<p>For many years defense, intelligence and other government agencies have deployed secure networks that are invisible and inaccessible to outsiders. As a result, agencies are no strangers to "need-to-know" networks in which the posture and identity of devices are verified before access to the application is granted.</p><p>However, these invisible networks are often built on proprietary architectures that do not communicate with other networks, making them too expensive for many agencies to deploy.</p><p>An initiative by the Cloud Security Alliance in December 2013 aims to make these "invisible networks" accessible to a wider range of government agencies and corporations. The Software Defined Perimeter (SDP) initiative will foster development of an architecture for securing the Internet of Things by using the cloud to create highly secure end-to-end networks between any IP-addressable entities, according to officials with CSA, a nonprofit organization that promotes security best practices in cloud computing.</p><p>The framework's goal is to mitigate attacks on Internet-accessible applications by eliminating connectivity to them until devices and users are authenticated. The plan incorporates security concepts and standards from both the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the Defense Department.</p><p><a href="http://gcn.com/articles/2014/01/13/software-defined-perimeter.aspx">Keep reading...</a></p>