Mission Success Through Zero Trust: Securing the Fourth Estate's Mission Networks

As Fourth Estate agencies within the Department of Defense (DOD) prepare to transition to the modernized DoDNET, under the Defense Information Systems Agency’s (DISA), the adoption of Zero Trust (ZT) architecture has never been more critical. Zero Trust is the modern approach to cybersecurity and is an essential framework for defending against cyber threats, ensuring secure access, and enabling operational efficiency across distributed environments.

The “Fourth Estate” consists of all DoD organizations outside the military branches, intelligence agencies, or combatant commands. This includes defense agencies and field activities that deliver vital, centralized support for DoD’s operations, essentially the DoD’s back office. Staff reductions in these agencies make streamlining operations imperative, while modernizing their IT environments can help attract and retain new employees.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand how ZT architecture simplifies securing Fourth Estate mission networks to enable secure access for warfighters, contractors, and leadership
• Gain practical insights into how cloud-native architecture reduces the complexity and costs of ZT implementations while ensuring DoD compliance
• Uncover actionable strategies to improve operational resilience, enhance application reliability, and strengthen secure remote access