Chevy Chase, Maryland –
Defense Intelligence Agency Deputy Chief Information Officer Doug Cossa participated in a Federal News Network panel on how a secured, multicloud approach in government could benefit the Intelligence Community, Feb. 19.
During the panel, Cossa discussed DIA’s strategy to move to cloud services, noting that the Agency uses cloud services for more than a hundred critical applications.
“To support our transition to a multicloud, hybrid architecture, a high-level framework was developed to evaluate data, applications and compute workloads to provide clarity and consistency for decisions,” Cossa explained.
When asked how DIA plans to secure this architecture, Cossa said it starts with implementing controls at the people and process levels, such as separation of duties and change management.
“Security controls in cloud computing are, for the most part, no different than security controls in any IT environment,” he said. “Controls have to be implemented in one or more layers, ranging from the facilities to the network infrastructure, to the IT systems, all the way to the information and applications. We cannot loosen the data governance to a degree that we lose track of what data we have, where and who has access to it.”
Cossa concluded his remarks by identifying enhancements in the last few years that have enabled better data sharing, and recognizing that there is still work to do.
“All of these efforts must be accompanied with expansion of data-centric education and training,” said Cossa. “We must make our workforce more data savvy, ensuring that we are not surpassed by our adversaries and can provide our stakeholders with the most accurate intelligence possible.”
The full panel interview will broadcast on Federal News Radio 1500 AM, Mar. 5 at 12:00 p.m.