Thunderdome Zero Trust Network Program Gains Momentum, Draws Commands’ Interest

The U.S. Southern Command, the European Command and the Africa Command are reportedly interested in replacing their legacy Joint Regional Security Stacks with the zero trust security and network architecture that Booz Allen Hamilton provided to the Defense Information Systems Agency’s Thunderdome program.

According to Federal News Network, Thunderdome will help the commands replace their legacy JRSS, which was red-flagged earlier for cyber vulnerabilities. The Department of Defense is aiming to retire the JRSS, as well as achieve its zero trust target level, in 2027.

Preparations are underway for DISA to roll out Thunderdome to 60 sites in 2024, with the program’s contracting process for the Coast Guard also completed, Federal News Network reported Friday.

DISA is eyeing 14 more sites for Thunderdome inclusion in 2025, with focus on organizations already covered under the DODNET program initiated in 2023, according to Brian Hermann, the agency’s cybersecurity and analytics director.

Thunderdome features four key components, including customer-wide security stacks combined with software-defined wide-area networking. It replaces traditional virtual private networks with a secure access service edge capability and deploys application security stacks to protect and segment functions