Zero trust network architecture in Computer Networks - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Understanding Zero Trust Network Architecture

📖 Scenario: You work in a company that wants to improve its network security. The company heard about Zero Trust Network Architecture (ZTNA) and wants to understand its basic components and how it works.

🎯 Goal: Build a simple conceptual model of Zero Trust Network Architecture by defining key elements, setting up access rules, and applying the core principle of 'never trust, always verify'.

📋 What You'll Learn

Define a list of network resources with exact names

Create a variable for the security level threshold

Write a loop to check access permissions based on the threshold

Add a final statement that summarizes the access decision

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Zero Trust Network Architecture is used by companies to protect sensitive data by verifying every access request, no matter where it comes from.

💼 Career

Understanding ZTNA is important for network administrators, cybersecurity professionals, and IT managers to design secure systems.

1

Define network resources

Create a list called network_resources containing these exact strings: 'Email Server', 'File Storage', 'HR Database', 'Public Website'.

Computer Networks

# Create the list of network resources
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use square brackets to create a list and include all four resource names as strings.

2

Set security level threshold

Create a variable called security_threshold and set it to the integer 3. This will represent the minimum security level required to access sensitive resources.

Computer Networks

network_resources = ['Email Server', 'File Storage', 'HR Database', 'Public Website']
# Set the security level threshold
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Assign the number 3 to the variable named security_threshold.

3

Check access permissions

Create a dictionary called resource_security_levels with these exact key-value pairs: 'Email Server': 4, 'File Storage': 3, 'HR Database': 5, 'Public Website': 1. Then write a for loop using variables resource and level to iterate over resource_security_levels.items(). Inside the loop, create a condition that checks if level is greater than or equal to security_threshold.

Computer Networks

network_resources = ['Email Server', 'File Storage', 'HR Database', 'Public Website']
security_threshold = 3
# Create the dictionary and loop to check access
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use a dictionary to map each resource to its security level. Then loop through the dictionary items and check if the level meets or exceeds the threshold.

4

Summarize access decisions

Inside the if condition, add a line that sets a variable access_decision to the string "Access granted to " + resource. Add an else block that sets access_decision to "Access denied to " + resource. This completes the basic Zero Trust check.

Computer Networks

network_resources = ['Email Server', 'File Storage', 'HR Database', 'Public Website']
security_threshold = 3
resource_security_levels = {'Email Server': 4, 'File Storage': 3, 'HR Database': 5, 'Public Website': 1}
for resource, level in resource_security_levels.items():
    if level >= security_threshold:
        # Set access_decision for granted access
        # Your code here
    else:
        # Set access_decision for denied access
        # Your code here

Need a hint?

Use string concatenation to build the access decision message inside the if-else blocks.