The Department of the Navy announced on Tuesday that its Flank Speed cloud service is the first to achieve full compliance with the Department of Defense’s (DoD) zero trust goal by meeting all 91 targeted zero trust capabilities, hitting a major milestone about three years ahead of deadline.
The DoD chief information officer (CIO) set an ambitious goal in 2022 to implement a zero trust architecture across the entire department by fiscal year (FY) 2027. The Navy’s announcement sets a new benchmark for zero trust security across the DoD – and perhaps more importantly, proves that the goal is within reach.
“This is a huge deal. Huge, and historic in the history of cybersecurity,” Randy Resnick, the director of DoD’s Zero Trust Portfolio Management Office (PfMO), said in an Oct. 22 LinkedIn post.
“The Navy did it. They did it first and deserve huge accolades. They tirelessly worked this hard and they caught the ZT fever earlier than most,” Resnick added. “Believe me, this is the first of many ZT success stories and announcements which you will see from the DoD CIO over the next 12-plus months.”
The Navy’s Flank Speed cloud service was designed and developed by the Program Executive Office for Digital and Enterprise Services (PEO Digital) in partnership with the U.S. Fleet Cyber Command (FCC), operated by the Navy Network Warfare Command (NNWC), and defended by the Navy Cyber Defense Operations Command (NCDOC).
According to the press release, Flank Speed – which is the Navy’s Impact Level 5 (IL5) unclassified Microsoft Azure and Microsoft 365 (M365) cloud implementation – “surpassed expectations” during its second round of security assessments sponsored by the DoD PfMO.
The combined cloud service achieved full compliance with all 91 of the “target” zero trust activities for the FY2027 deadline, while also meeting 60 of the 61 “advanced” zero trust activities.
“We set out to prove that modern service delivery – cutting edge commercial technology married with modern agile management – could offer a revolutionary increase in customer experience as well as operational resilience,” said Louis Koplin, acting program executive officer for PEO Digital. “This zero trust assessment validates not only that objective, but the promise of zero trust as an architecture that can improve convenience and security at the same time.”
The Department of the Navy launched Flank Speed in 2021, and it provides enhanced collaboration, productivity, and zero trust security to over 560,000 users worldwide.
Going forward, the Navy said it will focus on expanding Flank Speed’s zero trust outcomes to the Navy enterprise, bringing its Information Superiority Vision (ISV) 2.0 to reality. The department unveiled the ISV 2.0 in August, emphasizing a shift towards a data-centric organization with priorities on zero trust, cloud migration, and data analytics.
The Navy said it remains committed to collaborating with the DoD ZT PfMO and the broader DoD community to share “lessons learned and best practices to further enhance the DoD’s secure use of Microsoft tools and services.”
“The Department of the Navy has been a great partner with the DoD on the zero trust journey,” said Les Call, the acting cybersecurity chief of staff within the DoD CIO Office. “The efforts and accomplishments of their Flank Speed team is just one example of how working together, we can provide capabilities for all DoD components to leverage, which will put them on the fast train to target level ZT.”
