Mission Ready, Secure Everywhere: From Enterprise to the Edge

Military units often operate in austere environments, far from the secure cloud networks and multilayered cyber defenses of a traditional headquarters. Tasked with no-fail missions, these units depend on constant, secure access to their most critical resource: the network. The Zero Trust principle of “never trust, always verify” — controlling who can access what and limiting lateral (east-west) movement between applications — is both Government-mandated and mission-critical.

Identity, Credential, and Access Management (ICAM) provides the foundation for Zero Trust through continuous identity and access verification. In disconnected and air-gapped scenarios (DDIL), missions must still proceed during disruption from weather, terrain, and adversary activity. A robust ICAM solution bridges the gap between high-level enterprise security and the tactical edge by planning for network loss with pre-synchronization and re-synchronization techniques.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand what ICAM is and how it fits within a Zero Trust framework
• Outline how using ICAM and ZT meet and maintain federal mandates
• Evaluate the costs and benefits of maintaining high-level connectivity and security in contested environments