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NSA Issues Phase One and Two Zero Trust Implementation Guidelines

The guidance shifts focus to continuous, post-authentication evaluation.

Overview

  • Phase One defines 36 activities supporting 30 capabilities, and Phase Two adds 41 activities enabling 34 capabilities.
  • Developed with the Department of War CIO, the guidelines organize 152 activities and align with NIST SP 800-207, CISA’s Zero Trust Maturity Model v2.0, and the DoW reference architecture.
  • The modular design lets organizations tailor adoption and move from Discovery toward target-level zero trust maturity.
  • NSA urges teams to review the earlier Primer and Discovery guidance, and says the current materials are aimed at skilled practitioners with potential advanced phases to come.
  • Practitioners emphasize behavioral analytics and in-application visibility and caution that ZTNA-only deployments overlook application policy decision and enforcement points.