Google Cloud announced today that the US Department of Defense’s (DoD) Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) has selected Google Cloud’s Secure Cloud Management (SCM) solution to implement organization-wide, setting the stage for potential broader adoption across defense agencies worldwide. The production contract award comes after DIU deployed three separate, year-long prototypes by Google and two other commercial vendors—with the goal of providing DIU with fast, secure, and controlled access to software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications directly over the internet.
Google Cloud’s solution, which was developed in partnership with Palo Alto Networks, embraces zero trust principles and the idea that implicit trust in any single component of a complex, interconnect system can create significant security risks. Google Cloud’s SCM offering also aligns with the White House’s May 2021 Executive Order and the recent memorandum by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget calling on the federal government to improve national cybersecurity. This SCM solution is available for acquisition by other DoD agencies, through Other Transaction Authority (OTA) agreements, as they adopt their respective zero trust plans.
The SCM solution is a container-based offering for secure application access and monitoring built on Google Cloud’s Secure Application Access Anywhere offering. This open, standards-based solution will serve as a scalable, highly responsive alternative to DoD’s current network boundary points. SCM leverages Google Cloud’s Anthos to enable management of hybrid cloud and multi-cloud applications via Kubernetes.
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Palo Alto Networks VM Series and CN Series bring ML-Powered Next Generation Firewall capabilities directly inline to safeguard microservices-based applications—wherever they are deployed—and Prisma® Access provides endpoint inspection, authentication and remote access for applications protected by the Google Cloud SCM solution, helping secure access to DIU resources from anywhere.
“In today’s new cybersecurity paradigm, it’s critical that government agencies see the benefits of adopting a zero trust security strategy and have the option of selecting more modern, cloud native solutions that meet their unique needs,” said Lynn Martin, vice president, North America Public Sector, Google Cloud. “We are honored to partner with DIU as the organization undergoes the next phase in its zero trust journey, as we believe other DoD agencies can benefit and learn from this security approach.”
The Google Cloud SCM solution was evaluated by a third-party assessment organization based on criteria outlined by the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA). During the assessment, 77 security controls were evaluated, including test cases relative to network, user, end device, data, and secure cloud management controls.
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