Citation :

Anitha Mareedu, 2023. "Zero Trust before the Hype: Foundational Concepts and Early Implementations" ESP International Journal of Advancements in Computational Technology (ESP-IJACT)  Volume 1, Issue 3: 224-235.

Abstract :

The Zero Trust (ZT) security model represents a fundamental shift from traditional perimeter-based defenses to an architecture rooted in continuous verification, least privilege access, and the assumption of breach. While Zero Trust has gained widespread traction in recent years particularly following high-profile cyber incidents and the issuance of federal mandates its intellectual foundations and early implementations predate the current hype cycle by over a decade. This article conducts a structured review of Zero Trust’s formative years, tracing its origins from academic trust modeling and the Jericho Forum’s de-perimeterization concept to John Kindervag’s formalization of the model at Forrester Research. It also critically analyzes early real-world implementations, including Google’s BeyondCorp, Cisco’s TrustSec architecture, and cloud-native security transformations in financial institutions like Capital One and JPMorgan Chase. The research identifies key enabling technologies such as federated identity management, micro-segmentation, software-defined networking (SDN), endpoint detection and response (EDR), and policy orchestration frameworks that collectively contributed to early Zero Trust deployments. Moreover, the study highlights lessons learned and critical research gaps, including challenges in identity governance, policy standardization, legacy system integration, and the need for dynamic trust metrics. By revisiting Zero Trust before its mainstream adoption, this paper provides a historically grounded, technically rigorous perspective that informs both academic inquiry and practical implementation strategies for modern cybersecurity architectures.

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Keywords :

Zero Trust, Cybersecurity, Identity Management, Micro-Segmentation, BeyondCorp, TrustSec, Software-Defined Networking, Cloud Security, Policy Enforcement, Continuous Verification.