Privacy Please S6, E248 - Inside the Walls: Military's Stark Warning on Network Compromise
The US military has issued a stark warning to all forces to operate under the assumption that their networks have been compromised by Salt Typhoon, a sophisticated threat actor with ties to the Chinese government. This breach highlights the urgency for organizations to adopt Zero Trust principles as cyber warfare becomes the new battlefield.
• Zero Trust is a framework, not a single product or technology
• The first tenant of Zero Trust is treating networks as already compromised
• Salt Typhoon remained undetected in networks for almost a year
• The threat actor targeted telecommunications, energy, and transportation infrastructure
• Critical national infrastructure remains at high risk from similar focused attacks
• Traditional security approaches focusing solely on perimeter defense are inadequate
• Once compromised, networks may never be fully trusted again
• Verification must occur upon every access request, not just initially