Continuous Trust In A Disconnected World
Leidos, March 23,2026
In most conversations about zero trust, there's an assumption hiding in plain sight: the network is always there.
Three Points to Remember
- Continuous authentication must function in air-gapped and denied, disrupted, intermittent and limited bandwidth (DDIL) environments.
- Zero trust architecture requires resilient, distributed identity enforcement.
- Centralized ICAM governance cannot depend on persistent cloud connectivity.
Continuous authentication. Real-time risk scoring. Cloud-based policy engines evaluating every access request. It is a powerful cybersecurity strategy, and it works in highly connected enterprise environments. But what happens when connectivity is degraded, intermittent, limited or gone altogether? What does 'continuous trust' look like in an air-gapped enclave (a physically separated system that is deliberately disconnected from the internet and other external networks), an on-premises data center, or a denied, disrupted, intermittent and limited bandwidth (DDIL) tactical environment?