Overview

As cyber threats evolve and advance, traditional cybersecurity methods can no longer protect critical infrastructure and government agencies from sophisticated attacks, including those by state actors and insider threats.

The Zero Trust security model treats all network traffic as untrusted until verified, requiring continuous authentication of users, devices and resources before granting access to sensitive data. Rooted in the principle of least privilege, Zero Trust only grants necessary access while monitoring activities in real-time to detect threats. 

In 2021, the US government mandated the adoption of Zero Trust architecture for US federal agencies and contractors. The National Institute of Standards and Technology provided guidelines, and the Department of Defense released a strategy based on years of Zero Trust development.

This session will run through the principles and history of Zero Trust, the common standards and guidance and some of the challenges of implementing it.

Learning outcomes

In this presentation, you will learn:

• what Zero Trust is and why it’s important
• the history of Zero Trust and the global direction into the future
• challenges in implementing Zero Trust
• commonly used standards and guidance for Zero Trust.

About the speaker

Ella Kell

Asia Pacific and Japan Lead, Project Fort Zero

Biography

Ella Kell is the Asia Pacific and Japan Lead for Project Fort Zero – Dell Technologies’ Validated Zero Trust Sovereign Private Cloud. Previously Dell’s Chief Technology Officer for Defence and National Security for ANZ, Ella has held a range of engineering, enterprise software delivery, and business development positions across Research, Defence Industry, and National Security in Australia and Europe. 

Ella is driven by her belief that technology saves lives, particularly in the Defence and National Security sectors. Her career has predominantly involved working with customers and partners on secure data integration and analytics, AI and ML implementation, edge computing through to the cloud, and cyber security. 

Ella holds a Bachelor of Engineering (Hons) (1st class), specialising in mechatronics and systems engineering, and a Bachelor of Commerce from the Australian National University. She is passionate about encouraging participation in STEM from school students to young professionals, with an emphasis on Australia’s Defence and National Security domain. Ella is an active board member of the Australian Defence Information and Electronic Systems Association.