Zero Trust will be a Critical Practice for Security Professionals in 2023` is a security-focused discussion by MongoDB Chief Information Security Officer Lena Smart and tech legend Dwight Merriman. The IT security landscape has become increasingly complex, with hackers using various attack vectors to breach systems. As a result, security professionals face significant challenges in defending against sophisticated threats. Merriman emphasizes the importance of controlling what can be trusted and verifying access to company data at all times. He advocates for the Zero Trust model, which involves implementing three core principles: never trust, always verify; provide the least amount of privilege possible; and apply network segmentation. Additionally, MongoDB has developed queryable encryption, a groundbreaking form of security that enables organizations to encrypt sensitive data while still allowing for expressive queries on the encrypted data. This technology extends the Zero Trust concept by adding an extra layer of security for data in use.