The Joint Staff J-6 hosted the third Security Interoperability in the Tactical Environment (SITE) Summit in Suffolk, Virginia, convening Zero Trust experts from across the U.S. military, allies and partners to further efforts in accelerating data-centric interoperability in various tactical situations. In attendance were coalition partner representatives from the UK, Canada, Australia, Germany, France, Japan, and the Republic of Korea.
SITE Summit participants highlighted current U.S. and mission partner data-centric network efforts and exchanged progress, lessons learned, and best practices. This SITE Summit built upon the success of SITE Summits 1.0 and 2.0, both held in 2022, where participants collectively identified the Zero Trust minimum requirements to enable secure data exchange at tactically relevant speeds. Zero Trust, a network security framework, requires all users to be authenticated, authorized, and continuously validated while accessing and using network resources. The initiative aims to better protect systems in response to vulnerabilities exposed by high-level breaches.
SITE Summits allow the U.S. and mission partners to share Zero Trust tactical environment implementation challenges and successes, and enhance delivery of secure and efficient Combined Joint All Domain Command and Control capabilities critical to maintaining decision advantage. Through cooperation and partnerships like the SITE Summit, the Department of Defense continues to build trust and improve interoperability with allies and partners, and advance innovative and resilient C4/cyber capabilities.