Fiscal Year	2023
Division	Research & Sponsored Programs
Department	Naval Research Program
Investigator(s)	Shaffer, Alan B. Singh, Gurminder
Sponsor	NPS Naval Research Program (Navy)
Summary	Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA) is a security strategy that discourages organizations from granting implicit trust to a user, application, or device based solely on a familiar property, such as their network location. Rather, it requires establishing trust on a per-request basis. ZTA was developed to ensure that a subject user, device, or application is authentic before authorizing access to some object resource, and that every resource request is valid. A subject user should not be implicitly trusted because they are able to perform initial login procedures and even after successful login, users should be required to reauthenticate throughout their session before accessing additional resources on the system. ZTA is designed to harden cybersecurity and build upon the system's resilience, helping to protect against cyber threats. This research will examine the support required of ZTA in tactical edge systems, using the Navy Shipboard Consolidated Afloat Network Enterprise System (CANES) network as our focus for this study. In the project we will examine what a ZTA implies and how it can be beneficial onboard an afloat platform, as well as the operational benefits and issues associated with such an implementation. The primary research questions will include: What does successful implementation of ZTA mean or what does it look like on afloat networks, and what are the additional expenses required for successful implementation? What unforeseen issues may arise from implementation of ZTA and if so, what are the proposed solutions for any identified issues? How can continuous authentication support ZTA for afloat shipboard networks?
Keywords	zero trust architecture, tactical edge, continuous authentication
Publications	Publications, theses (not shown) and data repositories will be added to the portal record when information is available in FAIRS and brought back to the portal
Data	Publications, theses (not shown) and data repositories will be added to the portal record when information is available in FAIRS and brought back to the portal