Trust-path mapping
Where implicit trust survives: flat VLANs, legacy service accounts, always-allowed management paths, and the exceptions everyone forgot they granted.
Cybersecurity · Security Advisory
You bought the zero-trust tooling. Did the trust leave?
The initiative shipped, the dashboards are green, and the question your board will eventually ask is whether any of it changed what a compromised laptop can reach. We answer that from the inside: hands-on testing of where implicit trust still lives in your network, measured against NIST SP 800-207.
Independent quality engineering & cybersecurity since 2020, with 100+ security & quality engineers, delivering on platforms we build and run ourselves.
Verizon's 2025 DBIR reports that third-party involvement in breaches doubled to 30%. A flat network turns a vendor's incident into yours, and one phished credential still reaches everything the architecture diagram claims it can't.
What we do
Segmentation validation
Claimed segmentation tested from the inside: what a compromised host in each zone can actually reach, versus what the diagram says it can.
Identity & access architecture review
Authentication flows, MFA coverage, conditional access, and privileged-access paths assessed against zero-trust principles, so a stolen credential buys an attacker as little as possible.
Roadmap, sequenced by risk
A pragmatic path to NIST SP 800-207 alignment, ordered so the highest-exposure trust paths close first and the quick wins land this quarter.
How it’s delivered
01
Map
Network zones, identity flows, and trust assumptions documented.
02
Validate
Hands-on testing of segmentation and access paths.
03
Assess
Findings mapped to NIST SP 800-207 tenets.
04
Roadmap
Sequenced remediation plan with quick wins separated from projects.
Tools & standards
- Framework
- NIST SP 800-207 (Zero Trust Architecture)
- Tooling
- Nmap, Nessus, identity-provider analyzers, manual path testing
What you receive
- A trust-path map: where implicit trust remains and what it exposes
- Segmentation test results from the attacker's position
- A NIST 800-207 alignment assessment
- A risk-sequenced roadmap separating quick wins from projects
Engagement
Ways to engage the same senior bench
Buy it as a scoped project, embed it in your team, or run it as a managed service. The engineers and the governance stay the same, whichever shape fits.
Point-in-time assessment
One scoped assessment with a full report and one retest: for a release gate, a customer or audit requirement, or an annual baseline.
Standing program
Recurring cycles matched to your release cadence, each closed by a retest, so the newest report is never far behind the newest release.
On-demand scope additions
A new application, API, or environment joins the existing program without re-contracting; scoping starts in days.
Who this is for
- Security leaders whose zero-trust program bought the tools and now needs verified posture
- Organizations with vendor and partner access they can no longer fully enumerate
- IT teams about to invest in segmentation who want the target architecture validated first
Common questions
We already bought zero-trust tooling. Why assess?
Buying the tools and achieving the posture are different things. Most networks that bought zero-trust still have flat segments, legacy service accounts, and implicit-trust paths. We test what a compromised host in each zone can reach, against NIST SP 800-207.
What do we get out of it?
A trust-path map, segmentation results from the attacker's position, a NIST 800-207 alignment assessment, and a risk-sequenced roadmap that separates quick wins from projects.
How are our data and the findings handled?
Engagements run under NDA, and engineers who handle client data undergo background checks. Findings and reports are shared through channels agreed at scoping and are not retained beyond the period needed to deliver and support the engagement. Data-handling specifics (storage, encryption, retention, and destruction) are documented in your service agreement; see the Trust page for our posture.
One practice, one loop
This is one stage of a single assurance loop: findings become regression tests, and their indicators become live detections, so a problem, once fixed, can’t quietly come back. A stack of separate vendors has no way to close that loop. See how the loop connects →
Verify what the dashboards claim
An assessment shows what a compromised host in each zone can still reach, then sequences the fixes so the riskiest trust paths close first.