In 2021, an Executive Order on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity was issued that mandates the federal government to “advance toward Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA).” Since then, ZTA has been a major focus for federal government network defense. Therefore, it is imperative to understand ZTA and be able to implement its security capabilities in order to support customers through this time of transformation towards ZTA. 

Especially starting in 2022, work on ZT accelerated in several areas. For example, the U.S. DoD created a new portfolio office to manage the DoD ZTA Program, and the U.S. Government published its first address to the concept of ZT. 

Since its beginning in 2021, Zero Trust has continuously grown and been applied to more and more concepts, and the future of ZT and potential for business opportunities in ZT could open opportunities for contractors with solicitations and innovations all geared towards the design, implementation and maintenance of Zero Trust security measures. Currently, however, a major issue exists because most of these efforts are moving forward with little to no coordination or knowledge of other efforts, agency alignment is a factor, and approaches to ZT vary significantly. To solve this issue, all efforts have to be coordinated, communicated, and controlled so that widespread adoption of ZTA is not delayed and is implemented in a unified manner to be most effective in protecting systems and information. 

In the field of cybersecurity, ZTA is becoming extremely important, meaning that the more prepared contractor business owners are for ZTA work, the more likely they are setting themselves up for success. The implications of this move towards ZTA for contractors and subcontractors are significant, to ensure that they are protecting data and protected information in a way that meets the standards of ZTA.  Tools, technologies and future innovations in support of ZTA has the potential to provide opportunities for federal contractors and companies should be positioning themselves to be competitive in this arena.    

In conclusion, by communicating efforts and engaging in the ZT community, the federal government customers and contractors can align and develop ZTA in an effective way at a time where information security is critical to national security.  

Reference Source:

https://go-ans.com/insights/zt-architecture-coming-soon