Identity Management as the Foundation of Zero Trust Architecture
Identity as the central control point
In a Zero Trust architecture identity replaces the network as the main control point, because once applications live in the cloud and users connect from anywhere, there's no longer a trustworthy physical perimeter on which to base access decisions. This means identity management, including centralized directories, multi-factor authentication and conditional access policies, becomes the critical component that determines what each user, device or service can do at any moment. In practice, an organization that strengthens its firewalls but keeps weak identity management, with orphaned accounts or reused passwords, remains vulnerable, because the modern attacker doesn't break the perimeter but steals or forges a legitimate identity to move within the environment without raising initial suspicion.