If you think there’s a single “correct” way to start Zero Trust, think again.

We’ve all seen the headlines, the frameworks, the checklists. And while they offer helpful guidance, they can also give organizations the false idea that Zero Trust is a linear process. If you just follow step one, step two, and step three, you’ll be secure.

The reality is that there’s no universal starting point for Zero Trust. Chasing the wrong one, whether it’s the perimeter, identity, or some shiny new security tool, can actually make you more vulnerable, not less.

Zero Trust isn’t a product or a prescription. It’s a mindset. And that mindset needs to be applied to your specific risks, environments, and operational realities, not someone else’s.

Zero Trust is a strategy, not a sequence

One of the most damaging myths in security today is that Zero Trust begins at the edge — that protecting the perimeter should come first. But the perimeter as we once knew it is gone.

Workloads span on-premises and cloud. Employees log in from airports, coffee shops, and home offices. Vendors, partners, and contractors need access across environments. The edge has become fluid, and perimeter defenses can’t keep up.

Recognizing this, many organizations pivot to a new default: “Start with identity.” That’s not a bad instinct. Identity is foundational. But the problem is that it’s not automatically the right place to start for you.

If your identity infrastructure is already mature, but your network is flat and overexposed internally, then identity-first Zero Trust might not reduce risk in any meaningful way.  

In fact, it can give a false sense of security while attackers move laterally through your environment, unnoticed.

If your identity infrastructure is already mature, but your network is flat and overexposed internally, then identity-first Zero Trust might not reduce risk in any meaningful way.  

Start where you’ll reduce the most risk, fastest

Every organization has different risk priorities. What’s critical in a hospital won’t be the same for a financial services firm.

Your best place to begin Zero Trust isn’t where someone else started. It’s where you can make the biggest impact with the least friction.

For some, that means microsegmentation, breaking apart overly flat networks to contain the spread of ransomware and other threats. For others, it’s gaining visibility into workload traffic to understand who and what’s communicating and whether it should be.

Your best place to begin Zero Trust isn’t where someone else started. It’s where you can make the biggest impact with the least friction.

The only “right” starting point is the one that fits your environment, addresses your gaps, and delivers real, measurable security gains early in the journey.

Beware of shiny objects and dogmatic roadmaps

There’s a lot of noise in the Zero Trust space right now.  

Tool vendors claim they can deliver Zero Trust in a box. Consultants offer paint-by-number strategies. It seems like new acronyms spin up every quarter.

It’s easy to get distracted. But the point of Zero Trust isn’t to check a box. It’s to limit the damage attackers can do when they inevitably get in.

The only way to do that well is to build a strategy that’s tailored to your threat model, your architecture, and your mission.

That might mean starting with:

• Workload segmentation to stop lateral movement
• Visibility to see what’s really happening inside your environment
• Policy enforcement to limit what users or devices can access
• Or yes, identity, if that’s where your biggest exposure lies

But it should never mean following a one-size-fits-all playbook.

Zero Trust is a compass, not a map

At its core, Zero Trust is about making smarter, more deliberate decisions about who and what has access to your resources and under what conditions.

If you’re taking every step with the goal of enforcing least privilege, verifying continuously, and assuming breach, then you’re moving in the right direction. But if you're chasing someone else's path without considering your own risks and gaps, you're likely to miss the mark.

The bottom line is that the best place to start Zero Trust is the place where not starting will hurt you the most. It’s up to you to decide what that looks like for your organization.