Zero Trust Maturity Assessor

Purpose & When-To-Use

Trigger conditions:

• Zero-trust architecture maturity assessment
• CISA ZTMM compliance requirement
• Zero-trust migration planning
• Security architecture modernization initiative
• Third-party zero-trust readiness questionnaire

Not for:

• Zero-trust implementation (provides assessment only)
• Real-time access policy enforcement (use zero-trust products)
• Traditional perimeter security assessment (use security-network-validator)
• Application security (use security-appsec-validator)

Pre-Checks

Time normalization:

• Compute NOW_ET using NIST/time.gov semantics (America/New_York, ISO-8601): 2025-10-26T01:33:55-04:00
• Use NOW_ET for all citation access dates

Input validation:

• organization_identifier must be non-empty string
• ztmm_pillars must be subset of: [identity, device, network, application, data]
• target_maturity must be one of: [initial, advanced, optimal] or omitted

Source freshness:

• CISA Zero Trust Maturity Model (accessed 2025-10-26T01:33:55-04:00): https://www.cisa.gov/zero-trust-maturity-model
• NIST SP 800-207 Zero Trust Architecture (accessed 2025-10-26T01:33:55-04:00): https://csrc.nist.gov/publications/detail/sp/800-207/final

Procedure

Step 1: CISA ZTMM Pillar Assessment

Identity Pillar (CISA ZTMM 2.0, accessed 2025-10-26T01:33:55-04:00):

• Traditional: Basic directory service, passwords
• Initial: Centralized identity management, some MFA
• Advanced: Enterprise-wide SSO, MFA everywhere, risk-based auth
• Optimal: Continuous authentication, behavior analytics, FIDO2

Device Pillar:

• Traditional: Manual device tracking
• Initial: Device inventory exists, basic compliance
• Advanced: Automated compliance checking, device health attestation
• Optimal: Real-time device risk scoring, zero-touch provisioning

Network Pillar:

• Traditional: Perimeter-based security, VLANs
• Initial: Some micro-segmentation, encrypted traffic
• Advanced: Comprehensive micro-segmentation, application-layer routing
• Optimal: Dynamic micro-perimeters, software-defined perimeter (SDP)

Application Pillar:

• Traditional: Network-based access control
• Initial: Application-aware proxies, some authorization
• Advanced: Fine-grained authorization, API gateways
• Optimal: Continuous authorization, context-aware access

Data Pillar:

• Traditional: File-system permissions
• Initial: Data classification, basic encryption
• Advanced: Data-centric security, DLP, rights management
• Optimal: Data-level access control, automated data tagging

Step 2: Maturity Gaps and Roadmap

For each pillar:

1. Identify current maturity level
2. Calculate gap to target maturity (if specified)
3. Prioritize initiatives by impact and effort
4. Generate phased roadmap (90-day, 180-day, 1-year milestones)

Token budgets:

• T1: ≤2k tokens (current maturity assessment only)
• T2: ≤6k tokens (full maturity assessment with roadmap and initiatives)
• T3: Not applicable for this skill (use security-auditor agent for comprehensive assessments)

Decision Rules

Ambiguity thresholds:

• If pillar data incomplete → assess based on available information and flag gaps
• If technology stack unclear → request architecture documentation

Abort conditions:

• No organization identifier → cannot proceed
• Zero pillars selected → default to all 5 pillars

Maturity scoring:

• Assign lowest maturity level if any critical gap exists
• Partial compliance = lower maturity level (no partial credit)

Output Contract

Required fields:

{
  "organization_identifier": "string",
  "ztmm_pillars": ["identity", "device", "network", "application", "data"],
  "target_maturity": "initial|advanced|optimal or null",
  "timestamp": "ISO-8601 with timezone",
  "maturity_assessment": {
    "identity": {
      "current_level": "traditional|initial|advanced|optimal",
      "target_level": "initial|advanced|optimal or null",
      "gaps": ["list of capability gaps"],
      "initiatives": ["prioritized initiatives to progress"]
    },
    "device": { "..." },
    "network": { "..." },
    "application": { "..." },
    "data": { "..." }
  },
  "overall_maturity": "traditional|initial|advanced|optimal",
  "roadmap": {
    "90_day_milestones": ["list of quick wins"],
    "180_day_milestones": ["list of medium-term initiatives"],
    "1_year_milestones": ["list of strategic initiatives"]
  },
  "cisa_ztmm_alignment": {
    "version": "CISA ZTMM 2.0",
    "compliant_pillars": ["list"],
    "non_compliant_pillars": ["list"]
  }
}

Examples

Example: Identity Pillar Assessment

# Input
organization_identifier: "enterprise-corp"
ztmm_pillars: ["identity"]
target_maturity: "advanced"

# Output (abbreviated)
{
  "organization_identifier": "enterprise-corp",
  "maturity_assessment": {
    "identity": {
      "current_level": "initial",
      "target_level": "advanced",
      "gaps": [
        "MFA not enforced organization-wide",
        "No risk-based authentication"
      ],
      "initiatives": [
        "Deploy enterprise-wide SSO",
        "Enable MFA on all accounts",
        "Implement risk-based authentication"
      ]
    }
  },
  "overall_maturity": "initial",
  "roadmap": {
    "90_day_milestones": ["Enable MFA for privileged accounts"],
    "180_day_milestones": ["Deploy SSO across applications"]
  }
}

Quality Gates

Token budgets:

• T1 ≤2k tokens (current maturity assessment only)
• T2 ≤6k tokens (full maturity assessment with roadmap)

Safety:

• No organizational details in public examples
• No technology vendor lock-in in recommendations

Auditability:

• Assessments cite CISA ZTMM and NIST SP 800-207
• Maturity levels align with CISA definitions

Determinism:

• Same capabilities + inputs = consistent maturity level

Resources

Zero Trust Standards:

• CISA Zero Trust Maturity Model v2.0: https://www.cisa.gov/zero-trust-maturity-model (accessed 2025-10-26T01:33:55-04:00)
• NIST SP 800-207 (Zero Trust Architecture): https://csrc.nist.gov/publications/detail/sp/800-207/final (accessed 2025-10-26T01:33:55-04:00)

Zero Trust Implementation:

• Google BeyondCorp: https://cloud.google.com/beyondcorp (accessed 2025-10-26T01:33:55-04:00)
• Microsoft Zero Trust: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/business/zero-trust (accessed 2025-10-26T01:33:55-04:00)

Policy and Guidance:

• OMB M-22-09 (Federal Zero Trust Strategy): https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/briefing-room/2022/01/26/m-22-09-federal-zero-trust-strategy/ (accessed 2025-10-26T01:33:55-04:00)