Enhance your cybersecurity and agility with this thorough playbook, featuring actionable guidance, insights, and success criteria from industry experts

Key Features

• Get simple, clear, and practical advice for everyone from CEOs to security operations
• Organize your Zero Trust journey into role-by-role execution stages
• Integrate real-world implementation experience with global Zero Trust standards
• Purchase of the print or Kindle book includes a free eBook in the PDF format

Book Description

Zero Trust is cybersecurity for the digital era and cloud computing, protecting business assets anywhere on any network. By going beyond traditional network perimeter approaches to security, Zero Trust helps you keep up with ever-evolving threats.

The playbook series provides simple, clear, and actionable guidance that fully answers your questions on Zero Trust using current threats, real-world implementation experiences, and open global standards.

The Zero Trust playbook series guides you with specific role-by-role actionable information for planning, executing, and operating Zero Trust from the boardroom to technical reality.

This first book in the series helps you understand what Zero Trust is, why it's important for you, and what success looks like. You'll learn about the driving forces behind Zero Trust - security threats, digital and cloud transformations, business disruptions, business resilience, agility, and adaptability. The six-stage playbook process and real-world examples will guide you through cultural, technical, and other critical elements for success.

By the end of this book, you'll have understood how to start and run your Zero Trust journey with clarity and confidence using this one-of-a-kind series that answers the why, what, and how of Zero Trust!

What you will learn

• Find out what Zero Trust is and what it means to you
• Uncover how Zero Trust helps with ransomware, breaches, and other attacks
• Understand which business assets to secure first
• Use a standards-based approach for Zero Trust
• See how Zero Trust links business, security, risk, and technology
• Use the six-stage process to guide your Zero Trust journey
• Transform roles and secure operations with Zero Trust
• Discover how the playbook guides each role to success

Who this book is for

Whether you're a business leader, security practitioner, or technology executive, this comprehensive guide to Zero Trust has something for you. This book provides practical guidance for implementing and managing a Zero Trust strategy and its impact on every role (including yours!). This is the go-to guide for everyone including board members, CEOs, CIOs, CISOs, architects, engineers, IT admins, security analysts, program managers, product owners, developers, and managers. Don't miss out on this essential resource for securing your organization against cyber threats.

Table of Contents

1. Zero Trust - This Is the Way
2. Reading the Zero Trust Playbook Series
3. Zero Trust is Security for Today's World
4. Standard Zero Trust Capabilities
5. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Zero Trust
6. How to Scope, Size, and Start Zero Trust
7. What Zero Trust Success Looks Like
8. Adoption with the Three-Pillar Model
9. The Zero Trust Six-Stage Plan
10. Zero Trust Playbook Roles

Review

“What is lost in the race for a better solution to the growing cyber threats is a unified definition and set of capabilities for the successful implementation of Zero Trust in an organization’s environment. Through their series of books, the authors of The Zero Trust Playbook Series, Nikhil Kumar and Mark Simos, attempt to answer questions surrounding Zero Trust – including the core defining capabilities and characteristics and how to successfully implement a Zero Trust architecture.

Nikhil and Mark both have extensive professional experience on the front lines of cyber defense, advising global organizations on architecture and best practices. As they delve into the topic of Zero Trust, they not only define the topic but also provide answers to the why, as well as detailed guidance on the how.

There has never been a greater need for a change in the cybersecurity defense methodology, and Zero Trust will bring the industry a long way toward maturity. Grounding this topic in pragmatic guidance while also clarifying why the purpose is a worthy task, I commend Nikhil and Mark for embarking on this journey”

--

Ann Johnson, Corporate Vice President – Microsoft

“Zero Trust Introduction and Playbook Overview" is an indispensable guide for cybersecurity and tech professionals navigating Zero Trust implementation complexities. It offers clear, practical insights and a structured playbook series tailored to diverse organizational roles. With rich content covering scoping, AI integration, and success factors, the book's role-based approach targets business leaders, tech experts, managers, and practitioners. The three-pillar model and six-stage plan ensure a holistic understanding, while real-world examples, including Acme case studies, provide practical application insights. Precision in language and well-organized chapters make it accessible to a broad audience. Emphasizing organizational accountability and culture for business leaders and technology strategy integration for tech leaders, the book provides a synchronized roadmap for diverse roles. While occasional repetition could be streamlined for conciseness, the book's thoroughness compensates, making it a vital reference for navigating the cybersecurity landscape, facilitating a seamless transition from theory to implementation.”

Fabrizio Di Carlo - Group Manager @ Avanade | Architecture, Cloud and Security | Board Advisor | Zero Trust | Current research topic: Web3 Security

About the Author

Mark Simos helps individuals and organizations meet cybersecurity, cloud, and digital transformation goals. Mark is the Lead Cybersecurity Architect for Microsoft where he leads the development of cybersecurity reference architectures, strategies, prescriptive planning roadmaps, best practices, and other security and Zero Trust guidance. Mark also co-chairs the Zero Trust working group at The Open Group and contributes to open standards and other publications like the Zero Trust Commandments. Mark has presented at numerous conferences including Black Hat, RSA Conference, Gartner Security and Risk Management, Microsoft Ignite and BlueHat, and Financial Executives International.

Nikhil is Founder at ApTSi with prior leadership roles at Price Waterhouse and other firms. He has led setup and implementation of Digital Transformation and enterprise security initiatives (such as PCI Compliance) and built out Security Architectures. An Engineer and Computer Scientist with a passion for biology, Nikhil is an expert in Security, Information, and Computer Architecture. Known for communicating to the board and implementing with engineers and architects, he is an MIT mentor, innovator and pioneer. Nikhil has authored numerous books, standards, and articles, and presented at conferences globally. He co-chairs The Zero Trust Working Group, a global standards initiative led by The Open Group.