NSA unveils zero trust implementation guidelines webpage

FORT MEADE, Md. — On May 28, 2026, the National Security Agency launched a Zero Trust Implementation Guides (ZIG) webpage designed to give agencies and contractors interactive, easy-to-use access to zero trust resources aimed at strengthening enterprise cybersecurity.

The site consolidates previously released guidance—including the Primer, Discovery, Phase One and Phase Two documents—and will add future phases. NSA said the effort aligns with its broader mission to identify and share threats and to develop specifications and mitigations for critical government and defense-related systems.

“Our Zero Trust Implementation Guidelines present a holistic approach to cybersecurity,” said the Critical Government Systems Chief of Operations at NSA. “The ZIGs framework enables enterprises, particularly those in the defense sector, to modularly organize and prioritize the guidance aligned with their specific security requirements, budget, and maturity level, driving towards a proactive and robust security culture.

NSA described the webpage as a way to translate technical documentation into customizable guidance for personnel across all levels of an organization. It offers interactive multimedia content—such as activities, checklists, reports and tasks—to help teams identify the activities and capabilities that best fit their needs and to speed zero trust adoption.

Zero trust, as outlined by NSA, is a flexible, modular security framework that augments traditional perimeter defenses by assuming no user, device or service is trustworthy by default, regardless of location. The approach encourages organizations to leverage existing infrastructure while tightening controls around identity, devices, networks, applications and data.

The agency said its guidance is meant to cover core security functions, including stronger authentication and continuous monitoring of user activity; real-time insight into device health and rapid patching; protection of digital infrastructure such as containers and virtual machines; improved data transparency and visibility; fine-grained network segmentation and access controls; automated responses driven by defined procedures and AI; and analytics that use AI and machine learning to inform real-time access decisions.

The ZIG webpage is available at https://www.nsa.gov/Cybersecurity/ZIG/.