Zero Trust Defined
Zero trust is not a product — it is an architecture principle. Never trust, always verify. Every request, regardless of origin, must be authenticated and authorized. This applies to internal services as much as external clients.
Implementation Without Friction
The common failure mode of zero-trust implementations is developer friction. If security controls slow down the development loop, engineers route around them. The solution is to make the secure path the easy path.
Distributed Authority
We implemented a distributed certificate authority using SPIFFE/SPIRE. Every service gets a cryptographic identity at startup. Service-to-service communication is mutually authenticated via mTLS with certificates that rotate every 24 hours.
Results
After 6 months, we had zero security incidents related to lateral movement. Developer velocity actually increased because the clear security boundaries made service ownership unambiguous.