Failure Pattern
Distributed system architectures replicate data and actions based on metadata that does not represent true identity. Attackers exploit this to poison systems quickly.
What We See in the Field
A compromised workload writes malicious data or triggers workflow changes that replicate across clusters. Systems trust the actions because metadata shows a legitimate caller.
Underlying Causes
Replication without identity verification
Shared certificates across nodes
Overprivileged service accounts
Blind trust in internal traffic
No hardware-bound node identity
Trust-Native Network Resolution
DTL ensures replication and coordination occur only between verified identities. Compromised workloads cannot impersonate cluster nodes or influence distributed consensus.
Broken Trust Assumption
This failure pattern has played out repeatedly in real security incidents—not because of missing tools, but because of how trust is assigned.
In breaches such as SolarWinds, Capital One, Okta, and MOVEit, attackers did not bypass security controls. They operated through them, using valid identities, trusted credentials, signed code, and encrypted sessions. Security systems accepted these signals as proof of legitimacy, allowing malicious behavior to proceed.
The common thread across these incidents is structural: identity was assumed based on trust signals, not proven at the moment of execution.