Zero Trust Security Model in Enterprises

-, Dion Raphael (2025) Zero Trust Security Model in Enterprises. Masters thesis, Dublin, National College of Ireland.

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Abstract

Enterprise networks have become distributed ecosystems that span hybrid clouds, SaaS platforms, endpoints, and IoT/OT devices and make perimeter-based security models that rely on implicit trust, more and more irrelevant (Stafford et al., 2020; Syed et al., 2022). Zero Trust Security Model (ZTSM) is the way of overcoming this challenge that provides stringent identity verification, constant monitoring, and contextual access control (Liu et al., 2024). It is a powerfully implemented concept that is hindered by the legacy integration and the nature of its complexity and resource scarcity [5]; Wang et al., 2025).

Zero Trust and its efficiency in enhancing cybersecurity inside the enterprise are assessed in this work in a controlled VirtualBox lab consisting of three VMs: Kali Linux (attacker), Windows 10 (victim), and Ubuntu 24.04 (deception server with Cowrie honeypot). A flat interior subnet was used to execute simulated insider attacks Credential reuse of Telnet and custom Python backdoor, and reverse shell. Controls that have zero trust alignment, such as deception, monitoring of network (via Wireshark, Bettercap), and containment were implemented.

The output indicates that deception-based detection returned the quickest Times-to-Detect (0.9 s) and containment (2.1 s), respectively, that beat reverse shell and backdoor conditions. The results verify that limited Zero Trust mitigations could significantly decrease attacker dwell time providing measurable, low-resources method on how enterprises can enhance security even without a complete Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) stack. Policy-plane integration and enlargement in terms of the protocols should go further.

Item Type:	Thesis (Masters)
Supervisors:	Name Email Hafeez, Khadija UNSPECIFIED
Subjects:	Q Science > QA Mathematics > Electronic computers. Computer science T Technology > T Technology (General) > Information Technology > Electronic computers. Computer science Q Science > QA Mathematics > Computer software > Computer Security T Technology > T Technology (General) > Information Technology > Computer software > Computer Security
Divisions:	School of Computing > Master of Science in Cyber Security
Depositing User:	Ciara O'Brien
Date Deposited:	17 Aug 2026 13:45
Last Modified:	17 Aug 2026 13:45
URI:	https://norma.ncirl.ie/id/eprint/9522

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