Create a Zero Trust Implementation Plan

Build a path to seamless security and verified trust.

Analyst perspective

Implementing your plan for success from roadmap to reality.

Zero trust architecture (ZTA) represents a fundamental shift in how organizations approach cybersecurity, emphasizing continuous verification and least-privilege access over traditional trust assumptions. As digital transformation accelerates, the proliferation of users, devices, and applications accessing critical resources demands a dynamic and adaptive security model. By establishing identity as the cornerstone of ZTA and integrating advanced tools for monitoring, automation, and threat detection, organizations can significantly reduce risk and limit lateral movement.

A well-executed zero trust strategy ensures resilience by leveraging proactive measures like behavioral analytics, adversarial simulations, and real-time policy enforcement. This approach not only strengthens security but also offers the scalability and flexibility needed to align with evolving business objectives and compliance requirements. Treating security as a continuous process, rather than a static implementation, enables the organization to adapt effectively to emerging risks and maintain trust across its digital ecosystem.

John Donovan
Principal Research Director, I&O
Info-Tech Research Group

Executive summary

Your Challenge

The most challenging aspects of implementing zero trust principles and technology are primarily due to operating in a hybrid environment or one with a mix of cloud and legacy on-prem systems. Other challenges facing you are:

• Difficulty detecting evolving threats.
• Lack of knowledge of ZTA tools.

IT teams need to adopt a different way of thinking about network security.

Common Obstacles

Organizations face many obstacles in the implementation of a zero trust plan, including:

• Integration with legacy systems.
• Operational disruptions to critical business functions.
• Managing multiple tools and solutions without a clear strategy.
• Financial constraints that restrict the adoption of necessary technology or skilled personnel.

After defining your zero trust roadmap and potential solutions, it is time to build an implementation plan.

• Use the gap analysis from your roadmap to determine your priorities.
• Ensure you have completed all the prerequisites so you are ready for the transition and implementation can proceed smoothly.
• Start with a pilot implementation before a phased rollout.
• Define and implement success metrics.

Info-Tech’s Approach

The cornerstone of ZTA is eliminating implicit trust by continuously validating every user, device, and request, regardless of location or privilege. This proactive methodology transforms cybersecurity from a static, reactive model to a dynamic, adaptive defense strategy. By integrating identity-centric controls, contextual risk assessment, and automation, organizations can minimize attack surfaces, contain breaches, and ensure resilience against modern threats while aligning security with operational goals.

Zero trust adoption

What are businesses doing regarding their security strategy and posture?

Zero trust adoption rates

In 2024, over 30% of respondents to a global survey had already implemented a zero trust strategy.

Statista, 2024

Cyber risk concerns driving zero trust strategy

Two thirds of organizations list cyber risk concerns as the most important drivers for implementing a zero trust strategy. This is higher in the US with 50% citing cyber breach and 29% citing expanded attack surface, totaling 79%.

Help Net Security, 2024

The global zero trust security market size is expected to reach USD $92.4 billion by 2030.

Grand View Research, 2024

Info-Tech Insight

Remember that zero trust is a strategy, not a product. Change in mindset regarding what you are protecting is a big step in developing a plan to implement ZTA.

Challenges of a zero trust implementation

What many organizations face that can lead to failure.

• Viewing Zero Trust as a Product Rather Than a Strategy: Many organizations mistakenly treat zero trust as a solution that can be installed rather than an overarching security strategy. This misconception leads to fragmented implementations that fail to address the holistic security needs of the organization.
• Failure to Address Legacy Systems: Integrating legacy systems into a zero trust framework can be challenging due to compatibility issues. Ignoring these challenges can create security vulnerabilities within the network.
• Underestimating Resource Requirements: Organizations often overlook the financial and human resources needed of zero trust implementation. This oversight can lead to underfunded projects and insufficient staffing, hindering the effectiveness of security measures.
• Inadequate Planning and Training: Rushing into zero trust implementation without thorough planning and sufficient training can result in misconfigurations and security gaps. A phased approach, coupled with comprehensive training programs, is essential for effective deployment.
• Neglecting User Experience: Implementing zero trust without considering the impact on user experience can lead to resistance and the adoption of insecure workarounds by employees. Ensuring that security measures are user-friendly is crucial for successful adoption.

Zero trust is a security strategy – no person is trusted by default; trust is based on what is happening and how safe the connection is.

Zscaler

Zero trust implementation

Zero trust isn’t a single type of implementation; there are various. For example: SDP, ZTNA, BeyondCorp, and Microservice architecture.

Your zero trust implementation plan requires you to ask several questions to determine which type of implementation will work for your organization.

Environment: Are you primarily on-prem, cloud based, or hybrid? Look for solutions that capture all three.

User Base: Are you securing remote workers, contractors, internal teams, or a combination of each?

Critical Resources: What’s most at risk (data, apps, devices)? Where does your data reside?

Compliance Needs: Does your industry have specific regulatory requirements (e.g. HIPAA, GDPR)?

Info-Tech Insight

By leveraging a range of implementation strategies such as software-defined perimeters (SDP), zero trust network access (ZTNA), and identity-centric controls, ZTA ensures least-privilege access and adaptive security across diverse environments. This approach addresses the growing challenges of hybrid work, cloud adoption, and advanced threats, offering organizations a scalable and resilient framework for modern security needs.

Info-Tech’s approach

Transform strategy into an actionable and structured path to zero trust success.

1 Alignment to Business Goals From Zero Trust Roadmap

• Ensure each initiative to directly support overarching business goals. Match business security objectives to security goals to ensure alignment.

2 Prerequisite Assessment

• Complete a readiness check to address dependencies and gaps. Align roles and responsibilities in your RACI chart.

3 Mapping to Zero Trust Pillars

• Categorize initiatives under identity, applications, devices, network, and data. Considerations for identity should be the first step

4 Prioritization Framework

• Evaluate initiatives on impact, effort, and risk to determine execution order.

5 Execution Plan and Timeline

• Visualize timelines, dependencies, and milestones to streamline execution and monitoring. Communicate your work.

The powers of continuous validation in zero trust

Aligning zero trust principles with proactive security and business alignment.

• Adaptive Security Needs: Traditional perimeter-based security models fall short in today’s decentralized environments where users and devices operate across multiple networks. Continuous validation leverages real-time risk signals and adaptive policies to respond to emerging threats proactively.
• Zero trust‘s requirement for authentication and authorization of all users, devices, and sessions ensures there are no blind spots in access control. This emphasizes that identity is the cornerstone of enforcing granular control across data, applications, network, and devices, which is critical in reducing risks to the protect surface.
• Operational Resilience: By extending the principle of least-privilege access, zero trust ensures users and devices have only the permission needed to perform their work – no more, no less. This reduces lateral movement, containing breaches before they escalate – a critical advantage for organizations facing sophisticated attacks.

"Zero trust is a security framework requiring all users, whether in or outside the organization's network, to be authenticated, authorized, and continuously validated for security configuration and posture before being granted or keeping access to applications and data."

– Kapil Raina, VP, Zero Trust Marketing, CrowdStrike

Zero trust deployment checklist

Considerations when implementing a zero trust solution:

Insight summary

Prioritize Identity and Access Management

Strong identity verification underpins ZTA. Implement robust identity and access management (IAM) solutions including MFA, SSO, and adaptive access policies. Continuous identity validation ensures users are authenticated at every access point, reducing the risk of compromised credentials.

Adopt a Data-Centric Approach

In zero trust, data security takes precedence over traditional network perimeter defenses. Identifying, classifying, and segmenting sensitive data is critical to ensuring it is accessed only by authorized users under the right circumstances. This approach reduces the risk of data exfiltration and ensures compliance with regulatory standards such as GDPR and HIPAA.

Implement Continuous Monitoring and Analytics

Zero trust is not a one-time setup but a continuous process. Real-time monitoring, coupled with behavioral analytics, ensures ongoing visibility into users and system activities. Advanced tools like SIEM and user and entity behavior analytics (UEBA) enable proactive threat detection and response.

Blueprint deliverables

Each step of this blueprint is accompanied by supporting deliverables to help you accomplish your goals:

Prerequisite Checklist

• Part of the Zero Trust Implementation Planning Tool, this list of prerequisites can be customized to fit your business needs.

Risk Register Tool

• Track dependencies and prerequisite issues.

Prioritized Initiatives and Gantt chart

• Determine which initiative to prioritize based on impact, effort, and risk. Part of the Zero Trust Implementation Planning Tool.

Executive Presentation

• Show leadership your work and plans to communicate and measure success.

Key deliverable:

Create a Zero Trust Implementation Plan Executive Presentation

• Executive summary
• Governance framework
• Communication strategy and plan
• Prioritized initiatives list and timeline
• Reference security metrics
• Dashboard to track progress

Blueprint benefits

Info-Tech’s blueprint frames zero trust not just in terms of reducing risk but in terms of its overall benefit. IT security will always benefit from adopting zero trust, but the business benefits need to be clear as well.

Info-Tech offers various levels of support to best suit your needs

Diagnostics and consistent frameworks are used throughout all five options.

Guided Implementation

What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

A Guided Implementation (GI) is a series of calls with an Info-Tech analyst to help implement our best practices in your organization.

A typical GI is 8 to 12 calls over the course of 4 to 6 months.

Workshop overview

Contact your account representative for more information.
workshops@infotech.com 1-888-670-8889

Phase 1

Ensuring Readiness and Addressing Prerequisites

Phase 1

1.1 Laying the groundwork for implementation
1.2 Task breakdown for key Initiatives
1.3 Roles and responsibilities matrix

Phase 2

2.1 Building the implementation plan
2.2 Identifying milestones and dependencies
2.3 Risk management and contingency planning

Phase 3

3.1 Preparing for execution and ensuring operational readiness
3.2 Training and change management
3.3 Finalizing the plan and securing stakeholder buy-in

This phase will walk you through the following activities:

Assess organizational alignment, policy readiness, infrastructure, technical prerequisites, and training needs.

Address prerequisite gaps.

Begin breaking down the top-ranked zero trust initiatives into specific, actionable tasks. This will include defining technical requirements, integration steps, and sequencing tasks.

Assign roles and responsibilities and resource and budget allocation and governance structure.

This phase involves the following participants:

CISO

Security Architect

IT Ops Manager

Project Manager

Network Administrator

Compliance Officer

SOC Manager

Case study

Mitigating risk and preventing future security incidents.

INDUSTRY
Telecommunications

SOURCE
The Verge

1.1 Laying the groundwork for implementation

1-3 hours

1. As a group, review workshop objectives and agenda. Introduce participants and their roles. Briefly review the completed roadmap and ranked initiatives to ensure all participants are aligned.
2. Assess and validate prerequisites.
1. Assessment includes organizational alignment, policy readiness, infrastructure, technical prerequisites, and training needs. See Tab 2, Prerequisite Checklist, of the workbook.
3. Participants will discuss any gaps identified during the assessment and agree on the actions necessary to close those gaps.
4. Address prerequisite gaps.
1. Break into groups to develop action plans for closing identified gaps. Each group will focus on a specific area, such as infrastructure readiness, policy development, or training.

Download the Zero Trust Implementation Planning Tool

1.2 Task breakdown for key initiatives

1-3 hours

1. Begin breaking down the top-ranked zero trust initiatives into specific, actionable tasks. This will include defining technical requirements, integration steps, and sequencing tasks.
2. Identify the resources (personnel, tools, budget) required for each task and assign responsibilities to specific team members or departments.
3. Determine the goals you are trying to achieve, both from an IT security posture and a business security one. Use the drop-down list or create your own as you do the set up in the workbook (there is a comprehensive list available in the workbook).

Download the Zero Trust Implementation Planning Tool