The Zero Trust Hub

Trends, insights, and resources for today's cybersecurity leaders. Updated weekly.

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The Monday Microsegment

NEWS

In Today’s Post-Breach Reality, Organizations Must Make Containment a Higher Priority

In Dark Reading, Andrew Rubin says security teams are finally getting honest about what everyone knows but won’t say: you can't stop every attack. The smart money is moving from trying to prevent breaches to containing them fast. Here’s how the best defenders are preparing for the inevitable.

NEWS

How Threat Actors are Using AI
to Automate Reconnaissance
and Scale their Attacks Faster

Attackers used to probe systems by hand, one port at a time. Now AI lets them test thousands of attack methods in minutes. They’re finding vulnerabilities faster than you can patch them. In SecurityInfoWatch, Trevor Dearing explains why the old security playbook isn't enough anymore.

Weekly Briefing

Why the Future of Zero Trust Depends on Segmentation

Over the years, I’ve supported many Gartner Market Guides across a range of security technologies. These reports don’t just capture product trends but also reflect the real-time evolution of an industry.

That’s why the latest Gartner® Market Guide for Network Security Microsegmentation stood out to me.

Microsegmentation used to be seen as complicated and only meant for the most advanced security teams. That’s changed. Today, it’s much easier to use and quicker to implement.

As more organizations of all sizes and industries build their Zero Trust strategy, they’re turning to segmentation as a key part of the foundation.

The latest Gartner report highlights this shift and confirms what many have already seen coming: microsegmentation is no longer optional.

No Zero Trust without segmentation

Zero Trust is a strategic framework, not a product or checklist. It’s grounded in the principle of “never trust, always verify,” but applying that principle inside a modern IT environment requires more than identity and access controls at the perimeter.

You can’t verify what you can’t see, and you certainly can’t enforce least-privileged access between workloads or applications without granular control.

That’s exactly where microsegmentation fits in.

Gartner is unequivocal: “Security and risk management leaders should build a microsegmentation architecture that restricts the lateral movement of malware in the network and in public and private cloud environments.”

This language isn’t just advisory. It reflects a consensus that’s been building for years. Identity, endpoint, and network defenses can reduce initial exposure. However, once a breach happens (and breaches will happen) microsegmentation becomes the control that limits blast radius and keeps attackers from moving freely through your environment.

Security and risk management leaders should build a microsegmentation architecture that restricts the lateral movement of malware in the network and in public and private cloud environments.

Microsegmentation comes of age

In the report, Gartner predicts that 25% of enterprises working toward Zero Trust will use more than one form of microsegmentation by 2027. That’s up from less than 5% today, and it signals a major acceleration in adoption in the next few years.

Why now? Today’s IT environments are growing increasingly complex. Cloud adoption, remote work, and application sprawl have all contributed to a fragmented enterprise architecture. As Gartner notes, this evolution has “prompted SRM leaders to focus on securing a growing number of increasingly fragmented perimeters.”

Microsegmentation gives those leaders a way to bring structure back to chaos with:

  • Fine-grained zoning across hybrid environments
  • Workload-level policies that enforce least privilege
  • East-west traffic visibility that reveals hidden risks

Together, these capabilities transform Zero Trust from theory into reality, enabling controls that are adaptive, automated, and aligned to how the business actually operates.

The future of microsegmentation

What’s particularly interesting in this year’s Market Guide is how Gartner highlights the trajectory of microsegmentation beyond its initial scope. The report notes an emergence of advanced capabilities like AI-powered policy recommendations, protocol inspection, and even the potential convergence with broader cybersecurity mesh architectures.

This is not just about technology maturity or another defensive strategy. It’s about recognizing that segmentation is a key enabler of strategic security.

As Zero Trust programs mature, microsegmentation will play a broader role in supporting remote access, informing detection and response, and serving as a consistent policy enforcement layer across distributed environments.  

Gartner calls out the lack of a common control plane across most solutions today. However, they also suggest that this gap could be closed as architectures evolve toward a federated but unified model.

This is not just about technology maturity or another defensive strategy. It’s about recognizing that segmentation is a key enabler of strategic security.

The implications are significant. Microsegmentation is becoming a dynamic part of the Zero Trust operating model.

Lead with resilience, not just defense

Zero Trust is often positioned as a way to reduce risk, and it certainly does. I would argue, though, that its true value lies in something deeper: resilience.

Segmentation won’t stop every breach, but it will stop the breach from spreading. It will protect the crown jewels and buy your team time when time is most precious.

As an analyst relations director, I often get a behind-the-scenes view into how these market shifts are interpreted by both technology vendors and enterprise buyers. What I see now is a moment of convergence. Zero Trust strategy, real-world threats, and architectural change are all aligning around microsegmentation.

CISOs who recognize this and act will be the ones who lead their organizations through uncertainty with clarity and control.  

CHART OF THE WEEK

People as Attack Paths

The 2025 Data Breach Investigations Report reminds us that humans remain a critical weak point in cybersecurity. Credential abuse is the leading source of breaches that involve people, with social engineering, simple mistakes, and malware interactions also contributing significantly. The findings highlight the need for proactive cybersecurity controls such as Zero Trust and microsegmentation.

Zero Trust Resources

eBook

Strategies for DORA Compliance: Key Role of Zero Trust Segmentation

Is your organization ready for the January 2025 DORA deadline? Discover key strategies for cyber resilience and how Illumio Zero Trust Segmentation simplifies compliance.

GUIDE

Zero Trust Segmentation for Dummies

Breaches are inevitable, but the damage isn’t. Zero Trust Segmentation for Dummies simplifies how to stop threats from spreading, protecting your organization before they cause harm.

REPORT

2025 Global Cost of Ransomware Study

Some 88% of organizations were hit by ransomware in the last year. Are your defenses ready to stand up to today’s ransomware threat? Uncover the real impact of ransomware and strategies to stay resilient against the next inevitable attack.

Introducing Illumio Insights:
AI Cloud Detection and Response

Get an early look at the first cloud detection and response (CDR) solution built on an AI security graph. Watch the on-demand webinar now.

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John Kindervag

Chief Evangelist

Raghu Nandakumara

Head of Industry Solutions

Gary Barlet

Public Sector CTO

Trevor Dearing

Director of Critical Infrastructure Solutions

Michael Adjei

Director, Systems Engineering

Christer Swartz

Director of Industry Solutions

Scott Smith