Applying Zero Trust Architecture in State & Local Government

State and local governments had to adapt quickly to the effects of the pandemic, as workers and residents alike were encouraged to shelter in their homes. This created major challenges for agencies’ IT systems and technical support staff. Rather than using a “hub-and-spoke” method of connecting employees to servers, data, applications, and each other – where cybersecurity focused on firewalls around the perimeter – suddenly the systems had to become decentralized, distributed and open to remote workers.

Zero trust has been widely adopted for this purpose, coming to serve as a de-facto standard that enterprises, including government agencies, rely on to secure their users, apps, Internet of Things (IoT) devices, and workloads, regardless of which networks or cloud resources they’re connecting to, where they’re located, or how they’re connecting.

The “never trust, always verify” approach actually simplifies security, by reducing operational complexity, optimizing technology costs, and improving the overall security posture of the organization.

Learning Objectives:

• Review the concept of zero trust and the steps needed to implement it
• Identify the opportunities to cut costs and streamline operations
• Delineate the metrics that can demonstrate security and operations improvements