Securing the Tactical Edge With ZTNA

What Is the Tactical Edge?

The National Institute of Standards and Technology defines the tactical edge as “platforms, sites, and personnel (U.S. military, allied, coalition partners, first responders) operating at lethal risk in a battle space or crisis environment.”

In the technical sense, the tactical edge refers to the IT infrastructure, devices and security mechanisms that allow soldiers to operate more efficiently with real-time intelligence and analysis in combat or other operational settings. The ongoing uptime and resilience of these systems at the network’s edge can materially and meaningfully impact mission performance and outcomes.       

Cyber Risks at the Tactical Edge

Denial-of-service attacks are one of the most serious threats at the edge because of their immediate operational consequences.

“When you have any kind of denial of service, it has real-world implications on whatever critical function you’ve got to do at that specific time,” Chamberlain says.

Other risks include both external and internal vulnerabilities, from adversaries exploiting supply chain weaknesses to compliance challenges that strain teams with limited cyber expertise.

Unique Challenges of Securing the Tactical Edge

In global, high-stakes missions, even milliseconds matter — particularly when adversaries can disrupt communications or operate at hypersonic speeds.

Traditional cloud architectures consolidated data into centralized environments, but in a fight on the other side of the planet, physics itself becomes a limitation, says Christopher Yates, chief architect at Red Hat.

Systems at the tactical edge must be built for degraded, intermittent and low-bandwidth conditions, where adversaries put out broad-spectrum, electromagnetic interference so data can’t be transmitted, Yates says.

Engineers are designing systems that assume connectivity will fail, and that can cache and secure critical data locally to adapt.

“This way, operators can still have a picture of the battlespace, even if it’s a minute old,” Yates says.

Securing the Edge with Zero-Trust Networking Architecture

Zero-trust networking architecture (ZTNA) is built on the principle that no device, user or application should ever be automatically trusted.

“One of the primary concerns about zero trust is identity,” Yates says. “I should know who this device is talking to and ensure it’s only allowed to talk on these channels to these other devices.”

Zero trust reduces the chance of data interception or impersonation by enforcing strict verification and communication limits, but securing the tactical edge also demands automation at scale.

“We can’t afford to have one person sitting down with one laptop installing software for 20 minutes,” Yates says.

Instead, systems must be deployed, patched and remediated autonomously, with short-lived infrastructure that can be quickly rebuilt or replaced if compromised.

This combination of identity control and automation enables resilient, self-healing defense networks at the edge, Yates says.

DISCOVER: Agencies can get more out of Microsoft Teams.

Best Practices for Edge Computing Security

The key to improving edge computing security is moving from broad perimeters to precision protection, Yates says.

That shift means focusing on the specific systems, applications and data that matter most. Each must be tightly controlled so devices know who and what they’re supposed to talk to, and talk to only those things.

Agencies should use automation to rapidly apply and scale zero-trust principles across heterogeneous systems, ensuring resilience even when adversaries breach traditional perimeters, Yates says.

Click the banner below for the latest federal IT and cybersecurity insights.

Use Case: Cyber Defense Command’s Mission Partner Environments

Mission Partner Environments are designed to give U.S. and allied forces a secure, real-time framework for collaboration, enabling trusted partners to share sensitive and classified information seamlessly across operational domains. By enabling data to move securely across commands and nations, MPEs directly support faster, more informed decision-making in complex, multidomain missions.

“All of the data within each country is tagged, so we can say, ‘This information can only be shared with these folks,’” Chamberlain says. “That data tagging gives us fine-grained control over collaboration and security across partners.”

UP NEXT: Lower your agency’s recovery time objective.

MPEs shift the focus from securing networks to securing the data itself. This approach allows legacy systems and non-data-aware applications to remain operational during modernization efforts, giving warfighters greater mobility without compromising security.

“The architecture is built with zero-trust principles in mind — things like microsegmentation, data tagging and identity management — so we can protect information based on context, not just physical location,” Chamberlain says.

A key advantage of MPEs lies in their federated identity and access model. Using interoperable identity, credentialing and access management systems, each partner nation retains control over its users and data while maintaining trust with others through shared authentication standards.

This decentralized but connected structure ensures that mission-critical information stays protected, available and actionable — wherever the fight occurs.

“We’re not relying just on static network infrastructure,” Chamberlain says. “We’re creating mesh networks at the edge, which makes the environment far more resilient.”