3 min read

Zero Trust: How Continuous Access Evaluation Transforms Security

While identity serves as the foundation of a Zero Trust implementation, a fundamental breakthrough lies in continuous evaluation the ability to assess and respond to risk in real-time rather than relying on point-in-time authentication. A struggle related to continuos evaluation or Zero Trust in general was the lack of open standards. Investing in closed vendor based solutions is a risky road to travel on.

This is where the Shared Signals Framework (SSF) shines, specifically through two key protocols: Continuous Access Evaluation Protocol (CAEP) and Risk and Incident Sharing and Coordination (RISC). These standardized protocols are being actively implemented by major cloud vendors or identity vendors, to enable true continuous access evaluation. SSF seems to be the path forward.

The Current Challenge: The Policy Enforcement Gap

Traditional security models create a significant gap between policy decisions and enforcement. When you examine the lifetime of cookies, Primary Refresh Tokens, Access Tokens, and cached credentials, you'll discover that with the "current" technology stacks it can take hours or days to enforce policy changes such as disabling user access, requiring step up or re-authentication for all of the critical services and applications we access. Compare this with "time of infection" to loss of data/money/intellectual data and the policy enforcement gap becomes a real struggle.

It doesnt matter if the users computer is locked in minutes if it takes 8 hours+ to revoke access to that hijacked SAP/Oracle/Accounting/Business Intelligence user session.

Modern threats extracts all session data in seconds after infection. Try manually chasing and flushing user sessions on web servers , databases or similar as infection spreads.

As Gartner predicts: «70% of identity-first security strategies will fail unless organizations adopt context-based access policies that are continuous and consistent.»

CAEP: The Cornerstone of Modern Zero Trust

Zero Trust operates on the principle of "never trust, always verify," requiring continuous authentication regardless of connection origin. CAEP elevates this concept by enabling real-time, ongoing assessment of trust factors throughout the entire security ecosystem.

Unlike traditional security models that verify credentials only at the point of access, CAEP continuously monitors and evaluates multiple signals including:

  • User behavior patterns
  • Device health metrics
  • Network conditions
  • Risk indicators throughout active sessions

This adaptive approach allows security systems to respond dynamically to changing conditions without requiring constant manual intervention.

Why CAEP Transforms Zero Trust Implementations

CAEP functions as the central nervous system of a robust Zero Trust architecture:

Dynamic Risk Assessment: CAEP continuously evaluates risk factors, enabling systems to adapt permissions automatically as circumstances change.

Contextual Access Decisions: By processing multiple signals simultaneously, CAEP enables nuanced access decisions based on comprehensive context rather than isolated factors.

Friction Reduction: Security controls tighten only when necessary, avoiding disruption to legitimate business activities during normal risk levels.

Automated Breach Containment: When anomalous behavior is detected, CAEP can trigger immediate responses like step-up authentication or session termination, limiting potential damage.

Real-Time Policy Enforcement

CAEP is the only open standardized protocol (AFAIK), that enables real-time policy enforcement from the service level all the way to end users. Without SSF and CAEP, organizations remain stuck with delays of hours or days to enforce policy changes.

This capability becomes essential when you need to adjust security policies based on threat intelligence feeds, vulnerability assessments, and observed behavior patterns in real-time.

Cross-Platform Signal Integration with RISC

The Shared Signals Framework also includes Risk and Incident Sharing and Coordination (RISC), which enables modern implementations to aggregate threat signals across different systems within your organization. Equally important, RISC enables threat signal aggregation between different organizations, providing a mechanism to send and receive threat information for B2B users.

RISC can receive data from endpoint protection, network monitoring, AI/ML systems, or cloud-native risk scores that CAEP picks up and acts upon in real-time.

Selecting Tomorrow's Security Stack

When evaluating security technologies for future implementation, organizations should prioritize solutions that:

  • Offer robust CAEP capabilities with real-time adaptive responses
  • Integrate seamlessly with existing security infrastructure
  • Provide comprehensive visibility across hybrid environments
  • Demonstrate scalability to handle growing data volumes
  • Incorporate advanced analytics capabilities for predictive threat detection

The Path Forward

As threats continue to evolve in sophistication, organizations should embrace CAEP as a foundational element of their Zero Trust architecture. The future of cybersecurity lies in intelligent, autonomous systems that can continuously evaluate trust, adapt to changing conditions, and respond to threats at machine speed.

Kai Thorsrud