Applying zero trust security principles to defence mechanisms against data exfiltration attacks

The zero-trust principle explicitly verifies that the authentication and authorization of all actions are performed regardless of the requesting user's credentials or permissions. This chapter presents the details of a mechanism that is capable of mitigating physical data exfiltration attacks, with a focus on physical vulnerabilities that can be exploited by insiders to acquire unauthorized access to sensitive information. First, it provides a critical review of recent prominent related literature around data exfiltration and the technologies utilized to perform it with a review of the current academic research. The chapter then proposes a defense mechanism that can protect systems against physical methods of data exfiltration attacks. Next, it critically analyzes the proposed defense mechanism and determines its viability as a solution that could be used for real-world scenarios of protecting against data exfiltration attacks.