Building on identity, devices, and data, the workshop now covers network, infrastructure, and SecOps
As the nature of cyberthreats and security challenges evolve, organizations have coalesced around a Zero Trust architecture as the approach to modernize their end-to-end security adoption and posture. In November 2024, we introduced a preview of the Microsoft Zero Trust workshop that focused on the traditional “secure access” pillars (identity, data, and devices). We are announcing the expansion of the Zero Trust workshop to cover the additional technical pillars of Zero Trust—assisting customers on strategies that may contribute to securing their network, infrastructure, and connecting all these elements with security operations (SecOps). We invite you to take a look at the newly expanded workshop, give it a try, and share feedback with us as you continue on your end-to-end security modernization journey.
The need for a Zero Trust workshop
Customers have consistently told us that they see Zero Trust as a strategic foundation for how they approach and run a modern security practice. However, customers have also shared that they need help and guidance understanding how their security products could help them achieve a Zero Trust vision, and how they can measure how far along they are on their journey to implement Zero Trust.
Figure 1. Top areas customers ask for help with in advancing their Zero Trust journey.
Last year, we introduced the Microsoft Zero Trust workshop as a valuable resource for our customers and partners. By guiding participants through a comprehensive journey across the pillars of Zero Trust, this workshop aims to assist with strategies to deploy security products and features. It outlines the priority of tasks, provides a framework to track progress, and allows participants to measure their advancements against established benchmarks in subsequent evaluations.
In the initial launch, we focused on three key pillars of the Zero Trust framework:
- Identity: Ensuring that the right people have access to the right resources through robust authentication and authorization mechanisms.
- Devices: Securing endpoints to prevent unauthorized access and to ensure compliance with organizational policies.
- Data: Protecting sensitive information through encryption, data classification, and access control.
This foundational approach emphasizes strategies on preventative security capabilities and access control to resources. These pillars served as the cornerstone for ways in which organizations could better secure their systems against unauthorized access and data breaches. Since its launch, the workshop has been downloaded more than 3,000 times by customers to enhance their end-to-end security posture. More than 150 Microsoft Partners trained to use it as well, with several adopting it as a delivery mechanism.
Access control, posture, and detection and response
We’re proud to announce that we have expanded the Zero Trust workshop from three Zero Trust pillars to cover a total of six pillars, adding:
- Networking: Implementing micro-segmentation, real-time threat detection, and secure access to network resources to ensure comprehensive network security.
- Infrastructure: Securing cloud and on-premises infrastructure through robust configurations, access management, and continuous monitoring.
- SecOps: Strengthening threat detection and response capabilities through Microsoft Defender for Identity, Defender for Endpoint, Defender for Office, Defender for Cloud Apps, Defender XDR, and Microsoft Sentinel.
These additions highlight the Microsoft commitment to a holistic approach to security: helping to better enable organizations with strategies and tools not only to strengthen protection against cyberthreats but also to detect and respond to incidents effectively. The full workshop has been tested by early adopting customers and partners, and the feedback has been very exciting:
“You’ve captured the Zero Trust model better than any other [Cloud Solution Provider] CSP in the market. It’s very well-articulated and aligns very strongly with the way we approach it.”
—Denis O’Shea, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Mobile Mentor
Richer guidance connecting the dots
In addition to adding the three new pillars, we’ve made significant enhancements to the workshop based on your feedback:
- Implementation effort and user impact indicators: Now every step in any given pillar of the workshop comes with a high-level estimate of how much effort it would require of your team to deploy, as well as how much of an impact it would have on your users—to help you fully assess when your team and your organization can take on each step.
- Connecting the cross-pillars scenarios: In our Zero Trust deployment conversations with customers, one of the biggest challenges they’ve raised is implementing scenarios that span multiple Zero Trust pillars. These scenarios are difficult because they typically involve different teams and stakeholders across their organization. The updated workshop now explicitly highlights these cross-pillar scenarios and identifies the relevant owners, helping customers bring the right people into the discussion and align on next steps.
We’re committed to helping you secure your organization
The Microsoft Zero Trust workshop is more than a training session—it’s a call to action for organizations to reimagine their approach to security in the modern digital landscape and operationalize this vision. With the expanded pillars, this workshop now includes comprehensive insights for implementing a Zero Trust strategy that covers posture, prevention, detection, and response. Give it a try today.
We are committed to enabling our partners to utilize the workshop to assist our mutual customers in implementing comprehensive security solutions. If you are one of our valued partners, please review our Zero Trust partner kit.
Use the Zero Trust workshop together with the Zero Trust guidance center and learn more about the Zero Trust security framework.
If you have feedback to share with us about the workshop, please provide it here.
To learn more about Microsoft Security solutions, visit our website. Bookmark the Security blog to keep up with our expert coverage on security matters. Also, follow us on LinkedIn (Microsoft Security) and X (@MSFTSecurity) for the latest news and updates on cybersecurity.
https://aka.ms/ztworkshop/feedback