The President’s Executive Order (EO) 14028 on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity, issued May 12, 2021, initiated a sweeping government-wide effort to help ensure baseline security practices are in place. To accomplish this, the EO mandates migration to a Zero Trust architecture and the realization of cloud-based infrastructure security benefits while mitigating associated risks.
As a result of the EO, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) authored a memorandum M-22-09 titled “Moving the U.S. Government Toward Zero Trust Cybersecurity Principles,” and the Department of Defense (DoD) issued their Zero Trust Strategy and Roadmap, which outlines “four high-level and integrated strategic goals that define what the Department will do to achieve its vision for ZT.”
We recently announced that Prisma Access has achieved DoD Impact Level 5 (IL5) Provisional Authorization (PA) and can now help the DoD adopt a robust Zero Trust architecture to protect the highest level of unclassified information with consistent, best-in-class security.
This IL5 PA for Prisma Access also provides least-privileged access to control unclassified information (CUI) – including information that is designated mission-critical – that requires a higher level of protection than National Security Systems (NSS) information and the protections afforded by Impact Level 4 (IL4).
Securing the Mission with ZTNA 2.0
The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) provides guidance to the DoD for planning and authorizing the use of cloud service offerings (CSO). DISA also evaluates all CSOs for compliance against the security requirements guide (SRG) where cloud service providers (CSPs) can submit documentation outlining and demonstrating their compliance with DoD standards.
The output of these submissions by CSOs is the issuance of DoD PAs. This allows DoD agencies to use these “authorized” cloud services without having to undergo the approval process on their own, saving significant time and effort.
With the IL5 PA, Prisma Access can help the DoD modernize its infrastructure and achieve consistent Zero Trust outcomes for users, devices, networks and applications. It offers a proven solution that contributes to meeting the DoD’s rigorous Zero Trust requirements and guidelines for adopting a Zero Trust architecture, powered by ZTNA 2.0.
Purpose-built for cloud-enabled DoD agencies, Prisma Access consolidates multiple point products into a single integrated service, reducing complexity while increasing organizational agility. With a common policy framework, consistent visibility, single-pane-of-glass management, and shared data for all users and apps, Prisma Access can now protect DoD systems without compromising performance, backed by industry-leading SLAs to ensure exceptional user experiences.
Prisma Access can help lower the cost and complexity of securely connecting DoD users to the services required to complete their missions anywhere. The cloud-native architecture of Prisma Access runs on AWS GovCloud to ensure on-demand and elastic scaling of comprehensive networking and security services across a high-performance network. Built specifically in AWS GovCloud, Prisma Access ensures on-demand and automatic scalability of networking and security services to meet even the most stringent mission demands.
Prisma Access with IL5 PA can offer DoD mission owners Zero Trust protection for all applications and data, along with complete security for multiple use cases. What’s more, departments already using Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls (NGFWs) can maximize their existing investments by using the same policies, while managing the service with their existing and familiar management platform.
Read the press release to learn more about IL5 PA for Prisma Access.