The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) aims to consolidate all Identity, Credential, and Access Management (ICAM) solutions across unclassified networks for all military services into a unified hub by the end of fiscal year (FY) 2025 which ends on Sept. 30.
“We expect by the end of this fiscal year to have completed the federation activities with all of the military departments,” Brian G. Hermann, Ph.D., director and program executive officer for the Defense Information Systems Agency’s (DISA) Program Executive Office Cyber, told reporters today.
DISA established the federation hub at the end of FY 2024 to integrate existing ICAM solutions to unify and streamline access management across the Department of Defense (DoD). DISA began collaborating with the U.S. Army to federate its ICAM solutions, and Hermann expects the Army’s ICAM federation to be completed by the end of March.
“Then, roughly three months later, we’ll be done with the Navy, followed by the Air Force by the end of the fiscal year,” Hermann said, after which DISA will apply lessons learned from each service to “implement federation across all other ICAM solutions within the department.”
Federated ICAM allows one organization to adopt another’s identity management processes and protocols, enabling users to access each other’s data on a shared platform. According to Hermann, a federation hub provides the Department of Defense (DoD) with a “total picture” of all the information an individual can access.
“[The] federation hub allows [users] to have the appropriate level of access into those separate systems, and that way users don’t have to go to … different ICAM solutions to get access to all the things that they need,” Hermann said. “It gives us the total picture. It ensures that we have de conflicted segregation of duty functions all the way across the department, and it is also the basis for how we connect with our allies and coalition partners.”
Once the services have established federated ICAM connections, the next step is for DISA to collaborate with the Defense Manpower Data Center to enable its federated ICAM, followed by other components of the DoD, though Hermann did not provide further details on these.
DISA also plans to expand federated ICAM to include allies and partners, enhancing interoperability and secure data sharing across a wider network. However, before extending federated ICAM access to other nations, Hermann noted that the federation process must be expedited.
Currently, the federation process takes months, Hermann aims to reduce this timeline to just days. To achieve this, Hermann highlighted the importance of refining the processes and tools used during federation, leveraging automation and streamlining workflows.
“I think speed has to get down to days, not months, is my observation, if we’re going to be a supportive part of providing that warfighter support.”
