Zero Trust capabilities are expanding across customer mission sets. GDIT’s Vice President of Cyber Solutions for the Defense Division, John Sahlin, and our Senior Director of Emerging Technology, Tim Gilday, recently sat down to talk about the importance of Zero Trust at the Edge – where limited bandwidth and separation from the enterprise change how mission partners must operate.

John underscored some of the demonstration exercises GDIT has supported that showcased the ability to put a tactical Zero Trust capability in warfighters’ hands at the edge. This is critical, he said, to enabling secure and efficient data sharing with mission partners at the edge, and essential for national security interests around the world.

During the conversation, John also pointed out that enabling tactical edge Zero Trust is challenging but it’s not unlike other civilian missions, such as humanitarian missions or disaster response efforts. These similarities make Zero Trust edge capabilities important for customers and mission sets of multiple types across the federal government and even state and local ones.

John and Tim also discussed interoperability and its role at the edge, pointing out that Zero Trust is about so much more than just about protecting data. It’s both the lock and the key to secure mission information sharing – because it both secures data and allows decision making at the individual user level by “unlocking” access to information for the right users. GDIT’s Everest Zero Trust approach enables interoperability with existing Government infrastructure and effects seamless integration across all our Digital Accelerators, which were created to both support customers’ digital transformations and advance their essential missions.

Finally, the discussion included important takeaways for how to leverage modularity – the ability to take on pieces of Zero Trust integration or capability building. GDIT has seen this work very well when working collaboratively with clients as they progress on their Zero Trust journeys and integrate Zero Trust approaches in the enterprise and at the edge alike.

As John summed it up, “It’s never just about Zero Trust; it’s about the mission and what it requires … It’s a long journey, but the most important thing is to start.”