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Communication Papers of the 21st Conference on Computer Science and Intelligence Systems (FedCSIS)

Annals of Computer Science and Information Systems, Volume 49

A Reproducible Zero Trust Testbed for Dynamic Trust Evaluation Using Emulation and Virtualization Tools

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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15439/2026F5993

Citation: Tiberius Nkinyili, ,

Full text

Abstract. The practical evaluation of Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA) remains constrained by the lack of accessible, reproducible testbeds supporting dynamic trust experimentation. This paper presents a lightweight, containerized Zero Trust testbed integrating a Software Defined Perimeter (SDP), Software Defined Networking (SDN), network emulation, and policy-as-code enforcement. A pluggable Python trust engine implements progressively sophisticated trust models, culminating in Dempster--Shafer evidential fusion with temporal decay and residual inertia. Evaluation across six representative enterprise scenarios demonstrates low policy evaluation latency, modest session setup overhead, linear scalability, and rapid breach containment, while remaining deployable on commodity hardware. By combining reproducibility, open-source components, and advanced trust evaluation within a single platform, the proposed testbed provides an accessible environment for research, education, and the experimental validation of Zero Trust mechanisms.

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