I agree that it quickly became a radar for every single tech/vendor which slaps a 'zero trust' sticker on their product. Personally, I believe that while zero trust applies to all pillars, the most consequential is the network if we pair it with comcepts/components of the other pillars.
For example, if we state we want to have zero trust in the network, we can achieve this by switching from authenticate/authorise-after-connect (i.e., how TCP/IP/almost every network is built), to authenticate/authorise-before-connect. This is achieved with strong identity (e.g., x509) and an overlay network built on zero trust principles which further provides us microsegmentation, least privilege, etc. It allows us to close all inbound ports and make access decision at the source (rather than destination) edge (e.g., device/user) and close all inbound ports. This makes many MITRE attacks impossible and massively reduces the affect of others. We can have zero trust in the WAN/internet (no inbound ports), LAN and even host OS.
For example, if we state we want to have zero trust in the network, we can achieve this by switching from authenticate/authorise-after-connect (i.e., how TCP/IP/almost every network is built), to authenticate/authorise-before-connect. This is achieved with strong identity (e.g., x509) and an overlay network built on zero trust principles which further provides us microsegmentation, least privilege, etc. It allows us to close all inbound ports and make access decision at the source (rather than destination) edge (e.g., device/user) and close all inbound ports. This makes many MITRE attacks impossible and massively reduces the affect of others. We can have zero trust in the WAN/internet (no inbound ports), LAN and even host OS.