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Zero-Trust Architecture

Never trust. Always verify.
Identity, everywhere.

Every connection into an Ultiblob workload terminates at an identity policy decision — never inferred from network position. The architecture below is what HIPAA, PCI, and SOC 2 auditors actually want to see, by default, on every tier.

Architecture

Six layers, one policy decision point.

Identity is the perimeter. Every layer checks the same policy, signed by the same identity provider, audited at the workload boundary.

Packet trace · policy decisions
01 / 06
Layer 1 · IdentityPolicy decision point
Who is requesting access?

Verify against Entra ID + workload identity. Conditional access by device posture, geography, risk score.

SSO assertion · device posture token · session risk score

Hover or tap a layer. The packet only proceeds if every prior decision returned allow.

  1. 01Identity

    Entra ID for human identity, workload identities for services. SSO mandatory; no shared credentials, ever. Conditional access by device posture, geography, and risk score.

  2. 02Access broker

    Browser-mediated SSH and VM access through our bastion service — short-lived certificates, no standing keys. Every session signed against a specific user × VM × window.

  3. 03Network

    Per-tenant private network with microsegmentation per workload. No flat networks, no implicit east-west trust. Traffic between services authenticates by identity, not IP.

  4. 04Workload

    Single-tenant compute with measured boot, encrypted disks (AES-256), and customer-held keys available on regulated tiers (BYOK/HSM-backed).

  5. 05Data

    Encryption at rest + in transit (TLS 1.3). Per-tenant key separation. PHI, PCI, and regulated workloads have BYOK as the default, not the upsell.

  6. 06Observability

    Every privileged action is logged at the workload boundary — not relying on perimeter logs. Compliance evidence is on-tap, not a project.

Each layer enforces the same identity-based policy decision. A compromise at one layer does not grant access at the next.

The five tenets

What “zero-trust” actually means here.

Aligned to NIST SP 800-207. Implemented as defaults — not add-ons, not consulting projects.

Verify explicitly, every request

Identity is checked at every hop — never inferred from network location. The workload doesn't trust its neighbor just because they share a VLAN.

Assume breach, contain blast radius

Every workload runs as if the perimeter is already compromised. Microsegmentation per tenant + per service contains a single breach to a single blast.

Least privilege, by default

Standing access doesn't exist. Privileges are issued just-in-time, scoped to a single action, signed, time-bound, and recorded.

Continuous verification

Identity is re-verified through the session, not just at login. Anomalous behavior revokes the session without a human-in-the-loop.

Identity-everywhere, not perimeter-first

Network position grants nothing. Every connection — from a developer laptop, from a VM, from a managed service — terminates at an identity policy decision point.

Audit at the workload, not just the edge

Logging captures the action and the actor at every layer. Compliance evidence is a query, not a quarterly fire drill.

Perimeter vs. zero-trust

What changes when identity becomes the perimeter.

Side-by-side: the assumptions you grew up with, vs. the assumptions Ultiblob ships with.

Legacy perimeterUltiblob zero-trust
Login once to the corporate VPN; you're trusted on the networkLogin is one signal. Device posture, geography, and behavior keep verifying through the session.
Engineers SSH to bastions, then jump to VMs with shared keysBrowser-mediated SSH via short-lived certs issued by identity, audited at the connection, no keys on disk.
Internal services trust each other by IPEvery service-to-service hop authenticates by identity. Microsegmentation contains the blast radius.
Compliance evidence is a quarterly screenshot exerciseAudit logs flow continuously from every workload. Evidence is a query.
Vendor accesses your data with their key custodyCustomer-held keys (BYOK/HSM-backed) on regulated tiers — the vendor cannot read at rest.
FAQ

Zero-trust, asked + answered.

Three things. (1) No implicit trust by network location — being inside the perimeter doesn't grant access. (2) Identity is verified at every hop, not just at login. (3) Privileges are scoped just-in-time and audited at the workload. The combination eliminates the categories of breach that a perimeter-trust model leaves wide open.
Zero-Trust, in production

Move your perimeter from the network to the identity.

Free 30-minute zero-trust posture review with a senior engineer. We map your current architecture, identify the highest-risk gaps, and return a phased migration plan.