How to Streamline Zero Trust Using the Shared Signals Framework

"Zero Trust helps organizations shrink their attack surface and respond to threats faster, but many still struggle to implement it because their security tools don't share signals reliably. 88% of organizations admit they've suffered significant challenges in trying to implement such approaches, according to Accenture. When products can't communicate, real-time access decisions break down. The Shared Signals Framework (SSF) aims to fix this with a standardized way to exchange security events."

"Because SSF is built on HTTPS requests, the OpenID standard works with Tines' HTTP Action. Scott developed a new workflow integrating Kolide Device Trust with Tines, enabling it to send SSF signals to Okta. If a device is non-compliant, Kolide sends a message to the workflow via webhook. Tines enriches the signal, makes sure it can be linked to a user, builds a Security Event Token (SET), and then sends it to Okta."

Continuous, reliable user and device posture signals are essential for Zero Trust, but many security tools lack SSF/CAEP support, preventing consistent policy enforcement and real-time access decisions. Critical device events can fail to reach identity systems when interoperability is missing. A practical solution uses Tines to receive Kolide Device Trust webhooks, enrich and correlate the data to users, construct Security Event Tokens (SETs) following OpenID/HTTPS standards, and forward SSF-compliant CAEP events to Okta. This workflow operationalizes SSF across distributed environments even when individual products do not natively support SSF.

Read at The Hacker News