Jeffrey Adorno of Zscaler and Ryan Heidorn of C3 Integrated Solutions said zero trust could help accelerate the compliance of government contractors with the Department of Defense’s Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification program “because it offers a way to mitigate technical bloat and debt, such as on-premises legacy technologies.”
“Zero trust empowers CMMC programs with a modern cybersecurity framework that increases threat intelligence and enables adaptive just in time/just enough access,” Adorno and Heidorn wrote in an article published on Carahsoft.com.
“In contrast, CMMC approaches cybersecurity in a programmatic way so that when defense contractors leverage a zero trust architecture, they can easily achieve and maintain a higher level of maturity under CMMC,” they added.
According to Heidorn and Adorno, approaches to CMMC compliance should begin with a gap assessment to assess the ability of a contractor to meet security controls and develop a remediation plan.
“However, if a company can redefine its network boundary using zero trust capabilities that provide context-based access, it can create a shorter path to compliance,” they noted.
The two executives discussed how partnerships like those of Zscaler and C3 could provide a streamlined approach to CMMC compliance and support small businesses as they work to meet their security goals.
Adorno and Heidorn cited that such a partnership offers consolidation of security tools and mentioned how that strategy could help advance CMMC compliance.
“In addition, Zscaler enables C3 customers to leverage Zscaler’s API integrations to adopt modern technologies such as intrusion detection and prevention systems and endpoint detection and response to support a work-from-anywhere model, which is a requirement for most companies in the post-COVID world,” they wrote.
Adorno is senior manager of strategic initiatives at Zscaler and Heidorn is chief technology officer at C3 Integrated Solutions.
