Continuous Adaptive Trust: The Key to Agile Cybersecurity

First coined by Gartner in 2021 (subscription required), the term continuous adaptive trust is gaining popularity. This new authentication model might be the solution to constantly evolving threats, strict regulatory requirements, and cloud vulnerabilities.

Continuous adaptive trust represents a shift in cybersecurity, moving beyond traditional static access management models to a dynamic, real-time approach that continuously evaluates trust levels based on changing risk factors. Read this post to learn what continuous adaptive trust is and how it can enhance your organization’s security.

What is continuous adaptive trust?

Continuous adaptive trust (CAT) is a dynamic cybersecurity approach that involves continuous evaluation and adjustment of access permissions and trust levels of entities based on current risks and other contextual information in the system.

Unlike static access management models, CAT allows for adapting security controls on the fly, ensuring that access is always aligned with the current trust levels of users.

A trust level is a degree of confidence a system has in the entity’s identity at any moment. The lower the risk, the higher the level of trust an entity is given.

CAT is an analytics-first approach to user authentication that continuously evaluates a range of evidence supporting (or negating) a claim of identity, dynamically adapting to changes in access risk. It puts credentials on the same footing as signals, rather than giving them any special credibility.

Gartner, Critical Capabilities for Access Management (subscription required)

According to Gartner, CAT is a conceptual model rather than a discrete concrete function. To enable CAT and adaptive access, an access management system must combine multiple elements, including identity credentials, recognition signals, risk signals, and analytics.

Since continuous adaptive trust and zero trust share similar principles, let’s compare these two approaches to better understand what sets CAT apart.

What’s the difference between continuous adaptive trust and zero trust?

Just like zero trust, CAT is a modern cybersecurity approach designed to enhance security by regulating the trust of users. While both of these approaches use the concept of trust, they use it differently:

Zero trust is based upon the concept “never trust, always verify”, meaning every user and device should undergo continuous authentication and validation and should never be granted access to resources based on inherent trust.

In contrast, continuous adaptive trust brings more agility to the zero trust approach. Instead of completely eliminating trust and verifying users’ identities over and over, CAT continuously evaluates contextual data and risk signals in real time to dynamically adjust trust levels, access controls, and permissions.

This way, identity verification does not interrupt the user experience every time, but rather happens without users noticing. That’s one of the reasons Gartner calls for shifting focus from multi-factor authentication (MFA) to continuous adaptive trust, as MFA “can add friction to login flows”, which “reduces employee agility and degrades operational performance” (Gartner, Shift Focus From MFA to Continuous Adaptive Trust, subscription required).

CAT is also more secure than MFA, as it involves continuously evaluating risk throughout the user session, even after the point of authentication.

Although there are differences between zero trust and continuous adaptive trust as far as model, focus, and approach are concerned, they are complementary rather than mutually exclusive. Zero trust forms a strong security foundation by eliminating implicit trust, while CAT takes it further by dynamically adapting trust levels based on real-time risk assessment.

The principles of continuous adaptive trust

To better understand how it works, let’s take a look at the key principles of continuous adaptive trust:

1. Continuous monitoring and evaluation

CAT involves continuous monitoring and analysis of user behavior, system activities, and identity interactions. This helps to constantly reassess in real time the trust level of the user.

2. Context awareness

Continuous monitoring provides context, which drives informed security decisions. This context includes details about devices and networks, geolocation, and user behavior. Some dedicated solutions analyze behavioral biometrics, such as typing patterns, to verify the user.

3. Dynamic risk assessment

Based on the established context and monitored user behavior, CAT continuously evaluates risks and adjusts trust levels. This process also includes detecting anomalies and promptly responding to them.

4. Adaptive access control

CAT dynamically changes access permissions, depending on the current evaluation of trust. This can involve allowing access, increasing trust levels, or restricting the user’s access if significant risk is detected.

5. Real-time decision-making

With continuous adaptive trust, security decision-making and risk mitigation happen in real time. CAT accelerates threat detection and response with advanced data analytics and machine learning.

6. Adaptive trust matrix

CAT operates around an adaptive trust matrix — a set of rules and conditions that map different levels of trust to specific actions or permissions. For example, reading non-sensitive data may be mapped to a “level 1 trust”, while modifying sensitive information may align with “level 5”.

Now that we’re familiar with the key principles of CAT, let’s see how this security approach can benefit your organization.

Benefits of continuous adaptive trust

The ultimate goal of continuous adaptive trust is to maintain a balanced and adaptable security posture. The key benefits of CAT that align with this goal include:

Resilience against changing threats

Unlike non-adaptive access management models, CAT involves monitoring and evaluating contextual data in real time. This dynamic approach can help your organization detect anomalies and remain resilient against many threats even if they are new.

Reduced risk of credential-based attacks

Continuous adaptive trust minimizes dependence on static credentials and MFA by incorporating behavioral analytics, risk-based authentication, and continuous monitoring to verify user identities. Consequently, CAT reduces your risk of successful credential-based attacks such as phishing and credential stuffing.

Minimized false positives

CAT’s real-time context awareness allows access management systems to consider multiple factors before flagging suspicious activity. In addition, CAT can automatically make the right access management decisions based on the adaptive trust matrix. In turn, the reduction of false positives minimizes disruptions in users’ workflows and lets your security officers work more efficiently.

Proactive threat detection and response

Static access management approaches focus on preventing unauthorized access at the initial authentication stage, so the user retains access during the whole session, regardless of what happens. In contrast, CAT includes continuous monitoring for signs of malicious activity, allowing your organization to detect and respond to threats in real time.

Increased cost-effectiveness

By automating access management, risk assessment, and continuous monitoring, CAT can significantly reduce the workload on your security team. In addition to improving security, automation allows you to reduce operational and maintenance costs.

Improved user experience

Unlike other approaches, CAT eliminates the need for frequent logins, password changes, or multi-factor authentication. Users whose behavior follows their established patterns and poses no security risks experience fewer interruptions for identity verifications.

By 2025, organizations that embrace a continuous adaptive trust approach will reduce ATO [account takeover] and other identity risks by 30% and improve authentication UX by reducing prompts by a factor of 20.

Gartner, Shift Focus From MFA to Continuous Adaptive Trust (subscription required)

By adopting continuous adaptive trust, your organization can strengthen security and improve operational efficiency without affecting user satisfaction. All of these advantages combine to make CAT an essential part of any modern cybersecurity strategy, providing organizations with the agility needed to survive in today’s intricate threat landscape.

Implementing secure authentication and versatile risk management with Syteca

Effective data protection does not necessarily require the use of complex AI solutions. You can achieve high-level security by automating your processes and access restrictions.

Syteca is an advanced cybersecurity platform that helps your organization secure its perimeter from the inside. Syteca is agile and supports your CAT initiatives by providing effective solutions for access management, user monitoring, and incident response.

Syteca’s capabilities include but are not limited to:

• Privileged access management (PAM). Implement the principle of least privilege by granularly granting and revoking access to critical endpoints for your regular, privileged, and third-party users.
• User activity monitoring (UAM). Establish context by enabling real-time visibility into user interactions with sensitive data and critical endpoints. Receive instant alerts on suspicious user activity and promptly manage threats with Syteca’s rule-based responses.
• Workforce password management (WMP). Secure and optimize employee password management and implement the just-in-time approach to controlling access with Syteca’s one-time passwords (OTP) and time-based access restrictions.
• Identity management. Verify user identities with two-factor authentication (2FA), safely authenticate users with single sign-on (SSO), and enable secondary authentication to identify users of shared accounts.

Syteca’s rich feature set can also help your organization meet the requirements of cybersecurity standards, laws, and regulations.

Conclusion

Continuous adaptive trust represents a significant shift in how organizations view security. CAT replaces static access management models with a dynamic approach that allows for adjusting access permissions in real time based on current risks. This approach can help your organization maintain a balanced and adaptable security posture that does not compromise user experience and eases the workload of your security officers.

Embracing CAT can provide resilience against evolving cybersecurity threats, reduce the risk of unauthorized access, and streamline the authentication processes. You can start small by integrating some CAT principles into your existing IT systems. Consider deploying Syteca’s agile and easy-to-integrate solutions for increased context awareness, access control, and incident response.