DOD Chief Information Office to Review Internal Zero Trust Plans

John Sherman, the Department of Defense’s chief information officer and a 2023 Wash100 winner, said his organization will soon evaluate military and internal zero trust strategies to ensure compliance with 2027 targets.

He told attendees at the Billington Cybersecurity Summit on Thursday that the various DOD components and service branches are expected to submit plans by October.

The DOD released its zero trust strategy and roadmap in 2022, laying out priorities such as a cultural adoption of the concept and the acceleration of relevant technologies. Sherman wrote in the document’s introduction that all DOD components are required to integrate zero trust capabilities and processes into their systems and budgets.

Randy Resnick, director of the CIO’s zero trust portfolio management office, has been assigned to conduct the reviews, Breaking Defense reported Thursday.

Zero trust is a cybersecurity framework that assumes adversaries are already in organizational networks, requiring that users be continuously verified. In 2021, President Joe Biden issued an executive order mandating that federal agencies adopt zero trust.