The Indo Pacific is the pacing theater for cyber conflict, where deterrence by denial relies on identity, continuous verification, and provable enforcement across coalition networks. DoD priorities like the Pacific Deterrence Initiative emphasize resilient posture and hardened communications from Japan to Guam, while USINDOPACOM drives a secure, Zero Trust, data-centric mission network to share a common operating picture with allies at speed. These efforts recognize that trust is the new perimeter, and that regional security hinges on collective cyber resilience.
Adversaries are already probing the theater, targeting forward basing and logistics infrastructure with living-off-the-land tradecraft designed to preposition for crisis. In this contested space, Zero Trust extends far beyond policy and into a survival discipline. Concrete patterns like identity-governed access, continuous device health, least-privilege microsegmentation, and automated policy enforcement enable missions to operate at tempo despite constant intrusion attempts. We will also highlight the unique role of subsea cables that underpin command, control, and commercial lift, exposing chokepoints and landing sites as critical vulnerabilities.
This session goes beyond mandate scoring to focus on hard problems and actionable strategies including: discovering and monitoring defense critical infrastructure vulnerabilities, enforcing cryptographic agility and prepare for quantum threats, and hardening infrastructure against state-sponsored campaigns. These strategies underpinning zero-trust architecture help to preserve the warfighter advantage while addressing Indo-Pacific cyber imperatives: logistics, interoperability, and resilient connectivity across the first island chain and beyond.