Securing Workloads and Non-Human Identities

Watch full interview here: https://trustfour.com/the-cyberhut-tv-interview-with-robert-levine/?utm_source=nhimg

In a interview, TrustFour Co-founder & CEO, Robert Levine outlined how the startup is tackling one of today’s biggest enterprise security blind spots: lateral movement through non-human identities (NHIs). Roughly a quarter of major breaches now stem from attackers exploiting misconfigured or over-privileged service accounts, tokens, and machine identities.

Robert explains that as enterprises expand into cloud and hybrid environments, the explosion of machine identities has made it increasingly easy for attackers to move laterally across systems. Nearly 25% of significant hacks now trace back to this problem. Trust4’s solution is a novel Layer 4 fabric built on pervasive mutual TLS (mTLS), automated credential rotation, and cryptographic agility to prepare for the post-quantum era. Their no-code approach makes enterprise-wide adoption achievable while also providing deep analytics through data-in-transit logging.

Key Insights

• Mutual TLS at Layer 4 as a Game-Changer - Trust4’s innovation is embedding a mutual TLS fabric at the transport layer. Unlike network firewalls or perimeter controls, this ensures workloads authenticate each other cryptographically at every connection, regardless of network trust. This directly reduces the opportunities for lateral movement, one of the most common enterprise breach pathways

• Complexity of Machine Identities - Enterprises now manage tens of thousands of machine accounts, often with static or long-lived credentials. These non-human identities (NHIs) are attractive to attackers but remain poorly governed in most organizations. Trust4 directly addresses this overlooked risk

• No-Code Integration - A major blocker for new security tech is the requirement to modify application code. Trust4 bypasses this with a no-code deployment model, making protection accessible for both legacy applications and modern cloud-native environments

• Post-Quantum Readiness - Quantum computing threatens current encryption standards. Trust4 bakes in cryptographic agility, including support for post-quantum key exchange, ensuring organizations don’t need a last-minute scramble to upgrade later

• Enhanced Visibility Through TLS Analytics - Trust4 adds observability by tapping TLS traffic for metadata and logging. This supports insider threat detection, anomaly spotting, and abuse monitoring, areas where most organizations currently lack visibility

• Leadership and Community - The team’s track record in identity security startups adds credibility. Their free TLS compliance test reflects both thought leadership and a commitment to raising industry-wide awareness about cryptographic resilience

Why It Matters Now

As enterprises shift to cloud-native and hybrid IT, traditional perimeter defenses no longer suffice. With millions of NHIs now powering workloads, pipelines, and AI systems, organizations need identity-first workload security.

Trust4 not only reduces identity-driven attack surfaces but also enhances observability through telemetry derived from encrypted traffic. Combined with cryptographic agility and easy deployment, Trust4 offers a pragmatic and future-proof path for enterprises struggling to secure complex ecosystems.

The Bottom Line

Trust4 represents a paradigm shift in workload security, from network-based trust to identity-based self-protection. By converging mutual TLS, NHI lifecycle governance, cryptographic resilience, and real-time analytics, Trust4 empowers enterprises to defend against today’s lateral movement risks while preparing for tomorrow’s post-quantum threats.