Angeline Leishman
Booz Allen Hamilton has secured a $6.8 million contract from the Defense Information Systems Agency to prototype a zero trust security and network architecture for six months.
DISA said Tuesday the test is meant to inform how the Thunderdome Prototype can be scaled to protect the entire Department of Defense and transition defense users from the legacy Joint Regional Security Stacks.
Throughout the prototyping phase, Booz Allen will develop and operate an architecture that is envisioned to authenticate a user before providing network access with secure access service edge, software-defined wide area networks and other commercial security technologies.
“Rooted in identity and enhanced security controls, Thunderdome fundamentally changes our classic network-centric defense-in-depth security model to one centered on the protection of data and will ultimately provide the department with a more secure operating environment through the adoption of zero trust principles,” said Chris Barnhurst, deputy director of DISA.
According to the agency, completing the deployment of Thunderdome would help the Pentagon achieve its goals of strengthening device protection and integrating both network and security technologies in a cloud environment.
