Zero Trust Odyssey: Navigating Your Strategic Next Steps with CISA's Maturity Model
In 2021, an Executive Order by President Biden mandated that all federal agencies move toward adopting Zero Trust (ZT). Many higher education institutions have since been trying to figure out how to likewise begin this strategic ZT shift in workflows, technology, culture, and vision. The main problem is that ZT is more than one initiative?it’s a collection of concepts and ideas designed to minimize uncertainty in identity assurance during access decisions by viewing the network as compromised. The goal is to ultimately prevent unauthorized access to data and services. However, this involves a complex relationship between users, systems, data, and assets?a relationship that of course changes over time. But in higher education it can be even more complicated. So ZT is the driving force asking for the visibility required to scrutinize access decisions in order to ensure adequate enforcement of your security policies, and that involves a strategic vision encompassing far more than one project or one team (or one year). As many institutions are learning, ZT is a whole journey. Join us in this presentation as we showcase how the CISA’s Zero Trust Maturity Model v2 (ZTMM) can be used to figure out your institution’s Zero Trust strategy. Oregon State University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison have both started their own ZT Odysseys using the ZTMM, and we’ll explain how this free, consumable framework worked for them, and would work for you too!
Presenters
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Marjorie McLagan
Deputy Chief Information Security Officer,
Oregon State University
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Jacqueline Pitter
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Todd Shechter
CTO,
University of Wisconsin-Madison