Zero Trust Security Architecture in Microservices-Based Web Applications

Abstract

Zero Trust Security Architecture (ZTSA) has emerged as a fundamental paradigm for protecting distributed systems by eliminating implicit trust and enforcing continuous verification of every component. In this enhanced manuscript, we deepen our investigation of the design, implementation, and evaluation of a Zero Trust model tailored for microservices-based web applications by expanding each section to provide richer technical details, comprehensive discussion of underlying principles, and extended analysis of empirical results. We propose an architecture that leverages mutual Transport Layer Security (mTLS), fine-grained policy enforcement at the service mesh layer, and centralized identity and access management via OAuth-2.0/OpenID Connect.

Our methodology comprises both statistical performance analysis—measuring latency, throughput, and resource utilization—and a detailed simulation study that injects realistic traffic patterns and adversarial behaviors into a representative microservices testbed. The statistical analysis reveals that the proposed ZTSA introduces an average authentication latency of 35 ms (σ=5 ms) and increases CPU utilization by 8%, while maintaining a false positive rate below 2%. The simulation demonstrates effective mitigation of lateral movement and unauthorized access, with over 95% of attack attempts thwarted. We conclude that implementing Zero Trust in microservices environments is both feasible and beneficial, delivering robust security guarantees with manageable performance overhead and providing organizations with actionable guidance on design, deployment, and ongoing operations.