For government leaders, the time to implement zero trust is now: The White House “Executive Order on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity” has directed federal agencies to advance toward a zero trust architecture which “eliminates implicit trust in any one element, node or service and instead requires continuous verification.”

Expanding upon the executive order, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) memo, “Moving the U.S. Government Toward Zero Trust Cybersecurity Principles,” states agencies must meet specific zero trust goals based upon the five pillars of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Zero Trust Maturity Model: identity, devices, networks, applications/workloads and data.