DIU Awards Google Cloud Deal for Organization-wide SCM Services

Google Cloud announced that it has been selected by the Defense Intelligence Unit to provide secure cloud management services throughout the organization. The DIU also ran pilots with Zscaler and McAfee Public Sector for multi-cloud management services before ultimately choosing Google Cloud’s offering, FedScoop reported Thursday.

In a statement, Google Cloud said its solution, which was developed in partnership with Palo Alto Networks, embraces zero trust principles and the idea that implicit trust in any single component of a complex, interconnected system can create significant security risks. The company further said that its product also aligns with the White House’s May 2021 Executive Order and the recent memorandum by the Office of Management and Budget calling on the federal government to improve national cybersecurity.

Lynn Martin, vice president of Google Cloud’s North America public sector business, said it is critical that government agencies see the benefits of adopting a zero-trust security strategy and have the option of selecting more modern, cloud-native solutions that meet their unique needs.

The new contract marks the reentry of Google Cloud into the Department of Defense’s cloud transition efforts after standing down from several major defense technology projects in recent years. The company had backed out on ethical grounds from the Pentagon’s Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure cloud contract, which ended up being canceled. Google also turned its back on a major artificial intelligence contract, Project Maven, after employees protested the project, FedScoop also reported.

Google Cloud’s SCM solution was evaluated by a third-party assessment organization based on criteria outlined by the Defense Information Systems Agency. During the assessment, 77 security controls were evaluated, including test cases relative to network, user, end device, data and secure cloud management controls, the technology company said.