Failure Pattern: Multi Tier Applications
Multi tier applications architectures trust upstream and downstream components without verifying workload identity.
What We See in the Field
A compromised application tier impersonates another tier to access sensitive data. Logs show legitimate traffic because identity is inherited from the orchestrator.
Underlying Causes
Blind trust between app tiers
Shared credentials
Identity based on metadata
Overprivileged service accounts
Missing per-tier verification
Trust-Native Network Resolution
DTL enforces verified identity for each tier. A compromised tier cannot impersonate another tier or access protected services without valid TrustKeys.
Broken Trust Assumption
The attacks that exposed this failure pattern were not stealthy break-ins. They were trusted operations.
During incidents such as SolarWinds, Capital One, and Okta, malicious activity was carried out using valid identities and approved execution paths. Certificates were valid. Tokens were accepted. Sessions were authenticated. From the system’s point of view, nothing appeared wrong.
This is the risk of trust inferred from credentials, location, or prior authentication.