Secure & Simple — Podcast for Consultants and vCISOs on Cybersecurity Governance and Compliance Zero Trust as a Mindset: Identity, Governance, and Access | Interview with Andrew Gault
Mar 10, 2026
Andrew Gault, CEO of ZeroTier — builder of secure overlay networks — talks Zero Trust as a mindset, not a single tool. He covers identity-first strategies, policy-based scoring, encryption, and continuous verification. Conversation dives into vendor and machine identities, governance and change management, limits like shared credentials, and practical KPIs such as inventories and exception reduction.
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Zero Trust Is A Mindset Not A Product
- Zero Trust is a strategic mindset that assumes nothing inside the network is trusted and plans as if every asset were exposed to the internet.
- Andrew Gault contrasts perimeter VPN thinking with ‘default deny’ and continuous verification to prevent implicit broad access.
Begin Zero Trust With Identity And Policy
- Start Zero Trust with identity first, then policies that score and verify connections, plus encryption and monitoring.
- Andrew recommends multifactor scoring: who is the human, what device, where from, endpoint posture, and encryption decisions.
Issue Vendor Identities Inside Your System
- Give external vendors identities inside your central identity system rather than trusting their own IdPs or multiple providers.
- That lets you revoke vendor access centrally when contracts end and avoids per-application exceptions.