Today’s geopolitical landscape is more complex and transnational threats necessitate the United States maintain its technological edge and enhance collaboration among allies. Spanning thousands of miles, 36 countries, and half of the world’s population, the Pacific Rim is of immense strategic significance to the United States Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM) and our regional partners. That’s why USINDOPACOM sponsors the Talisman Sabre and Yama Sakura military exercises. These essential exercises bring together thousands of multi-national service personnel who practice mission data sharing and collaboration to support the Combined Joint All Domain Command and Control (CJADC2) mission and maintain stability in the region.
Strategic and Secure Information Sharing
The speed and complexity of modern warfare will require faster decision making. Nations that can rapidly process data into intelligence and get it into the hands of the warfighter will have a decisive advantage – especially in disconnected environments.
During both the Talisman Sabre and Yama Sakura exercises, participants are challenged to securely share classified operations and mission planning data. Part of this involves controlling access to shared data across networks and applications in contested battlefield environments with little or no network connectivity. This is where the value of Zero Trust at the Edge comes into play.
In scenarios with limited bandwidth and separation from the enterprise, mission partners must operate differently. Zero Trust allows commanders in the field to make data sharing decisions in-theater and control what data they share, with whom, and under what conditions to advance the mission securely. In both exercises, GDIT successfully deployed a full-stack Zero Trust implementation that provided warfighters with the technical tools and planning needed to navigate the challenges of secure collaboration during a large-scale Pacific conflict.
Data-Centric Security at the Tactical Edge
For the Talisman Sabre exercise, GDIT demonstrated the first-ever zero trust prototype to support Denied, Disrupted, Intermittent, and Limited (D-DIL) operations at the tactical edge. It was also the first time a Zero Trust capability was fielded at the edge that provided collaboration with foreign mission partners in a classified environment.
The solution balanced the need for advanced cyber protections and resilience with supporting operations at the speed of mission relevance in a tactical environment. GDIT integrated a fully accredited solution to meet the Army’s mission and enabled dynamic access control to mission data, rapidly bringing in new mission partners to support Joint and Coalition operations in theater.
Modular, Critical Capabilities for the Warfighter – A Journey to Advanced Zero Trust
Building on the successes of Talisman Sabre, for Yama Sakura 85 involving U.S., Australia and Japan, we added additional capability associated with risk-adaptive access control. This enabled monitoring of user behavior and the ability to make access control decisions based on that behavior. GDIT was then able to integrate data to create a common operating picture at the edge for the first time, enabling all the countries involved to have secure visibility of operations and the tactical picture.
GDIT’s solution is modular, enabling organizations to field new capabilities incrementally without impact to operators. This approach also enables the warfighter to gain comfort exercising the CONOPS of their mission before introducing new capabilities. It can be fielded in phases to reduce risk and optimize costs and can be built on existing infrastructure. In both the Talisman Sabre and Yama Sakura exercises we integrated with government infrastructure and set the groundwork for additional Zero Trust capabilities in the future.
“It’s never just about Zero Trust; it’s about addressing the operational mission needs.”
Enabling Mission-Forward Response
Using Zero Trust to secure partner communications across any vast area with limited bandwidth capabilities is challenging for military tactical environments, but also in civilian and support missions that require collaboration with international, interagency, private, and Non-Governmental Organizations, such as humanitarian relief, disaster response, law enforcement, and intelligence efforts. GDIT Zero Trust edge capabilities enable secure partner communications for mission-forward responses of multiple types across the federal government as well as at the state and local levels.