Introduction: When a game became reality
Remember the 2020 lockdown, when everyone was playing Among Us? The game taught us one universal truth: no one can be trusted by default.
In 2025, that’s no longer just a game mechanic — it’s the foundation of IT security. “Trust no one, verify everything” defines the Zero Trust mindset, and it’s not paranoia — it’s business survival.
Among Us as a cybersecurity metaphor
The gameplay is simple: 10 players, 1–3 impostors, and constant suspicion. Legitimate behavior and hidden attacks coexist — just like in modern networks.
Game tactics ↔ Cyberattack patterns
- Venting ↔ Lateral movement with stolen credentials
- Sabotage ↔ Infrastructure attacks (ransomware, DDoS)
- Kill + self-report ↔ False flag operations after a breach
- Fake tasks ↔ Behavior masking of malicious activity
- Alibi building ↔ Social engineering to gain trust
Insight: In reality, every interaction is potentially “sus” until verified.
The remote & hybrid era: when everyone became a crewmate
The COVID era normalized remote and hybrid work — and made traditional “castle and moat” security models obsolete.
Users, devices, and data are now distributed across cloud environments. Zero Trust was designed for exactly this new reality.
What is Zero Trust? Continuous verification, not blind trust
Core principle: Never trust, always verify.
Key pillars:
- Identity-based access: multi-factor authentication and device validation
- Least privilege principle: users access only what’s essential for their role
- Continuous verification: every action re-evaluated in context (time, place, risk)
- Micro-segmentation: isolating services and data to prevent lateral movement
Cloudflare Zero Trust: your spaceship in the cloud
The Cloudflare Zero Trust platform operationalizes these principles with cloud-native tools.
Core components
- Access: identity and device-level access control, conditional policies, SSO
- Gateway: DNS and HTTP filtering, malware protection, DLP, threat scanning
- WARP client: encrypted connections, split tunneling, global performance optimization
- Browser Isolation: websites run remotely in the cloud, not on the endpoint
- WAF & DDoS Protection: adaptive, unlimited mitigation across 300+ cities worldwide
Proven benefits:
- 99.99% uptime and minimal disruption
- Up to 50% faster incident response
- 80% fewer false-positive alerts
- Smoother, safer remote access for all employees
The three impostor types hiding in every enterprise
- The “Vent” Impostor – Lateral movement attacker
Defense: micro-segmentation, just-in-time access, real-time anomaly detection.
- The “Sabotage” Impostor – Infrastructure attacker
Defense: DDoS protection, WAF, bot management, automated incident response.
- The “Self-Report” Impostor – Insider threat
Defense: behavioral analytics, privilege management, audit logs, risk scoring.
Implementation roadmap: from “sus” to secure in 5 steps
- Asset discovery: identify all users, devices, and data (“who’s in your lobby?”)
- Policy creation: define identity, device, app, and network rules.
- Monitoring: full visibility via dashboards, alerts, and audit trails.
- Incident response: automated isolation, containment, and recovery playbooks.
- Continuous improvement: policy tuning, performance updates, user training.
ROI and business case for Zero Trust
- Prevention costs less than recovery: one avoided breach can pay for years of Zero Trust.
- Higher productivity: secure SSO, fast remote access, reduced downtime.
- Simplified compliance: centralized logging, audit automation, and real-time control.
Conclusion: The game ends, the lesson stays
Among Us went viral in 2020 — but its lesson defines cybersecurity in 2025.
In an interconnected world, no one is trustworthy by default. Zero Trust isn’t an option anymore — it’s the baseline for digital resilience.
Ready to switch from “sus” to safe?
Gloster Cloud helps you design and deploy Cloudflare Zero Trust architecture from pilot to full rollout.
