INDOPACOM Eyes Zero Trust Architecture That Works With Others

The U.S. Indo-Pacific Command needs to find a way to adopt a zero trust architecture that can work for the U.S. military and its allies and partner nations, a feat the combatant command’s deputy chief information officer said is fraught with challenges.

Speaking at the AFCEA TechNet Asia-Pacific conference in Hawaii, Paul Nicholson said INDOPACOM has around 57 domain-centric networks that it must protect, and some of its attempts to secure networks have failed. According to Nicholson, the combatant command’s Command, Control, Communications and Cyber directorate wants to build a zero trust stack from scratch because it would be more cost-effective and would not compromise ongoing missions.

Nicholson said zero trust adoption will be a collaborative effort where INDOPACOM will work with other officials from the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community, Federal News Network reported Thursday.

The combatant command’s recent push for zero trust adoption follows the efforts of other agencies across the defense sector that want to improve their cybersecurity capabilities.

The U.S. Coast Guard recently said it wants to get the most out of zero trust by investing in data management. According to officials within the Coast Guard, effective data management allows the service to make better decisions and solve relevant zero trust adoption issues.