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Booz Allen Hamilton Wins Thunderdome Prototype Contract

DISA expects a working prototype in six months.

Under a newly awarded contract from the Defense Information Systems Agency, Booz Allen Hamilton will develop a prototypical zero-trust solution as part of the Thunderdome program. Credit: Olivier Le Moal/Shutterstock

The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) has announced the award of a $6.8 million contract to Booz Allen Hamilton for a Thunderdome prototype, a zero-trust security model.

During this six-month effort, the agency will operationally test how to implement DISA’s Zero Trust Reference Architecture, published in March 2020 for the Defense Department, by taking advantage of commercial technologies such as secure access service edge (SASE) and software-defined wide area networks (SD-WANs). Thunderdome will also incorporate greater cybersecurity centered around data protection and integrate with existing endpoint and identity initiatives aligned to zero trust, according to the press release.

“Over the course of the next six months, we plan to produce a working prototype that is scalable across the department,” Jason Martin, director of DISA’s Digital Capabilities and Security Center, says in the announcement. “During that time, we will do what DISA does best—build, test, validate and implement the premier cybersecurity solutions for the Department of Defense and warfighter around the world.”

Thunderdome is expected to “greatly help to defend and guard our systems against sophisticated adversaries,” the release adds, and “will modernize DISA’s cybersecurity infrastructure to significantly improve our security posture as well as improve user access to cloud hosted applications by enabling dynamic, adaptable security from the user to the data and application edge.”