APPLICATION OF THE ZERO TRUST ARCHITECTURE TO ENHANCE CYBERSECURITY OF CORPORATE INFORMATION SYSTEMS

Abstract

The article investigates modern approaches to the software and technical implementation of the Zero Trust concept as one of the most promising approaches to ensuring the security of corporate information systems. The relevance of the study is determined by the rapid development of digital technologies, widespread adoption of cloud services, mobile devices, remote work, and the growing number of cyber threats, all of which significantly reduce the effectiveness of traditional perimeter-based security models. Based on the analysis of international standards and recent scientific research, the paper examines the fundamental principles of the Zero Trust architecture defined in NIST Special Publication 800-207, including continuous verification of every access request, the Least Privilege principle, Default Deny policy enforcement, centralized identity management, and continuous security monitoring. A software and technical solution for protecting corporate resources is proposed using the Keycloak identity and access management platform, the NGINX web server acting as a Policy Enforcement Point (PEP), and the Docker container platform, which provides automated deployment, service isolation, portability, and scalability of the developed infrastructure. The implementation employs the Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) model to provide centralized authorization and efficient management of user permissions without modifying the source code of enterprise applications.The proposed architecture was experimentally validated using the Policy Evaluation Tool integrated into Keycloak. Several authorization scenarios involving users with different privilege levels were simulated to evaluate the effectiveness of the implemented security policies. The obtained results confirmed the correct operation of the Zero Trust mechanisms by automatically denying unauthorized requests and allowing access only to users possessing the required roles and permissions. The implementation demonstrated effective centralized access management, immediate policy enforcement, rapid privilege revocation, and reduced risks of unauthorized access to corporate resources. The research findings indicate that the proposed solution significantly improves the security of enterprise information systems, supports scalable deployment, and can be integrated into existing corporate infrastructures without modifying application software. The developed architecture confirms the practical applicability of the Zero Trust model and may serve as a basis for further research on adaptive access control, multi-factor  authentication, behavioral analytics, and Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) integration.