Zero Trust with Mattermost#

Mattermost helps organizations adopt and implement Zero Trust principles to safeguard their mission-critical communications and collaboration.

For security teams, Mattermost’s zero-trust-first approach ensures consistent compliance with organizational risk policies by automating key governance processes like incident response or data lifecycle management.

Unlike traditional security approaches, Zero Trust assumes every user and system may be a potential threat. Mattermost implements this paradigm by offering customizable, secure solutions that protect sensitive communication workflows from both internal and external risks.

This document outlines how Mattermost supports the core tenets of Zero Trust, for organizations of different sizes, including Identity and access management, Continuous monitoring, Deployment and host control, Encryption, Micro-segmentation, Multi-factor authentication, Data management, and Incident response. Links to detailed documentation resources are provided below.

Identity and access management#

Mattermost integrates seamlessly with enterprise identity providers (IdPs), enabling strong identity verification and strict access control.

By using one of the secure identity mechanisms listed below and enforcing least-privilege access via roles and groups, Mattermost ensures that only verified individuals gain access to the platform and its resources:

  • SAML: Enables seamless Single Sign-On, ensuring centralized authentication to continuously enforce user verification.

  • LDAP: Facilitates integration with enterprise directories to tightly control user access, adhering to granular identity verification.

  • OpenID Connect: Provides secure, standards-based user authentication to verify identities and enforce secure access.

  • Session Management: Strengthens continuous authentication by controlling session lengths and automatically revoking sessions based on inactivity or policy violations, ensuring constant identity verification. By limiting session lifetimes and enforcing strict session policies, Mattermost mitigates the risk of stolen session tokens or extended unauthorized access.

Authorized users can seamlessly be added and removed from channels utilizing the native AD/LDAP integration based on group memberships:

  • LDAP Synchronized User Groups: Automates user management and access control by dynamically syncing with organizational directories to minimize risks and enforce policies.

Continuous monitoring#

Mattermost offers tools for monitoring activity, identifying suspicious behavior, session management, and real-time incident response. Audit trails and performance monitoring ensure the proactive detection of potential issues or breaches, delivering visibility into the activity across the platform.

  • Audit Logging: Tracks detailed activity logs for monitoring and identifying real-time anomaly-detection use cases, such as detecting anomalous behavior from compromised accounts or insider threats, or responding to unusual file-sharing activity within sensitive channels.

  • SIEM Integrations: Streamlines monitoring within existing security systems to detect and respond to lateral movement threats or policy violations consistently.

  • Performance Monitoring: Protects against potential threats by analyzing system and user behaviors via proactive monitoring.

Deployment and host control#

Flexibility and control to host Mattermost securely to minimize the risk of vulnerabilities, downtime, and unauthorized modifications by ensuring secure, efficient, and reliable deployment of applications while maintaining strict control over the hosting environment.

Mattermost’s self-hosting enables tailored configurations for on-premises systems with specialized security needs, while cloud IP filtering ensures scalable control for remote or hybrid teams operating across distributed environments:

  • Self-hosting Mattermost: Enforces stricter data sovereignty requirements, and complete control over deployment environments, enabling organizations to implement custom Zero Trust security measures.

  • Cloud IP Filtering: Prevents untrusted entities from gaining initial access, restricting platform access to trusted network ranges, enforcing an evaluation of every connection.

Encryption#

Encryption protects both data at rest and data in transit, ensuring end-to-end security for sensitive communications. Encryption mitigates the risk of data theft in both storage and transfer, while granular permissions limit access to sensitive files and data to only authorized users.

Micro-segmentation#

Segmenting and isolating sensitive resources is vital in minimizing lateral movement during an attack. Mattermost supports micro-segmentation through its organizational and role-based capabilities. Micro-segmentation enables organizations to restrict access to sensitive conversations, ensuring secure communication channels tailored to individual teams or missions.

To achieve comprehensive micro-segmentation, the following areas of Mattermost functionality play a critical role.

Access control and permissions#

Ensure precise and role-based access to sensitive resources in order to minimize the risk of unauthorized access and potential data breaches:

Organizational design and user management#

Establish a structured and scalable framework for managing user identities, roles, and access workflows to ensure accountability, facilitate collaboration, and enforce security policies:

  • Teams: Enables segmentation of access and collaboration, fostering compartmentalization and limiting exposure to unauthorized users.

  • Private Channels: Restricts conversations to authorized participants, protecting sensitive data and adhering to need-to-know principles.

  • Guest Accounts: Enables secure, scoped access for external parties, ensuring least privilege principles are maintained.

  • Custom User Groups: Allows precise administrative control of access and permissions for specific user sets, enhancing access segmentation.

Administrative controls#

Enforce logical segmentation through team-level and group-level management, enhancing productivity and security by aligning user access with their specific roles:

  • Delegated Granular Administration: Ensures operational security by enabling controlled management access based on responsibilities.

  • Custom Terms of Service: Requires users to acknowledge organization-specific Terms of Service before access ensures alignment with security policies and strengthens compliance, particularly in regulated industries where custom terms may reflect specific mandates.

  • Granular Permissions: Facilitates precise control over user and system permissions, adhering to the principle of least privilege.

  • Read-Only Permissions for Files: Limits file-sharing capabilities to safeguard sensitive information from unauthorized alterations.

Security policies and tokens#

Enhance security with tailored authentication tools to protect systems and data from unauthorized API usage and credential misuse by establishing and enforcing secure, consistent, and scalable authentication mechanisms:

Multi-factor authentication (MFA)#

Mattermost supports MFA to strengthen authentication practices by adding an extra layer of protection for high-risk workflows beyond passwords:

  • MFA: Enhances user identity verification by requiring multiple factors for authentication. MFA ensures that unauthorized users are denied access even if passwords are compromised, reducing the risk of account breaches.

Alternatively, often enforced through the identity provider (IDP).

Data management#

Data management directly addresses how sensitive information is managed, controlled, and safeguarded at every stage of the data lifecycle. Proper data retention practices ensure that data is not only securely stored but also that it is not retained longer than necessary, thereby reducing risks.

By retaining data only for the duration that it is needed and then securely disposing of it, the exposure to malicious activity or unauthorized access is significantly reduced. Even if attackers gain access, their exposure is minimized. The less data stored, the smaller the “footprint” for potential exploitation:

  • Data Retention Policies: Enforces strict retention controls to reduce data exposure and help comply with governance standards.

  • Compliance Export: Ensures data portability for audit and compliance purposes in a secure and controlled manner.

  • Compliance Monitoring: Offers visibility into adherence to security and compliance policies, supporting compliance mandates.

  • E-Discovery: Boosts organizational oversight by ensuring discoverability of stored data for legal and compliance audits under secure protocols. E-Discovery capabilities help organizations meet compliance expectations for legal audits under frameworks like GDPR or HIPAA without sacrificing secure collaboration workflows.

  • Archiving Inactive Teams or Channels & Unarchive Channels: Reduces the potential attack surface by securely deactivating and storing inactive resources, minimizing both live data exposure and the likelihood of exploitation. This approach ensures adherence to security best practices while maintaining the ability to securely restore resources if needed.

Incident response#

Incident response ensures that organizations can effectively detect, investigate, and respond to security threats within a framework that assumes no entity, whether inside or outside the network, should be trusted by default. Incident response is the operational arm that ensures that organizations are vigilant, prepared, and capable of protecting themselves in a dynamic and evolving threat landscape.

Mattermost Playbooks reduce the time to respond to threats and ensure compliancy-aligned documentation through automated incident notifications by empowering organizations to predefine and automate incident response workflows, ensuring that responses are consistent, documented, and transparent:

  • Incident-Specific Channels for Secure Collaboration: Maintains secure collaboration workflows across broader incident response workflows involving external tools, enforcing a centralized control model for operational continuity during incidents. Incident-specific channels reduce the time to assemble expert response teams, ensuring faster mitigation of active threats like phishing or ransomware attacks.

  • Automated Incident Notifications: Streamlines response workflows with authenticated alerts.

Enhance learning from incidents, ensure historical accountability, reduce future attack surfaces, and meet compliance expectations by securely centralizing documentation to improve future response processes:

  • Post-Incident Documentation: Enables secure storage and access for learnings, ensuring compliance with attack surface minimization principles.

By embedding Zero Trust principles across access, monitoring, data management, and incident response, Mattermost equips organizations with the tools needed to safeguard collaboration workflows in today’s evolving threat landscape.

Discover how Mattermost can transform your Zero Trust strategy today. Book a live demo with a Mattermost Zero Trust expert to explore tailored solutions for your organization’s secure collaboration needs.