Imran Umar
Vice President & Zero Trust Initiatives Lead, Booz Allen Hamilton
As agencies initially struggled to operationalize zero trust, Imran Umar led the development of the Booz Allen zero trust accelerator program, providing federal agencies a method to rapidly assess their current zero trust maturity against CISA and DOD CIO zero trust guidance, identify their biggest security gaps, and develop and implement zero trust roadmaps and blueprints. The effort achieved success by combining deep client mission insights, operational experience with cutting-edge zero trust technology vendors, and a proven architecture approach developed based on threat vectors.
“Booz Allen is leading implementation of zero trust cybersecurity capabilities across DOD’s infrastructure,” said Kelly Rozumalski, a senior vice president leading Booz Allen’s National Cyber defense business. “Booz Allen is proud to serve as a trusted partner in protecting the nation’s most critical assets. Imran brings extensive cybersecurity and infrastructure experience to our business, leading and driving zero trust delivery at scale.”
Why Watch
Zero trust is rapidly becoming one of the most widely adopted security models within the federal government. With emphasis on maintaining strict access controls and not trusting anyone by default, zero trust is helping agencies protect their most critical data. Umar has been instrumental in delivering proven enterprise zero trust capabilities to clients and helping them accelerate their adoption of these capabilities to protect against rapidly evolving threats.
“Adopting zero trust helps federal agencies protect critical data in real time from dynamic threats,” Umar said. “It provides greater security and visibility across the enterprise. In case of a breach, this approach reduces the attack surface and blast radius involved, while also enabling more resilient operations. Zero trust also helps reduce network complexity and cost by reducing the number of security devices that serve the same function under a defense in depth model. In addition, zero trust is increasingly important when it comes to protecting operational technology. I’m proud to play a leading role in providing technical solutions that enable our clients in the Department of Defense, federal civilian agencies and the intelligence community to move toward a resilient zero trust architecture.”
Fun fact: Umar enjoys hiking and spending time outdoors. He’s also interested in martial arts and enjoys following UFC.