Preface

This is the first book in a series that makes the complex topic of cybersecurity as simple, clear, and actionable as possible (and hopefully a little more fun, too ☺).

In today’s continuously changing world, people face overwhelming complexity while trying to protect business assets from cybersecurity attacks.

Zero Trust enables business, technical, and security teams to work together to reduce risk in the face of continuously evolving attackers and threats, business models, cloud technology platforms, Artificial Intelligence (AI) innovations, and more.

The Zero Trust Playbook Series helps demystify cybersecurity and Zero Trust by breaking them down into discrete, actionable components to guide you through the strategy, planning, and execution of a Zero Trust transformation.

These books provide clear and actionable role-specific guidance for everyone from board members and CEOs to technical and security practitioners. They will help you understand Zero Trust, why it is important, what it means to each role, and how to execute it successfully. The series integrates 0 best practices and guidance to avoid common mistakes (antipatterns) that slow you down and drive up risk.

These books enable individuals and organizations to do the following:

• Modernize security programs to increase effectiveness and reduce daily toil, suffering, and wasted effort resulting from classic security approaches
• Securely enable digital business models to increase agility and reduce friction and business risk
• Successfully execute individual role tasks to grow your skills, knowledge, and career

These books are designed to help you thrive in the security aspects of your role (and career) while helping your organization prosper and stay safe in today’s world.

Who this book is for

This first book serves as both a standalone overview of Zero Trust for anyone and an introduction to the playbooks in Zero Trust Overview and Playbook Introduction. with a part to play in Zero Trust to understand what Zero Trust is, why it’s important to you, and what success looks like.

This table provides a list of roles that will benefit from this book:

Role Type	Roles
Organizational senior leaders	Member of board of directors Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Chief Operating Officer (COO) Chief Legal Officer (CLO) Chief Privacy Officer (CPO) Chief Risk Officer (CRO) Chief Compliance Officer (CCO) Product and business line leaders Communications/public relations director
Adjacent/ancillary roles	Human resources Business analysts Internal readiness/training Internal and external communications
Risk and compliance roles	Risk team Compliance and audit team
Technology senior leaders	Chief Digital Officer (CDO) Chief Information Officer (CIO) Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) Enterprise security integration (deputy CISOs and staff, security [business] analysts) Technology directors Software delivery Vice President (VP) Security directors
Architects	Enterprise architects Security architects Infrastructure architects Business architects Information architects Access architects Solution architects Software/application architects
Managers	Technology managers Security managers Security Operations (SecOps) managers Product line managers/directors Product owners Software development directors Technology delivery managers Software testing/quality managers
Security posture management	Security posture management Security governance and compliance management People security (user education and insider risk)
Technical engineering and operations	Cloud engineering and operations Endpoint/productivity Identity Infrastructure CI/CD infrastructure Network Data security Operational Technology (OT) security Security posture engineering and operations
Application and product security	Software security engineers Software developers Software testers Supply chain security Internet of Things (IoT) security
Security operations	Triage analysts Investigation analysts Threat hunting Detection engineering Attack simulation (red and purple teaming) Incident management Threat intelligence

Figure Preface.1 - Illustrative list of roles that enable Zero Trust

The book is written for people who are currently in these roles (and similar roles) as well as those who aspire to work in these roles, work with people in the roles, and provide consulting and advice to these roles.

What this book covers

This first book kicks off The Zero Trust Playbook Series with an overview of Zero Trust and an introduction to the playbooks in the series. This book sets up the context of all that follows and introduces the common context everyone should know.

The chapters in this book are as follows:

• Chapter 1, Zero Trust – This Is the Way, gets us started by introducing Zero Trust and The Zero Trust Playbook Series and answering common questions about Zero Trust.
• Chapter 2, Reading the Zero Trust Playbook Series, introduces us to the structure and layout of the playbook series and suggested strategies to get what you need from these books quickly.
• Chapter 3, Zero Trust Is Security for Today’s World, shows us how Zero Trust is designed for the digital age of continuous change that we live in, and why it’s critically important to get right. This chapter also clears up some common points of confusion around security and Zero Trust.
• Chapter 4, Standard Zero Trust Capabilities, describes the standard Zero Trust capabilities in the Zero Trust Reference Model from The Open Group that are referenced throughout the playbooks. These are the key elements that will stay constant as we continuously improve on Zero Trust.
• Chapter 5, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Zero Trust, teaches us about AI and how this technology is disrupting business, technology, security, and society at large. It describes AI’s impacts, limitations, and relationship to Zero Trust that will be managed through the guidance for each role in the playbooks.
• Chapter 6, How to Scope, Size, and Start Zero Trust, answers the top questions about planning and getting started with a Zero Trust transformation. This also describes key terminology changes and common points of confusion about terminology that is used differently by different teams in an organization.
• Chapter 7, What Zero Trust Success Looks Like, covers the three key success factors for Zero Trust that are embedded into the playbooks: having a clear strategy and plan, managing mindset and culture shifts, and integrating human empathy.
• Chapter 8, Adoption with the Three-Pillar Model, lays out the three pillars of the playbook (strategic, operational, and operating model) and shows how the elements in that model work together to integrate business, technology, and security to create Zero Trust.
• Chapter 9, The Zero Trust Six-Stage Plan, describes the six stages used by the playbook, including a detailed summary of “who does what.” This shows us how the playbook brings everyone together to make Zero Trust real.
• Chapter 10, Zero Trust Playbook Roles, describes the role-based approach and per-role guidance in the playbooks. This sets us up for success as we move on to the playbook for our role.

The remaining playbooks in the series provide actionable role-by-role guidance for each affected role.

To get the most out of this book

You don’t need anything except a desire to learn to get a clear picture of Zero Trust and how to execute it from this book.

You will get more out of this book if you have experience working in business, technology, or security for an organization (or an aspiration to do so). This experience is not required to understand the concepts as we explain those throughout the book to ensure clarity.

Follow the guidance in Chapter 2, Reading the Zero Trust Playbook Series, to identify the best reading strategy for your needs.

Conventions used

Text conventions throughout this book include:

Tips or important notes

That appear like this.

Get in touch

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