What must stay in working memory
- Verify explicitly with current context rather than trusting a prior login or internal address.
- Grant least-privilege access to a specific resource and continually reevaluate it.
- Assume breach: minimize blast radius, inspect activity, and design for hostile conditions.
- The policy engine decides; the policy administrator helps execute the decision; the policy enforcement point gates traffic.
Concrete examples
- A managed laptop may reach payroll only after identity, device health, and resource policy all pass.
- A session can be terminated when device posture changes, even if its source address remains internal.
Decision rules you’ll retrieve
Place Zero Trust components on the correct plane
Decision and orchestration belong to the control plane; the component that directly gates the subject-to-resource connection belongs to the data plane.
Retrieval cue: Draw the policy engine, policy administrator, policy enforcement point, subject, and resource, labeling the control and data planes.
Identify the governing Zero Trust principle
Current contextual checks indicate explicit verification; narrowly scoped permissions indicate least privilege; segmentation, monitoring, and damage containment indicate assume breach.
Retrieval cue: State verify explicitly, least privilege, and assume breach, then give one architectural consequence of each.
Order a Zero Trust access decision
A subject requests a resource through a PEP; context is evaluated before the policy administrator establishes an allowed path; the PEP then enforces and continuously reevaluates it.
Retrieval cue: Recite the request-to-enforcement sequence and identify which component decides and which component gates traffic.