Across the entire federal government, there is renewed attention on efficiency and cost-savings while also quickly bringing to bear secure software solutions that meet the mission. Mission partners like GDIT are tasked with ensuring both objectives can be met simultaneously and with no tradeoffs for our customers.
That’s why we built a comprehensive framework for building secure software from the ground-up and doing it quickly. Inherent to this ability is Continuous Authorization to Operate (cATO), which provides customers security assurance for rapid software delivery. This means we can deliver dynamic solutions that can respond to ever-changing threats.
Today, we work with customers to not only adopt a cATO model and mindset, but to gauge the viability and scalability of cATO within their organizations. Here’s how:
The Pillars of a cATO Model
Continuous ATO sounds great conceptually, but the challenge for many agencies comes with operationalizing it enterprise-wide and throughout the entire software development lifecycle. As part of our framework, we have identified four areas of focus for teams looking to adopt a cATO approach. They are:
Automated Risk Assessment and Monitoring: To achieve this, we leverage our digital accelerators to enable things like real-time telemetry, software bill of materials (SBOM) validation, and automated security validation – all things that contribute to greater risk awareness and mitigation. These capabilities also support AI-driven compliance mapping and predictive risk detection, ensuring that software artifacts are continuously evaluated for compliance and vulnerabilities.
Evidence-Based Assurance: This is accomplished through automated digital proofs to ensure that all software development artifacts – from build to deployment – are verifiable. This transforms compliance from a manual process into a continuous and machine-readable process.
Human-in-the-Loop Transparency and Governance: AI-enabled tools can generate risk narratives and control evidence, but human authorization officials retain authority. We draw on explainable AI capabilities to support automated and auditable decision-making.
Layered Inheritance and Risk Scoring: We work with customers to create a chain of trust – i.e., secure infrastructure supporting secure applications – to simplify and speed up the authorization process.
Taken together, this type of approach provides agility and responsiveness because it allows for the rapid detection and remediation of emerging threats. It also reduces the manual workload, enabling cybersecurity professionals to focus on higher-order threat analysis and system resilience. Lastly, it truly enables teams to move toward a cATO future, where system security is continuously validated without the bottlenecks of periodic reassessments.
Start Now: Guidance for Agencies
Agencies looking to enhance or expand their cATO approaches can take clear and concrete steps today to accomplish that objective. Among them:
- Standardize security verification by using common, machine-readable formats for security information.
- Build secure ways for authorized cybersecurity professionals to quickly see and share up-to-date security information.
- Invest in upskilling cybersecurity and automation engineers to support DevSecOps and AI-powered security and compliance activities.
A cATO mindset—anchored by continuous risk assessment and real-time authorization—is the foundation for the future of secure mission software. Together with customers, GDIT has demonstrated how cATO can transition from aspiration to operational norm. As the DoW evolves its approach to software assurance, institutionalizing this mindset will be essential to delivering secure, resilient, and mission-ready capabilities at the speed of relevance.
