Trust strategy and principles apply to managing Active Directory (AD) and Entra ID (Azure AD), at the optimal maturity level. Understand core concepts of Zero Trust, its tenets, pillars, and the maturity model, and how these concepts can be applied to AD management. Discover how traditional AD management practices contrast to the Active Directory Zero Trust approach.

What is Zero Trust?

Zero Trust is a security model, a set of system design principles, and a coordinated cybersecurity and system management strategy, based on an acknowledgement that threats exist both inside and outside traditional network boundaries. Zero Trust repeatedly questions the premise that users, devices, and network components should be implicitly trusted, based on their location within the network. Zero Trust embeds comprehensive security monitoring and system security automation, as well as granular, dynamic, and risk-based access controls, in a coordinated manner, throughout all aspects of the infrastructure. The focus is specifically on protecting critical assets (data) in real-time within a dynamic threat environment. This data-centric security model allows the concept of least privileged access to be applied for every access decision, where the answers to the questions of: who, what, when, where, and how, are critical for appropriately allowing or denying access to resources.

7 Tenets of Zero Trust

1. All data sources and computing services are considered resources.

2. All communication is secured regardless of network location.

3. Access to individual enterprise resources is granted on a per-session basis.

4. Secure access to resources is determined by dynamic policy.

5. The enterprise monitors and measures the integrity and security posture of all owned and associated assets.

6. All resource authentication and authorization are dynamic and strictly enforced before access is allowed.

7. The enterprise collects as much information as possible about the current state of assets, network infrastructure, and communications, and uses it to improve its security posture.

Pillars of Zero Trust

  1. Identity
  2. Devices
  3. Networks
  4. Applications and Workloads
  5. Data

Zero Trust Maturity Model and Definitions

Traditional – the lowest maturity level, manually configured lifecycles (i.e., from establishment to decommissioning) and assignments of attributes (security and logging); static security policies and solutions that address one pillar at a time with discrete dependencies on external systems; least privilege established only at provisioning; siloed pillars of policy enforcement; manual response and mitigation deployment; and limited correlation of dependencies, logs, and telemetry.

Initial – starting automation of attribute assignment and configuration of lifecycles, policy decisions and enforcement, and initial cross-pillar solutions with integration of external systems; some responsive changes to least privilege after provisioning; and aggregated visibility for internal systems.

Advanced – wherever applicable, automated controls for lifecycle and assignment of configurations and policies with cross-pillar coordination; centralized visibility and identity control; policy enforcement integrated across pillars; response to pre-defined mitigations; changes to least privilege based on risk and posture assessments; and building toward enterprise-wide awareness (including externally hosted resources).
Optimal – fully automated, just-in-time lifecycles and assignments of attributes to assets and resources that self-report with dynamic policies based on automated/observed triggers; dynamic least privilege access (just-enough and within thresholds) for assets and their respective dependencies enterprise-wide; cross-pillar interoperability with continuous monitoring; and centralized visibility with comprehensive situational awareness.

Zero Trust Maturity Identity and Identity Platforms

Traditional – Authentication the use of passwords, ad hoc risk reporting or point and time assessments, on-premises identity stores, users are granted permanent permissions with periodic access reviews.
Initial – Password authentication with MFA enabled, manual identity risk assessments, self-managed and hosted identity stores access expires with automatic reviews.
Advanced – Phishing-resistant MFA, consolidated and secure integration with identity stores, automated risk assessments, session-based access based on role requirements.
Optimal – Continuous validation and risk analysis, enterprise-wide Identity integration, Tailored, as needed automated access and conditional access.

Legacy AD Management Principles

With a fundamental understanding of Zero Trust and its application to the identity pillar, explore how these concepts apply to managing Active Directory (AD) at the optimal maturity level. Before implementing Zero Trust principles in AD management, it’s important to review traditional AD management practices, refer to as “legacy AD management principles” for the remainder of this blog.
Perimeter Based Infrastructure Security – Active Directory was traditionally used within an organizations internal network, where internal users and identities were explicitly trusted, and defense strategies focused on protecting the core network.
Account Management – the manual onboarding and management of user accounts and access without the concept of roles-based permission access.
Group Management – assigning group permanent group membership to grant access and elevate privileges to resources in the environment.
Least Privileged Administration – Typical privileged management consists of controlling membership to the built-in AD security groups or basic AD delegation.

Cayosoft Administrator improves the access capabilities and administration of your Active Directory (AD) with roles, rules, and automations. Learn more.

Shifting Mindset to Active Directory Zero Trust Management

Active Directory environments can no longer be governed or managed by simply following a least privilege model. Transitioning to an Active Directory Zero Trust approach requires a paradigm shift from traditional least privileged models. In this approach, organizations must assume that every access request—whether internal or external—could potentially be malicious. This necessitates implementing automated access controls that dynamically adjust permissions based on real-time assessments of risk and operational needs.

Legacy AD Management Principles

Assume Breach Mentality – Move away from trusting because of network location or user credentials, every request must be treated as potentially malicious.
Just-in-Time Permissions – Grant permissions only when required and for a limited duration.
Automate and Control Access – Enforce strict access controls that adapt dynamically to evolving threats and user activities. This should include account lifecycle management and temporary group memberships.
Centrally Managed Administration – Enhances visibility and control, facilitates automated policy enforcement, and streamlines access control. These capabilities are critical for implementing Active Directory security and Zero Trust principles effectively.
Continuous Monitoring and Validation – Monitor user and system activity, including device health, continuously to detect and respond to potential threats in a timely manner.

Legacy perimeter security is no longer sufficient for securing Active Directory. With the extension of Active Directory user authentication and authorization beyond corporate networks to support remote workforces and cloud integrations, a new approach needs to be adopted. This shift requires the assumption that every user request could be malicious and needs continuous verification.

It is not enough to simply verify user requests, the security of the identity platforms where users and access are managed must be continuously verified. Without ongoing verification of identity platform security, attackers could exploit vulnerabilities to impersonate valid accounts.

Key Areas of Focus for Zero Trust

AD Delegations

In an Active Directory Zero Trust environment, delegating elevated identity and access based on the principle of least privilege is no longer sufficient. Granting permanent AD permissions weakens security, as these permissions are often targeted by threat actors. Attackers are more likely to exploit overly permissive objects in AD rather than directly targeting domain admin groups. They avoid built-in AD groups with elevated rights, knowing that these are closely monitored by most organizations.

To address this, adopt just-in-time (JIT) permissions. This approach involves granting permissions only when needed and for a limited duration. By doing so, reduce the attack surface and limit the time an attacker has to exploit a compromised account.

Account Management

Manual processes for account management are no longer viable, as they often result in poor AD hygiene. This can lead to situations where accounts that should be disabled remain active, or users retain access levels from previous roles that are no longer appropriate. Dormant or overly permissive accounts can be targeted by attackers to gain unauthorized access or remain undetected.

In an Active Directory Zero Trust environment, a transition to automated access control is necessary. This approach enforces strict access controls based on job roles and requires automated group attestation to continuously verify that access is necessary. Additionally, implement automated onboarding and offboarding processes to ensure that access is promptly terminated when employees leave the company or is suspended during extended leave.

Centrally Managed Administration

In an Active Directory Zero Trust environment, centrally managed administration plays a pivotal role in enhancing security by providing continuous visibility, automating and enforcement of policies, and ensuring continuous verification of access controls. In addition, it facilitates the automated onboarding and offboarding processes. Lastly centrally managed administration, provides a consolidated view of all access activities and changes, helping with achieving compliance and shortening security investigations.

Continuous Monitoring and Validation

In an Active Directory Zero Trust environment there is no concept of implicit trust, this requires a continuous monitoring and validation mindset. This extends to all areas of gaining access including the identity platforms regardless of network location, not just the identities themselves. You must be able to continuously track and analyze access patterns, detect unusual activities, and ensure compliance with security policies and regulations.

Cayosoft Guardian monitors and alerts on Active Directory (AD) threats, misconfigurations, and odd behavior. Know when AD risk and vulnerability are high. Learn more.

Protect Your Active Directory and Implement Zero Trust with Cayosoft

Adopting Active Directory Zero Trust principles for AD management is crucial to securing our environment and requires moving away from traditional security practices. This mindset shift requires a model focused on continuous verification, dynamic access controls, automated management. All access requests must be treated as potentially malicious. Permissions are granted automatically based on JIT and role requirements.

Cayosoft delivers the only unified solution enabling organizations to securely manage, continuously monitor for threats or suspect changes, and instantly recover their Microsoft platforms, including on-premises Active Directory, hybrid AD, Entra ID, Office 365, and more.

Want to See Zero Trust Principles In Action?

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