Creating a Unified Zero Trust Mesh to Greatly Enhance Interconnectivity and Safeguard National Security

The DoD requires an enhanced, innovative cybersecurity framework built upon ZT principles.  While the DAF must act fast in response, it needs to ensure mission ecosystems are interconnected regardless of the disparate zero trust solutions being adopted. The GetChkd blockchain platform has three core components consisting of an interoperability layer, a metadata & security layer, and immutable audit trails. The interoperability layer uses a REST API to connect to any legacy, current, or future system.  In addition, an infinite number of GetChkd environments can be created & connected via the same REST API.  Once third-party systems are identified & connections are made via the REST API, the metadata & security layer is customized.The metadata & security layer combines the API layer with smart contracts to create a gatekeeping mechanism of rule & user role-based access.  A “user” can be a person, device, enterprise, govt, etc.  Micro perimeters are created around every user & connection w/continuous verification, authentication, authorization, & access.  The final component is immutable audit trails of every action and transaction.  This feature is inherent to the Hyperledger Fabric blockchain that is incorporated. The platform makes it possible to dynamically or manually enable/disable specific features w/in applications or connections w/out disrupting the functionality of other components, thereby offering a granular control mechanism. GetChkd's cutting-edge blockchain platform seamlessly links all types of sources & tightly controls exchanges of information between them without revealing sensitive data that can compromise security.  This solution solves the problem of interconnectivity & secure information sharing between diverse systems & devices, across domains and classifications.   Integration work between the different “users” in the ecosystem via the REST API needs to be established.  The metadata & security layer’s smart contracts that create the gatekeeping mechanism of the tagging, as well as the rule & user role-based access, must be defined.  This is dependent on understanding the customer & user rule sets and constraints regarding how the data or code should be tagged.   With the smart contracts enforcing access control policies, & the blockchain ledger providing an auditable record of data access & modifications, data can be tagged w/ information about the entities that are allowed to access it.  This provides an effective, automated avenue for distributing data across classifications and releasing data to allies. These rule sets must be custom built to follow the use case & is what would primarily be adapted during this Phase II. An interface for the customer and/or user will need to be generated in order to visualize permitted data combinations & audit trails of data accumulated w/in the blockchain & an interface to alert, view, update or change rule sets as needed.