A Zero Trust Reference Architecture For State Government Cloud Systems

Abstract

State governments face distinctive cybersecurity challenges arising from decentralized operational environments and fragmented governance structures. Traditional perimeter-based security models provide inadequate protection against contemporary threat landscapes affecting public sector organizations. Zero Trust Architecture represents a transformative security paradigm requiring verification for every access request regardless of network origin. Existing Zero Trust frameworks predominantly address federal government or private sector implementations, leaving State-level deployments without tailored architectural guidance that accounts for inter-agency trust boundaries and shared service delivery models. This article proposes a Zero Trust Reference Architecture establishing six foundational components for State government cloud systems. Identity and access management enables federated authentication across organizational boundaries. Policy decision and enforcement architecture ensures consistent rule application across heterogeneous environments. Device and workload trust evaluation validates endpoint compliance before permitting resource access. Data-centric security controls protect sensitive information throughout operational lifecycles. Analytics integration enables anomaly detection across distributed government networks. A maturity-based adoption model supports incremental implementation aligned with budgetary constraints. The foundational stage addresses identity consolidation and multi-factor authentication deployment. Intermediate capabilities introduce automated policy enforcement and network microsegmentation. Advanced stages implement continuous risk scoring and cross-agency trust orchestration. The proposed architecture accommodates State-specific governance realities while establishing interoperable security controls.