ManTech Chief Information Security Officer and Vice President of Information Security James Webster said his most significant accomplishment last year was successfully transitioning over 4,000 employees to securely work from home.
Thanks to previous pandemic drills, a ready fleet of laptops and the ability to work over Virtual Private Network and leverage RSA SecurID tokens, ManTech’s work-from-home employees were able to continue in their jobs without losing access to any information services, he said.
“My team made a number of changes throughout the year — deploying cloud-based DNS protection and then pivoting to use cloud-based secure web gateways to improve user experience — all while keeping security and compliance as top priorities,” Webster added.
Applying zero trust in every iteration has been huge in advancing ManTech security.
“Because zero trust is a process and not a product, we are able to have conversations around identity, workloads and access with our business users that are allowing us to fundamentally change how we deliver services to the end user,” Webster said.
Increasing the understanding and details contained in an identity allows Webster and his team to make tailored access control decisions in real time instead of managing static access group lists that rapidly grow out of date.
“By tying these attributes to identities and workloads, we can better protect information while ensuring that users are able to access resources required to meet mission requirements,” Webster said.
Why Watch
In 2021, Webster will focus on continuing the zero trust journey, developing a security model that must support an increasingly mobile workforce even as employees return to the office, and Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification compliance.
“In sum, the absolute highest levels of security,” Webster said.