Recently, GDIT conducted a survey of both civilian and defense agencies designed to examine their progress and approach to developing and implementing zero trust strategies. We wanted to understand the benefits these agencies saw from zero trust, the challenges they were facing along the way, and the impact zero trust (or a delay in implementing it) could have on their missions.

I sat down with GDIT’s vice president and distinguished technologist at our Cyber Center of Excellence, Dr. Matthew McFadden, to discuss the report and what it means for agencies and the companies that support them, like GDIT.

To my mind, zero trust, like chess, is something that’s easy to understand in theory, but hard to master in practice. So I asked Matt to tell us what zero trust is, what the survey found and how that can be instructive for agency partners.