HOMOMORPHIC ENCRYPTION IN ZERO-TRUST NETWORK ARCHITECTURES
Authors: Prabhudarshi Nayak, Gogulakrishnan Thiyagarajan, Ritunsa Mishra, Rohan Swain, Vinay Bist
Affiliation: Institute of Management and Information Technology, Cisco Systems Inc, Austin, Sri Sri University, Dell Inc. Austin
Category:
Keywords: Homomorphic Encryption, Zero-Trust Architecture, Cryptography, Network Security, Privacy-Preserving Computation, Insider Threats, Advanced Persistent Threats
ABSTRACT. Zero-Trust Network Architecture (ZTNA) has emerged as a leading model for securing modern digital systems, shifting from perimeter-based defenses to a principle of continuous verification. Although ZTNA enhances identity management and access control, one of its key challenges lies in safeguarding sensitive data during computation, when it is often processed in plaintext. This paper explores the use of Homomorphic Encryption (HE) to address this limitation. HE allows operations to be carried out directly on encrypted data, ensuring that information remains protected in use, in transit, and at rest. By combining HE with Zero-Trust principles, organizations can achieve stronger protection against insider threats, ransomware, and advanced persistent attacks while maintaining compliance with global data protection standards. The proposed framework demonstrates how HE can close critical gaps in Zero-Trust deployments, offering a practical path towards secure and privacy-preserving computation in enterprise and cloud environments.
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